One Day trek to Visapur fort near Pune

Visapur fort - Malavli

Bored with daily routine, me and my friends wanted to take some time out and have some fun. As it was onset of monsoon, we decided to go for trekking. I had read and heard about Visapur from a lot of people, so we finalized on it.
    Being 3 of us, we started from Pune on our bikes on Saturday. The distance from my place was 80km and we were going to meet one of our friend half the way. As most of the biking route is highway, it is quite easily accessible.
The route is through old Pune-Mumbai highway and destination is near Malavli station.

Travel options and How to Reach from Pune:

By Road : Pune-Mumbai old highway to Malavli (60km from Pune)

By Train : Local from Pune and drop point Malavli station(one station early to Lonavala)

Visapur trek distance from Malavli station is approximately 5km.

     Road till Malavli was awesome and monsoon makes it even more enjoyable. As soon as you cross Malavli railway station, the road passes over the expressway. Its a straight road without any turn towards Visapur fort.

There are few stop points that one would want to take:
1. Small waterfalls on way
2. Bhaja Caves

    There is a proper road to the fort and another signifance of this place, Lohagad fort is also on the same route.Its next to Visapur at a walking distance.

Visapur fort difficulty level - Medium

History of Visapur fort

     It was built during 1713-1720 by Balaji Vishwanath, first Peshwa of Maratha Empire.It was later used by Britishers to capture Lohagad fort from Marathas, which was of much more significance, by setting up cannons on Visapur.

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     The trek to Visapur Killa starts with a very decent route wherein you can enjoy the scenic beauty of area.

There are 2 routes to the fort, one is where almost most trekkers go and the other is a bit tougher and suggested to people who are regular trekkers.
We went through the traditional one because even that looked heavy to my friends.There is a checkpoint, wherein trekkers are asked to provide id proofs and provide the number of trekkers in group.

     As we crossed the checkpoint, the trek started through forest and that filled us with excitement.

Visapur Hanuman temple

It's easy to navigate as there are directions given on the way.After 15min into trek what came ahead thrilled me, the route is quite steep and through huge stones. You can see a Hanuman temple, water storage structures on the path.

    The path surely checks your stamina but the pure beauty of nature pumps in fresh energy.After 1 hours trek, we finally reached the fort.The view from top was just superb and with clouds hovering over it made it even more better.

Panaromic view from top of Visapur fort

Most of the fort walls are intact, unlike the inner structure except for one structure. You can walk around the fort area and walls for a panaromic view of the fort and surrounding.

    Also as I mentioned earlier, Visapur was used by Britishers to capture Lohagad, you would understand as you walk towards nose of the mountain.One can view Lohagad quite easily and as said the canons used for bombarding also are present.

    You can actually feel the clouds up there and they had covered up almost all area of fort which is when we decided to make the descent walk before it got too dark and starts raining heavy.

     We met few of trekkers who had made it from other route, and it seemed to be tough and longer one as he surely seemed to have slipped many times there.So we were happy to have chosen a safer route.

Things to carry:

Water bottle, atleast 1 liter would be great for each person.
Jacket/raincoat jacket during monsoon trek.
Sports/trek shoes.
Eatables like dry fruits or apples.

Expenses

Petrol : 200 by bike
Snacks : near checkpoint 80Rs.
Lunch : Stopped at dhaba while returning, 300-400(3 people)

Visapur is one of the best trek I have been to so far and is a must go for all trek lovers.

Few Visapur Trek photos 

Path towards fort :

 
   

Lohagad fort visible from Visapur