Sahyadri Mountain Ranges
Similarly, one can experience tremendous variations served by nature. The Sahyadri Ranges is one of the best destinations to explore and enjoy nature at its best. Various landscapes, caves, forts, peaks, exclusive beauty one call; Sahyadri's. Moving deep into Sahyadri, we explore new and new treks and trails each day. Our today's destination is an unfamiliar fort, which is Kalyangad fort. Kalyan gad, also known as Nandgiri, is situated in Satara District, Maharashtra, India. Kalyangad fort is about 3537 feet above sea level. Nandgiri fort gives an excellent experience of life in caves.
How to Reach Nandgiri Fort
Getting there:
- The Fort is easily approachable by various means of transport.
- One can get a bus from Satara station till Satara Road.
- Nandgiri is three km from Satara Road.
- From here to reach Nandgiri, one can take a bus heading towards Kanhee to get down near Nandgiri village.
- Buses are readily available interlinking from one spot to another till the base village.
- From Mumbai, the base village is about 260 km, which will take around 6 hours to reach.
- The base village is about 116 km from Pune.
Kalyangad Fort Trek Blog
The base village of the fort is Nandgiri village. Therefore, the fort is commonly known as the Nandgiri fort. The trail till the beginning of the fort is a motorable route. One can drive up until the first door of the fort. The fort has two main doors. The first door which will come across is facing towards the north direction. This door leads to a temple. Moving ahead of this temple, we can visit the most exciting and fantastic spot on the fort. There is a cave present on the fort, which is 30 meters deep. It isn't preferable to visit this place in monsoons. This cave is the best place on the fort. The gallery has water on both sides of it. As this cave is deep, no light source, and shallow height to stand inside, people find this cave horrifying. But nothing as such applies in real. Visiting the cave in daylight reflects the olden times' galleries on the fort. After visiting this gallery, come back to the first gate to move on to the second door.
Steps are created to reach the second gate of the fort. After entering this door, one can look at the temple present near the entrance of the second door. Lord Hanuman temple is the temple present here. Dahanebuva of Ninapadali then renovated this temple. We can also see a memorial of Kalyan Swami, a ruined temple of lord Ganesh followed by a lake. From the fort's southernmost point, one can see all the nearby treks: Jaranda, Ajinkyatara, Yavateshwar, Chandan, Vandan, Morya, and Vairatgad.
Moving on towards the fort's history, we realized that this fort was built by King Bhor - II of Panhala, which was mentioned in a copper plate inscription found in the district. It is said that the fort was built around 1178. Kalyangad and the rest all the forts of Satara were surrendered to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in 1673. Maratha's lost this fort in the last battle with General Pritzler in April 1818. This fort was then stated as a dismantled and uninhabited fort with a steep approach but no water and supplies. The fantastic caves and mystery of the ancient gallery. View of neighboring forts with an excellent panoramic view from the top
