Mission - Tikona Fort

Our group Amdocs DVCI Trekkers organised a trek on 14th October to Tikona Fort. It is a pyramidal peak near Lonavala. The fort gets its name from its pyramidal shape, which is instantly recognizable at the end. It is also called as 'Vitangagad'. The fort is almost 3580 feet high. Tikona comes under the medium category as far as the trek difficulty level is concerned but for some of our trekkers, this was not an easy trek.


So, we started from Magarpatta City at 5:30am by bus for Lonavala and alighted at Kamshet. It took almost two hour to reach to Kamshet. And from there another half an hour to reach the base village. This village is also known as Tikona-Peth. We had a light breakfast at Tikona-Peth and then everybody was ready to take off to Tikona.



We started the actual trek at 10.00 am. It was a very bright and sunny day. We all started the trek with lots of enthusiasm. It was going pretty well until we understood in the middle that we have chosen the incorrect path and this happened twice with us. The whole trek was not that difficult except for some people who took a wrong shortcut and were almost on the verge of falling down. This was the most adventurous part of the trek and mostly for them. Thankfully, nothing happened. But then there was nothing to regret for; enjoyment was the main objective of the trek.


Thereafter, everything was back to normal and it was pretty straightforward. We went on, following the established route rather than inventing our own through the forests. There were plenty of bushes and dense grass, which we used to haul ourselves uphill. It took almost two and half hours to reach to the top of the fort, which would have taken only two hours or so by normal standards. We met another group of trekkers in the middle and they informed us that their trek had been very easy. Those trekkers were from DVCI only but they came on bikes. Of course, they probably had a less exciting trek as compared to ours!


At the top of the fort, one really feels like the King of the World. One can have a wonderful view of fort Tung, the twin of Tikona. There are a few lakes, the temple of 'Trimbakeshwar Mahadev'. The view of Pawna dam and other forts like Tung, Lohagad and Visapur is extremely beautiful. Now, members could hardly resist themselves from taking some snaps.



We started our journey back to the base village around 1300 hrs. Coming down the fort was a pretty easy task. In between, we had a nice lunch together too. We decided to come down from the other side of the fort to village ‘Javan’. But, the groups got splited and our group decided to descend to base village Tikona-Peth from where we started the trek. We reached there at around 1430hrs. The bus was waiting at Javan village and we were waiting there for nearly one hour for the bus.


The trek completed much sooner and we had enough time. So, we decided to visit Bedsa Caves which was half an hour away from Tikona-Peth. Bedsa caves are one of the most old in Maharashtra. These caves are 2000 years old. Huge pillars, lions and humans forms and a large Chaitya hall with resting rooms is a speciality of these caves. There are good carvings on the pillars. Infact, a very good place to visit.


All in all, it was one of the memorable treks. We made it more adventurous by choosing the wrong path! Everybody reached back being totally exhausted in the night packing all the good time spent together.