From left to right: Sarang Bhumkar, Saurabh Soni, Saurabh Kumar, Anand V and Nikhil Lagoo

What began as an exchange of over a 40 emails to plan a leisurely weekend away from the stress of our routine lives, finally culminated in a decision to climb up Raigad... at night.

We reached Panvel at 8 pm and the ceremonial start-of-the-trip pictures were taken to commemorate what was to be an exciting trip.

Considering that what we had planned was a nice lazy getaway, the air conditioner in the rented Scorpio was probably the hardest worker among all of us.

We reached the base of Raigad Fort at midnight, after dinner at Suruchi Restaurant near Mahad-Raigad.

The trek began under a clear and starry starry night and after our initial lethargy subsided, we reached the halfway mark around 1 am.

The climb itself consisted of about 1,500 stone steps, all remarkably maintained, which make this a very easy trek when compared to other forts in the Sahyadri range.

Somewhere beyond the halfway mark up, you are gifted with a view of a small and beautiful waterfall, which has the customary a shallow pool at its base.

It was here that our group decided to camp for a while mesmerised by the natural beauty. The camp turned out to be quite a long one as we were lost in the surroundings and occupied ourselves with guy talk.

After about three hours of taking potshots at each other, we were fresh and raring to get to the top, of the fort. This,  we managed to do in another half an hour.

At the top, we first paid our respects to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj atop his regal throne. Here, there is a resort run by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), apart from a couple of other hotels, which let rooms out for the night, but, since we weren’t in a mood to stay inside a room, we decided to rest out in the open.

After a nap of about three hours, it was time to explore. Raigad was prime property once — it was virtually impregnable, with inaccessible rock faces on three sides.

Breakfast consisted of chai, poha and misal, and at 10 am, after covering all corners of the fort, including the Samadhi of Shivaji Maharaj, we decided to make our way down using the ropeway.

The ropeway is a must-ride. It gives one an awesome view of the hill on which the fort stands, the surrounding cliffs and greenery.

The trip down took five minutes. All of us were left looking back for final glimpses of Raigad, as we made our way back to the grind of city life.