Amit Marathe's Blog

Jai Shri Ram "Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are Cathedrals where I practice my religion"                                                                                                                                  Anatoli Boukreev. The twin dykes of Tail Baila have always fascinated me. I still remember the fantastic aerial view i got of Tail Baila while we flew over the terrain while flying from Goa to Mumbai. Tail Baila appeared like a sub marine from above and the views of Sudhagad and the entire Sahyadri main range are still etched in my mind.  Tail Baila is a small village about 40 kms south of Lonavala and now well known amongst the climbing community due to the twin rock dykes of Tail and Bail. The Tail Baila fort is a watch tower guarding the old ghat routes towards Sudhagad. There is a temple of Lord Bhairav in the middle of the 2 fort walls. The fort is situated at a height of around 3200 feet above sea l

Jai Shri Ram The stretch from Lonawala to Bhimashankar has quite a few ancient ghat-routes which connect the Deccan Plateau to the Konkan Plains. Some of these routes are still in use and the local folk use them to quickly travel up and down on the ghats to meet their relatives or for trade purposes.(Like supply of milk, food grains etc). These routes have been in use for the past close to 2000 years for polictical, social and trade purposes and in those days provided vital access on one side to the sea ports in the konkan and on the eastern side to the hinterlands of the Deccan plateau (Desh). Kothaligad and start of Nakhinda Ghat! Also the sahyadris here are moderate in height with average elevation of about 700 meters. Thus it was only natural that strategic forts were built to guard these routes from both invaders/enemy attacks as well as to provide a safe passage to the traders.Also those who controlled these forts virtually controlled these trade route