Kalavantin Durg 🇮🇳 India's Most Dangerous Fort Trek?

Whoa, there's a snake right there. Okay, so today's the day to hit the Kalavanten derg, or Kalavanten fort, and my... the person hosting me at the farmstay was very insistent that I take a local guide, so he has sent me with Gunpat here, and he will be my local guide. He's a strong man to lead the way, because we're not taking the normal route. We're kind of taking a shortcut, because we're kind of on the back side of the village, on the opposite side of the village where the main starting point is, so we kind of have to bushwhack, and he was worried I was going to get lost in the bushes. I tried to tell him I'm a professional, but he said, no, no, you take take a local. They can show you the way, so here we go, and we're going to the top of that pinnacle right there, Kalavanten derg. I'm so excited. You ready? High five. So this place has some interesting history. Now, even though it's called Kalavanten derg, or fort, it is a naturally occurring pinnacle that they turned into a watchtower for Prabalgad fort, which is right next to it, and so it's a naturally occurring fort that they carved these massive steps into to get to the top of it, to use as a watchtower overlooking the ancient port of Pondvel, and to kind of survey the area, because the history of India is just non-stop invasions, and battles, and empires fighting against each other, so there's tons of these in the western Ghats, the mountains that run along the west coast of India, tons of these old abandoned forts, and a little bit of the history is known about it, but the entire sort of backstory, there seems like there's some made-up things about it. Some people think it's haunted, but it is supposed to be one of India's most dangerous fort treks. Some women that were in the fort when it was captured killed themselves to protect their honor, and I think, I'm not sure if that's been historically verified, but I think that's where the rumors that it's haunted come from. Another name for this is the stairway to heaven, because of these crazy massive steps that are carved into the side of it, and it is an appropriate name given that several people have died on this trek. Well, he told me, Ganpat told me, it's only gonna take two hours. I think for him, maybe it'll only take two hours. For me, maybe four. These local villagers, they grow up ever since they're little boys and girls running up to the top of this thing, so he's been doing this his whole life. We got to the base camp here. It took us about an hour, and it's nice. They have a little chai drink spot here, and little snacks, and yeah, he's saying it's only going to be another hour to the top, but man, it looks far, and it looks harder than what we just came through, but look at this epic scenery. This is amazing. Banana, look at this banana tree here. Pretty cool. It's a little wild banana tree, western goth. Some Indian trekkers do this trek in the monsoon, which I think is crazy, but one thing I'll say is it's probably cooler. It's not as hot in the monsoon, but it looks a lot more dangerous because obviously the steps are going to be slippery, so we'll see how it goes today, and maybe if it goes well, I come back and do it in the monsoon. Apparently, there's a lot of these little stops, little drink spots along the way, and it wasn't a chai stop. He might have chai, but he had a cold lemon water, cold drink, so lots of these little stops along the way to get some shade, get some lemon water, and there's a campground right before at the base of the pinnacle. There's a campground where you can camp out, and you could go explore like Prabal God and Kelavantan and spend some time up there, but I didn't have a tent. I didn't have time to stay overnight, so you could make like a whole mission out of this, several day mission, which would be pretty sweet. So we're making our way up slow and steady. Nice little shrine here, and I had trouble distinguishing the gods. At first, I said Shiva, which they were like, no, no, no, it's not Shiva. It's Hanuman, and now that I see, it's Hanuman because you can tell the tale, the tale. Hanuman is the monkey god, the tale, also the god for Peluans, strong men, wrestlers, and it's Hanuman, the god of Peluans, and then next to him is Ganesha, son of Shiva and Parvati. The story goes that Shiva accidentally cut his head off and then put the head of an elephant on, and that is where the story of Ganesha, why he has the elephant head, because when he accidentally chopped his head off, in some, I don't understand the full story. I think it was something he was bursting through the door, and he chopped his head off, and Parvati, his wife, was so upset, you chopped the head off our son, and so to make it better, there was an elephant nearby. He put the elephant head on the son, Ganesha. I think that's the story. Please forgive me if I get it wrong. Doso? Doso? There's actually a little village up here. There's the pinnacle, and then village, I think this is the main camping area, but this is the village, Machi, Prabal Machi, and somewhere there's a fork. One way goes to Prabal god, and the other way goes to Kalavantin. Living at the base of this, I can only imagine that there's some sort of spiritual significance tied to this, because it was only used for a fort for a relatively short period of time, from what I understand, in the grand scheme of the history of the subcontinent. So before they carved those steps into it, I wonder if this place had a special significance otherwise. I'm actually surprised. So we got to basically the start of the steps in about two hours, so it doesn't look like the steps are that long. I don't know how long, I think they go, they wrap around a bit, but right now it looks like relatively short. I know they are steep, as you can see, they're steep, but I don't know if they wrap around like how long they are, but yeah, two hours. He said only a half hour at the top of this, so man, this is turning out to be much quicker than I thought it was going to be. Look at this exposure right here, that looks like, I don't know if that's the most dangerous spot, but that looks dangerous right there, just fall out right there. Belly grosso. You don't want to lose your balance. Views, I was confused because I thought Gonpat would be joining me at the top, but he's going to wait here while I go, I guess, so solo trekker. Okay sir, nice knowing you. Okay, so here we go, up to the top. Nice views, nice view. Okay, here we go, we got the long selfie, sheer drop. Good job, good job. Okay, good job. Florida, okay, yeah, here we go. Thank you. Yeah, okay, good time, good time. Adventure, adventure, yeah. Yeah, look at that. Look at these guys. Yeah, get the adventure. Those guys are very pumped to make it to the top. Look at this, look at that view. I can only imagine at the top. These ancient, ancient steep steps carved into this basalt rock. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Thank you. That must be the viewpoint from Prabhagat because I see people up there. So look at this. Somebody just pointed this out to me, and this is a water tank. I'm assuming it's ancient, like, you know, the same time they carved the steps. So this must be how they kept water for the people up at the viewpoint, up at the lookout during monsoon or whenever it rains. It would just overflow, fill up this water tank, and so the guys who are stationed at the top of the lookout, this is where they get their water. They don't have to go all the way back down. How did they do this back in the day? How did they carve this? I want to know. That is amazing. To carve this massive thing out of basalt, which is a super hard igneous rock. Wow. Hello. Yeah, no, I'm looking at the water tank. Water tank. Yeah. I'm always careful. We're getting close. We're getting close, guys. Still, I wonder if you could probably pitch a tent right here, right? Look at this. This is a nice flat spot to camp. Excellent views. There's where we're going, the top of that. Okay, so there's the camping down there. So we came from like somewhere over there. That's where the farmstay is. And there's the very top, almost there. Hello. Hello. Where are you from? I'm from the U.S., sir. Where are you from? I'm from Pune. Good place. Nice trek, huh? Yes. Good adventure. Yes. Okay. Nice day, sir. And they have these ropes set up, but I don't think you need the rope. It looks like an easy climb. Hard to do when you're holding a GoPro, though. But that line right there looks pretty easy. Even, probably not that, but that line for sure. It's coming down. Coming down, you would want the rope. But I'm going to try it without the rope. Oh, I just saw a guy go over there. What's over there? Let's go see what's over here. Where's this guy going? Maybe he's going to take a piss. Be careful, sir. Danger. What, what, what is that? No? I want to look. I want to look, though. I look. Just look, okay? Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, nobody wants the foreigner to die on the most dangerous fort trek. Oh, this looks like it starts going down. Definitely a sheer drop and slippery and crumbly, but I wonder if he was coming back here to take a piss. Interesting. I see a little baby, baby pinnacle there. There's the big boy and the baby. So they charge 30 rupees to use the ropes to go up to the top, which is reasonable. Decent price. No problem. To me, it looks like I don't need the rope. I'm going to try it and, yeah, we'll see if I need the rope on the way down and give them the 30 rupees. But I think it's, I think it's okay. I think it's okay. We're going to, we're going to do it. They have steps cut into it, so it's not that hard. Whoa, there's a snake right there. Oh, look at that snake. Snake. Oh, cool. Snake. All right, we did it. Okay. Did it. So it was, uh, time to leave. Two hours, 45 minutes from where we started. Easier than I thought. Easier than I thought. Most dangerous fort trek in India? I don't think so. But maybe, maybe in monsoon. Apparently, I made a bad mistake and I left my shoes on. So, but I was confused because that guy, that guy had his shoes on. That guy, I saw that guy and I thought it was okay. So it's not my fault. It's that guy's fault. All right. Good fun, huh? Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Although it's not maybe the most dangerous trek in India, I think what I like about this is that it's a natural rock formation. It's not man-made, which it's, it is partially because of the steps, but they, they carve the steps and they made use of this naturally occurring pinnacle, a natural lookout tower. And it makes sense. It makes sense to use that as a lookout tower instead of building one, you know, like they do in Europe and stuff like that. A natural lookout tower. Pretty cool the way they made use of that. And I love how they carved those water tanks. Amazing. How did they do that? No dynamite, no jackhammer, no nothing like that. How did they carve the steps? How did they carve the water tank? So it's a marvel. How long did that take? What kind of tools were they using? It's fascinating. Fun fact, my shoe sole blew out. My left one. The right one, I glued back on right before I left the U.S. A few weeks before I left the U.S. And I pulled on this one and pulled on it and I thought it was good and I should have brought some glue because even though that's stealth rubber, it does me no good if it's not attached to the shoe. Okay, almost missed the cave on the way down, so got to make sure we don't forget that. Oh, all right. Let's go check out the cave. Low, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, this looks man-made too. I wonder what they were doing back here. This is definitely man-made. I wonder what they were going to use this for. Interesting. Maybe some type of water diversion to a water tank or something. Maybe they slept in here. I wonder if they slept in here when it was raining. Look at the angles on this. Yeah, I think they probably slept in here. That must be what it was for. Opens up. Oh, this is definitely a big chamber. Hear that echo? Echo! Echo! Hello? Echo! Yeah, this is probably where they slept. Wow, look at the amount of work they put into making it into a sleeping quarters. That is amazing. If you want to try this trek and you need a place to stay and maybe you don't want to camp or you don't want to camp on the first night or something like that, I'll be Maria Guesthouse. Man, this place is so peaceful and I didn't realize when I booked it that I was getting the whole place to myself for 24 bucks a night, which includes food. I was totally blown away by that, so the hosts have been so gracious and kind and attentive and just above and beyond my expectations. Beautiful little farm here, too. The sunset last night was amazing. Plenty more coming from India. Get out there, find your adventure, and be infamous. Infamous.