Tavli is a prominent group of 3 pinnacles seen from Kakuli or Badlapur station in Mhaismal range. It can be seen easily from train going to Pune/Karjat. We made a plan to trek tavli in rainy season because it becomes barren mountain in other seasons, making the peregrination more tiresome and exhaustive.

My cousin has a room in badlapur. So, we gathered on one fine sunday morning at his place, packed up our food, water and started walking towards Tavli. Our plan was to reach the top in the afternoon and come back in the night. But it wasn't going to be that easy for us. We were five, I, Rupesh, Alhad, Aniruddha, Trupti and Shweta.

My cousin and his trek group had tried to explore tavli earlier but they couldn't reach the top. They could hardly reach the badlapur hills which are just below tavli. Tavli can be conquered from the side of Kalyan. But we were less bothered about the routine track.

It was the month of Aug, the third month of rainy seasion. The whole mountain was covered with green forest and the sky was full of clouds. What a site to see! We could find lots of trees, shrubs and thorny woods on the way. There was no proper track for climbing. We were just walking. Moreover, we had to make a way by cutting thorns and other bushes. The climb was far from the place we started walking. It took almost three hours to cross the heavy jungle and reach the tavli bottom. I could see the tavli peak straight up in front of me. There was no way ahead, that place was a part of valley and we were at the center with huge mountains very close from all three sides. So, we selected the shortest way that could lead us directly to the top of Badlapur Hills and started climbing. It was the acclivous plain surface of land made by a waterfall that was coming down straight from the top. The surface was full of mud, we could hardly walk on it. In addition to that, there were mosquitos, honey bees roaming around us. Somehow we managed to reach to the top of badlapur hills by late afternoon.


[Picture courtesy : http://compufield.com/vaibhav/karjat.html]

Two of the tavli's sharper pinnacles are locally known as Dahud and Baman. These three peaks are connected to each other. These are difficult to climb and involve rock climbing . a flat top, near the pinnacles is known as "Tavli" .The other top on the south is Badlapur hill. Both are connected by a saddle (600m). We reached just below one of them. Now there was no way ahead. We were facing a massive cliff in front of us. There was no way we could climb it without ropes. Now, it started raining cats and dogs with roaring wind in the valley and we could not even stand on our legs.It took around two hours to calm down. We were tired and hungry by that time. In those two hours, we lost hopes to conquer that cliff, our all enthusiasm was dissolved in that heavy rain. Tavli was so close and somehow so far from us.

This was the first and the only time we were unable to conquer the pinnacle. So, we had our food and decided to return back to our home. The return journey was not so easy. All the way, we were feeling sad about this unsuccessful climb. It took around 8 hrs without any halt for climbing and almost same time for return journey. We had no torch and we were walking blindly through the woods in night. Luckily, we got a routine pavement which took us back to the highway. We returned home late night. I think the reason behind this unsuccessful trek was our careless planning. But still, we enjoyed our trek. Even today, whenever I go to Badlapur, I look out for the way which we used to climb tavli and it still attracts me. Someday I am going to climb it again with proper planning and I hope I will conquer it.