Prabalmachi shooting star trek in December 2018

[gsarkhel]

The news was “In the night from 13 to 15 December 2018 the shooting stars of the Geminids meteor shower reach their peak”.

As I was from a small town, I have experienced a lot of shooting star events in my lifetime. When we were kids, we had that Load Shading (no Power Supply) nights very often. We had to sleep on the roof. It used to be completely dark and the sky becomes bright with stars. We could even see the stars over the horizon.

We have moved from small city to Mumbai and for my kid, she never got a chance to experience something like this. The news came to me like a blessing in disguise. I immediately called up about 5-6 trek planners and finalised the MPA (Mumbai Pune Adventures). Initially me and my daughter were in the plan, later my wife joined us. Three of us are ready for a family trek for the first time. Called up the MPA guys and confirmed about the safety and basic requirements. Everything looked good to me. 15th of December was Saturday, so we decided and waited for the day to come.

This trek had 3 layers.

Base

Trek to camping ground

Further trek to the mountain top

Unlike other camps, this has a proper car parking area at the base. We could have taken public transport to the base, but we decided to drive. The trek was planned to start in the evening. 2 hours to the camping ground and stay there the entire night looking at the sky. In the morning whoever is interested in more adventure shall get up at 5am to start climb to the top of the mountain.

 

[gsarkhel]

The day came. We drove to the car park and reached there an hour before the schedule. There is a small tea shop where we waited for others to join.

My daughter was the yongest trekker in the group

These pictures were taken from my phone. Hence, please don't mind the quality.

Everyone joined and we started trekking

Pitch dark. Everyone had to take their own torches. This was already defined in the basic itinerary by MPA.

A horror story

Rest on the way

Trek organisers

Finally reached the camping ground

At the base there is a tapri (caffeteria) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Tents were ready for us when we reached the camp site.

 

[gsarkhel]

The camp site was full of tents everywhere. We expected less or no crowd but the scenario was completely different. The place was crowded with tents everywhere. However the MPA guys arranged the tents at a secluded place where there are no other tents.

The tents were placed in circle and a fireplace in the middle. This way one can enjoy the fire even sitting inside their tents or gather near the fire. Nobody was inside. Everyone gathered around the fire and played some games followed by introduction session.

Some experiments

It was a windy night. Tents were tied to the grounds so that they won't fly away. Most of us slept outside. The objective of this trek was to watch shooting stars.

Fire at the center, sleeping on the ground with the sky above, was an out of the world experience. My daughter didn't sleep entire night. She was super excited about the whole fact that she was doing something she had never imagined.