Picture this. You’re sitting in the office, half doing work, half not, and outside the window the monsoon is putting on an entire show. Grey skies, that electric wet earth smell, the kind of weather that makes you question every life choice that led you to a desk. And then, out of absolutely nowhere, someone in the room says it. “Let’s go hiking.”
That’s it. That’s all it took.
No meeting. No planning doc. No one even remembers who said it first, if we’re being honest. One second we’re staring out the window daydreaming, the next second the whole office has collectively decided: Lohagad Point. This Saturday. We’re doing this.
And here’s the plot twist that made it even better, our remote developers happened to be in the Mumbai office that exact same week. Like the universe looked at our chaotic little plan and said, sure, let’s make this a proper team thing while we’re at it.
Saturday, 6 AM, and We’re Actually Doing This
Nobody rolled out together, by the way.
This wasn’t some perfectly synced group departure. People left one by one, starting around 6 AM, cars pulling out at their own pace, everyone half asleep but somehow already buzzing with excitement for what was coming.
Midway, we regrouped for breakfast, and honestly?
That break was a whole event by itself.
Everyone was roasting each other mercilessly, no one was safe, and I was already living my best life behind the camera, catching every single moment because that’s the job when you’re the social media person, you don’t get to just sit there and eat in peace.
Somewhere in the middle of all that noise, people were double-checking if they’d packed everything they needed, someone launched into a random hiking story that nobody asked for but everyone somehow got sucked into anyway, and the age old question kept coming up over and over, how much longer till we actually get there?
The Drive Up Was a Whole Character Arc of Its Own
Okay, real talk, before we even got to the hiking part, the drive itself deserves its own paragraph. Once we were back on the road and started climbing up through the mountains toward the base, the roads got narrow, winding, and every turn felt like a mini heart attack. I was in the car with Siddhita behind the wheel, and let me tell you, she drove that mountain like an absolute pro, genuinely impressive handling, not a single wrong move. But the roads themselves, the height, the curves, that was enough to have my heart doing somersaults the entire way up. There were a few moments where I swear the whole car went dead silent, everyone just holding their breath together, and I may or may not have said a quiet little prayer somewhere around the third hairpin turn. Ten out of ten driving, ten out of ten cardio for the passengers.
Base Camp, and the Real Adventure Begins
Once we hit the base, it was time to gear up, so raincoats came out because monsoon does not care about your plans, a bit more eating happened because you can never really have too much fuel, everyone did that classic pre-hike bathroom shuffle, and then, finally, we started walking.
First thing we see?
Monkeys. Just chilling on shop rooftops like they run the place, completely unbothered by our arrival.
Barely three minutes in, three minutes, we hadn’t even properly caught our rhythm yet, and we stumble onto a lady selling raw mangoes with this tangy masala that just hits different. Harsh, our founder, stopped the entire group without so much as a discussion. It wasn’t even a decision really; it was just obvious. We were eating those mangoes and taking our time to enjoy it before pushing on.
Going Up, and the Stamina Rankings Get Real
Back on the trail, fifteen minutes in we took our first proper break, phones came out, pictures got clicked, and we just stood there for a second soaking in how genuinely beautiful the whole place looked.
But this is where it got interesting. This is where the stamina rankings started exposing people. Siddhita and I somehow found ourselves dragging at the very back of the pack, digging deep for whatever last bit of energy we had left to keep pushing up.
Harsh, meanwhile, was already up front the entire way, leading and guiding everyone forward like this was second nature to him. And our senior manager Ganesh hit a wall somewhere in the middle of the climb, no shame in it, and had to fully stop, plant himself on a bench, and just breathe for a bit.
The Top. This Is What We Came For.
We reached the top and honestly, it felt earned. Clouds were drifting past us, close enough to actually feel on your skin, and the wind up there was strong, strong enough that a few of the girls were genuinely fighting to just stay standing straight. And me? I went straight into survival mode, hunting for one single decent rock to sit on and just breathe for a minute, because that climb had taken everything out of me.
And then, right in the middle of everyone celebrating and taking it all in, one of our developers, Rahul Bakshi, just fell. Had a little bump and went down. He was completely fine, obviously, but it was without a doubt one of the funniest, most wholesome moments of the entire day, the kind you bring up in office chat for weeks after.
By the time we started making our way back down, Siddhita and I were, hands down, the happiest people on that entire hill.
Food, Then Traffic Tried Its Best to Ruin Everything
We found a local place after and had food that genuinely tasted like nothing you get in the city. There is something about that rural, village kind of cooking that just hits differently, and after a climb like that, it hit even harder.
And then, traffic. Real, soul-crushing hill traffic that had us stuck for what felt like forever. Siddhita and the team even floated the idea of maybe extending the day and going somewhere else since it was barely 4 PM, but one look at that jam between the hills and everyone silently agreed, we were traumatized enough, let’s just go home. We took two or three more breaks on the way back purely to survive the wait.
And that was it. That was the day.
But honestly?
We had an entire week of office conversations that came after it, retelling the mango stop, that hair-raising drive up, Ganesh’s bench moment, Rahul’s fall, over and over, like it had just happened yesterday.
Ten out of ten. Would do this exact chaos all over again without thinking twice.
We wrote the story. We also filmed the chaos. Watch the hiking reel here.
