Places to Visit
Banasar Fort
Spend your day exploring the Banasar Fort, one of the last remaining symbols of Gorkha rule in the hills….
If you want to spend your day trekking and exploring a historic place then Banasar Fort should be at the top of your bucket list. This around 200-year-old fort is locally known as the ‘Gorkha fort.’
It is believed to have been built during the rule of Amar Singh Thapa, the Gorkha army commander, who had ruled the Himachal hills from 1805 till 1815, the year when he was defeated by the Britishers in the Anglo-Gorkha war.
In the absence of any authentic historic documents, nothing much is known about this fort. It is believed that Gorkhas had built this fort as a symbol of their power and rule. Perched on a hill and overlooking the hills and plains, the fort must have had acted like a watchtower and an outpost of the Gorkha army.
How to reach
The fort is situated near Banasar village in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh. There are two routes to reach Banasar: You can follow the link road from Kumarhatti or from Chakki Mod. Both Kumarhatti and Chakki Mod are on the Kalka-Shimla highway. Chakki Mod is nearer to Chandigarh. From Chakki Mod, you need to first reach Bhoj Naggar (14 kms) and from Bhoj Naggar, you need to take another link road to reach Banasar (12 km).
We took the Chakki Mod-Bhoj Naggar route to reach the fort. It’s one nice drive as you move along with pine forests on both sides and almost zero traffic on the road.
The roofless temple
On the way from Bhoj Naggar to Banasar, there is a temple at a place called Karalghat. A flight of stairs takes you to the top where stone idols of local deities have been kept under an umbrella-shaped cover. From the top, you can watch the surrounding hills in all their glory.
Trek to the fort
As you leave the temple behind and move towards Banasar, soon enough the fort on a hill comes into the view. As you get closer to the fort and just before Banasar, you can easily spot a path going up from the main road. This is the starting point of the trek to the fort. It takes less than an hour to reach the fort from here.
After a few initial steep patches, you mostly walk on an even ground in a lovely pine forest as a cool breeze keeps blowing and the sunrays reach you after filtering though the tall trees and their branches. And before you know it, the fort is right in front of you.
Banasar Fort
It’s a breathtaking view as you stand at the base of the fort and look up the imposing and overpowering structure. Built on a hill top with vertical slopes on the sides, the fort must have had been truly inaccessible in its heyday. You need to be careful while taking steps around this stone-built structure. There is not much of a space available here.
A narrow path and few stone stairs take you inside the fort. Built of stones, the fort has watchtowers on its four corners with small rounded stairs to reach the top. There are small openings in the walls for using weapons and also letting the light enter.
There is also what appears to be a narrow passage along one of the fort walls and in the middle there is vacant space and part of a collapsed wall stands around it. It seems that there must have been rooms in the centre but the walls and the entire structure gave in due to lack of maintenance and collapsed.
Unfortunately, this historic fort has been abandoned by the government and is in ruins. Trees and wild bushes have grown inside and the walls appear to be on the verge of crumbling down. A big crack has appeared on the front outer wall of the fort. If steps are not taken to restore it, we may lose this historic structure in the years to come.
