I happened to visit this place for a trek in the year 2011. You can take a train to panvel, and from panvel either take a ST bus or a ’tumtum’ to the base of the hill. ST bus charges are minimal, around 12 rs. per seat, tumtums can charge for the entire vehicle hence it is better for large groups, you’d have to haggle for the fare, but the advantage with tumtums is that you can take their cell number and call them when you are ready to travel back to panvel in the eve, while in case of st buses you’ll have to bank on your luck or hitch hike.
About the place, you encounter a checkpost at the start of the trek, where you’ll have to pay a nominal 5 rs. to the forest department. There’s a small bird sanctuary in the beginning, only a handful of species are for display. It is a fairly easy 30 to 40 minutes ascend at the start of the trek, and then it’s a horizontal walk across the hill for the next 15-20 minutes, you’ll encounter a small hanuman mandir in this path.
Then the journey becomes slightly tricky, you will have to climb a few rocks, might need assistance of a couple of people. You will encounter a small metallic staircase of around 10-15 steps, what makes this terrifying is you can see the entire valley to the right of this staircase and it is a big, fatal fall down the hill.
Once you are at the top, you can see the famous ’thumb" from right down below the huge mass of rock that it is. The entire trek can be described as challenging and can be difficult for novice trekkers. But the trip is entirely worth it.