Climbing in Dhanaulti, Uttarakhand

 Date: April 30, 2023.

Place: Dhanaulti, Uttarakhand.

Route type: Top rope, sport (bolted), fun bouldering and multipitch too. 

Best season: All year around except monsoon.

Climbing level: Suitable for climbers with experience (have done 5-6 months of climbing).

Accommodation: Resorts in Dhanaulti.

Contact person: Yash (Beyond the wall, 74981--63805).

Misc: It is a beautiful place, you can trek to Surkunda devi, visit Kanatal, visit Tehri if you have an extra day.

This site is getting ready, it already has 5-6 routes, with an amazing 2 pitch route (see photos below). The location is pretty, there are lots of boulders in the area too, a day can also be spent on relaxed bouldering and exploring.

Not a site with easy access, it was found and developed by Beyond the Wall group at Dehradun. They arranged our stay and food too, and made it a memorable trip.

There is a small hike (around 30 mins) to reach the climbing site. The hike to the 2 pitch route is longer and slightly difficult. The group is developing more routes there. There are a lot of boulders and you can explore and find lot of interesting bouldering routes.

The present routes are from 5a-6c types, ideal for intermediate climbers. All of them can be toproped too. 

My suggestion would be to make it a 2-3 day trip. One day for climbing, one for bouldering and if possible, a third day for roaming around Dhanaulti. 

Climbing in Mumbai

Date: June 4, 2022.

Place: CBD Belapur, Mumbai.

Route type: Top rope, sport (bolted) as well as trad possibilities. 

Best season: Preferably winter (Oct-Mar), summer is hot but possible.

Climbing level: Suitable for all levels.

Accommodation: Lot of places in Navi Mumbai.

Contact person: Franco (Basalt project, 98699--89542).

Misc: You are in Mumbai city; there are climbing gyms, food and many other attractions.

One of the easiest to access and active climbing site in India; here, you get a great climbing experience as well as get to hang out with a lot of cool and inspired climbers.

The best thing about this area is, it is accessible using public transportation. From CBD Belapur station, you can take a 5 minute auto ride or walk to the climbing area. There are two different crags for climbing, depending on the direction of sun, only one area is suitable to climb. 

We explored the morning area (right side crag), it has routes of varying difficulty. I strongly recommend trying the Grigri and the Crack route. In summers, it was very hot to climb after 12 pm. My advice is to go early (before 8 am) and have a 3-4 hour session (keep around 2 litres of water). The other area (left side crag) is better to climb after lunch, but we didn't explore it.

This is one of the oldest climbing areas in India, the group of Bong da (Abhijeet Burman) and Franco has been climbing in this area for decades and best suited to introduce you to this area. They were a gracious host and I really enjoyed my trip.

Few lessons I learnt (got reinforced) from this trip:

1. Always keep your belay device, prussik and personal anchor system on your harness when going to climb outdoors :).
2. Don't just look at the rating of the climb, sometimes easier routes are more beautiful.
3. Enjoy your climb and make sure that it has no (minimal) impact on surroundings.

Climbing in Nainital, Uttarakhand

Date: 21st May 2022.

Place: Kilbury road, Nainital, Uttarakhand.

Route type: Top rope, sport (bolted) as well as trad possibilities. 

Best season: Around the year, sunny days in winter.

Climbing level: Suitable for all, more routes for intermediate and advanced climbers.

Accommodation: Youth hostel Nainital, homestays and hotels in Kilbury area.

Contact person: Anil Belwal (Tony Da) and Vinod (TCS, 89796--48412).

Misc: Good spots for birding around the area.

One of the beautiful sites to climb in India, the weather is perfect and you can enjoy climbing whole day. I have pointed to Kishan Da's store for location because of two reasons:

1. The crag is very close to the shop, go from the main road to the store and stay left, the crag is at 100 meters from the shop.
2. The aloo paratha, chai and samosa at Kishan Da is great, it is a perfect lunch break in a day full of climbing.

There are other areas in Nainital for climbing too, we explored only this area for this trip. Tony climbing school (Anil Ji and Vinod) are perfect people to introduce and guide you to the area. Anil ji is a legend in Nainital climbing scene and has bolted/opened many routes. We were guided by Vinod, he is an amazing climber and a great teacher. I strongly suggest contacting them, if you are planning to climb in this area. 

My other suggestion is to take accommodation in Kilbury area (instead of the main Naini Lake/Mallital area). That will keep the need for car redundant, you will be in a walking distance from crag and restaurants. More importantly, you will be away from the painful weekend crowd in Nainital.

Climbing in Dhauj, Haryana (near Delhi)

Date: 20th March 2021.

Place: The Crashpad, Dhauj, Haryana (around 1:30 hrs from Delhi).

Route type: Trad or top rope, single pitch, multiple areas. 

Best season: October to March (too hot in summers)

Climbing level: Suitable for all, beginner as well as advanced climbers.

Accommodation: Camp at "The Crashpad" or day trip from Delhi.

Contact person: Jammy (Jamyang) and Sandeep Maity (Delhi climbs).

Misc: For detailed route guide, refer to the Book by Mohit Oberoi.

One of the best places to climb outdoors close to Delhi, Dhauj, has been developed by delhi climbers for a long time. Fortunately, Delhi climbs has a small area there and provide a great facility for any level of climber to experience rock climbing in an outdoor environment.

We were a group of five climbers from Kanpur. All of us, except one, knew how to lead and had decent experience on climbing walls. Two of us had climbed outdoors too. So, we were looking for a place to climb and some help regarding where to put the ropes, what routes to climb etc. 

We had a great experience with Sandeep and others. They not only showed us (and set up) routes, but also taught some knots and anchors. We camped at the same place and shared meals. Overall, a great outdoor climbing experience.

Trip to Gothics, Adirondack Mountains.

The trip to Gothics had been cancelled twice. Once because it was tough for people to find two continuous days to spare on a long weekend. Other time we had a more stupid reason, but I don't remember now.This time, for the sake of Gothics, we decided to drop those who were not "free" enough. Still we had 9 people in our group, 4-5 more than the optimal size. It is not optimal because, you run a fatal risk of having everyone who reads your Facebook status message, with you right there. Actually this didn't deter some of us from updating their status from the top of the mountain. I hope they got lots of "likes" and "+1's" for their additional effort after climbing the mountain.

Coming back to the trip, in preparation for these 9 people, we booked lean-to at JBL (John's Brook Lodge) for Saturday night's stay. It can be reserved beforehand (all the state owned ones are first come first served) and was wild enough for our taste (thankfully not wild enough for the bear's taste that day). On Friday night we stayed at a motel in Glen Falls. In the morning, after having a little too much of the breakfast, we left for the garden parking lot. Because of the frequent download breaks, we reached late and couldn't find a spot. A word of advice, be there before 7 on long weekends. Since we didn't follow this advice, we parked in a close by parking lot and took a shuttle to garden (that took almost half hour extra).

We started the hike around 8:30 and reached JBL at around 10:30. In preparation of a long hike ahead, we had lunch. At this point I discovered that our zealous friends have packed some avocados, "boondi ke ladoo" and around half the BJ's for the 2 day trip.
With a heavy stomach and without avocados we started the hike to Gothics. The area around JBL is filled with trails and it is advisable to have a clear picture/map/idea of what trail you want to take. We went towards Lower Wolfjaw from the registration post. After around 2 hrs we reached the fork, where we changed our direction to go towards Upper Wolfjaw. The other direction leads to Lower Wolfjaw. It was an intelligent decision to skip the round trip to it and it will be soon clear why.

The ascent to Upper Wolfjaw was really tough, but that was just the beginning. The views from the top were decent, but the climbing ordeal forced us to take a long break. From there we went to Armstrong. The view of Gothics from there was awesome and intimidating at the same time. That was one of the moments when you say to yourself " How the hell am I planning to climb this thing ?". Few people had told us that Gothics is the real prize. But according to me the views from Armstrong were also quite good, except that from Gothics you get a 360 view.


From Armstrong to Gothics was not very difficult and we reached at the top at around 5. Gothics was worth the wait and had amazing views. In the immediate neighbourhood, it is the tallest peak, so give you 360 views. Also you can look at Marcy and Algonquin (the highest peaks in Adirondack) from a distance and appreciate the scene.

The toughest part of Gothics hike is supposed to be the chained part which takes you towards Saddleback mountain. You have to go down a bare rock face with a 45 degree slope. It is more scary than dangerous. Except few casualties, we had no major incident. Actually all of us were able to come down injury free, but it took almost two hours to cover that section (all because of the able guidance of few pro hikers in our group).

That delay ensured that we traveled last two hours in darkness and last one hour without knowing what was 1 meter away from us. Ultimately we ended in the lean to at around 10:30, completely battle wounded. Some point before that we realized that the one bottle of water-purifier we had given to some hikers was the only bottle we had. The other one had just cotton. So we had fresh untreated Adirondack water, and till now everyone is alive (at least till one week back).

The food tasted really good. But surprisingly we were not able to finish avocados and around 50% of the food we got. Then without further ado, we went to sleep and no bear or snake was able to disturb us. In the morning, after having Maggi (the best breakfast), we came out to Garden parking lot. Few of us came back to NJ and few visited Lake Placid etc. close by.

Overall the trip was fun and made possible by the help of this website. They have detailed topographic maps and lot of information in general about the Adirondacks.
http://www.adirondackjourney.com/
The trip we did is mentioned as "Lower Range" but traveled in opposite direction.