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