The Shifting Sands

Our local climbing crew have all returned from our Christmas break and it was a month before we were able to get people together for a climb.  We were keen on something new and were considering heading to Pune for a weekend at Sinahad Fort and the Plus Valley near Lake Mulshi where we had information on some routes. The view towards the morning crag above the slum on the left hand side of the photo just above the band of trees Fate intervened and we were not able to get away so we went back to Navi Mumbai on Sunday morning.  I was not paying attention while leading and had decked out, my feet after popping off while clipping a bolt with a metre of slack in my hand.  Thomas had done a great job of minimizing the damage with the rope stretch taking up before my coccyx hit the ground.  Despite his masterful belaying, my heel was bruised so we wandered off to the bouldering spot on the other side of the valley as I had not been there for years a...

The brown scar left from the falling block. The quickdraw helps to provide some scale Francisco, Ada and myself were at Navi Mumbai for a routine weekly climb.  That said, there are very few routine things in India.  We had just completed our morning exertions and were packing away our gear, ready to journey home.  A large group of local climbers had arrived, they are not normally early risers, and were working a number of routes. One route involved climbing to an undercling which included a loose 30cm x 30cm block.  The climber studiously avoided the loose block but, much to everyone's surprise, a 1m x 1m block ripped loose and fell in a couple of pieces. Everyone having a nervous laugh about the rockfall. The injured leader is at their feet. The leader was held by the belayer despite the belayer being very much in harms way.  The leader landed hard on his feet on a small ledge.  He didn't appear to have broken any b...

There is always a little anticipation about getting back on the rock after not having climbed for a while.  It had been several months since our trip to Badami and, despite my best intentions, I hadn't done any climbing on my last visit to Thailand. There is the normal performance anxiety over how much you have regressed since your last outing but in Mumbai there are other uncertainties. The new shop For those of you who have read earlier posts, you will recall that to access the crag you need to walk through a recently developed slum.  These people are new migrants to Mumbai and apart from those families who live on the streets, reside in the most basic conditions.  Last year, I had noticed a gradual encroachment up the hill towards the base of the crag.  The leading edge was the cutting of trees and branches for firewood, following by a gradual progression of the open toilet followed by an expansion of the shelters.  My concern was that...

Sunday started at 6.30 am picking up Greg and Twyla for the hour drive to our climbing spot in Navi Mumbai. We were very keen to explore some of the bolted routes in the area as our previous excursion had just been to the boulders.  We were fully prepared for half a day lost, bashing our way through the scrub to find the crags.  The general direction of the crags led us through a rural slum on the outskirts of the Artist’s Colony in Sector 8 of CBD Belapur.  I am not sure why it is called the Artist’s Colony as there are certainly no galleries and coffee shops!  Speaking to Bong, the local climbing guru, the slum has been built up over the last few years with a local politician supporting the “encroachment”.  Land encroachment is a process where squatters build shanties on public land and, after a period of time without the structure being demolished, claim ownership.  Unscrupulous politicians (is that a tautology?) support this type of encroachments as ...