NASIK: A CLIMBING PILGRIMAGE

          NASIK: A CLIMBING PILGRIMAGE

              

              Maharashtra has been well known for its historical forts among the  trekkers. Many of these treks have climbing patches to get to the top. Some of these mountains have pinnacles which rock climbers are attracted to climb on. Decade ago rock climbing was less known than the trekking. But then people got to know the thrill in rock climbing and some of them got out specially to explore climbing routes in Sahyadri. Our Sahyadri mountain range has so many climbing sites along with beautiful forts. There are many pinnacles in Maharashtra like Vajeer, Ban, Bhatoba, Khada Parshi and many many more. Konkan kada of Harishchandra gad is epic climbing site for Big wall and Traditional climbers. 

              In earlier years, Nasik was known for pinnacles and traditional climbing routes. Pahine Navra, Pahine Navri, Dangya, Hadbichi Shendi, Sunday1 and many more pinnacles attract climbers to Nasik. Fort Harihar, near Trimbakeshwar has Scottish cliff which was first climbed by Doug Scott. Then sports climbing and bouldering got attention of Indian climbers. Advance climbing gears got available to climbers. In past few years many rock climbing areas have been explored in Pune and Mumbai region but Nasik hasn’t been that much explored. It was also because of lack of climbers in Nasik. But now climbing community is increasing in Nasik. And they are making efforts to discover more and more climbing areas in Nasik region. 

                                  (Pahine Navra and Pahine Navri Pinnacles Of Anjaneri)

             

               Our friend  Climbers from Mumbai( Vaibhav, Sandeep, Shyam, Mangesh, Vinay )and Pune ( Viakas Satarkar, Bhushan, Ranjit, Ganesh) visited Nasik few years back and we took them to Anjaneri fort where some good bouldering  routes were opened and some Boulders still stand tall as projects for climbers. In Last couple of years, a known climber from Nasik, Samiran Kolhe has bolted some nice sports routes at Ramshej fort and Anjaneri fort with fellow climbers Pranav Wamanacharya, Pranav Bhanose, Vinod Peerapur, and Tuhin Satarkar from Pune. That includes 5c to 7c grade routes at Ramshej and Anjaneri and one multi pitch route at Anjaneri  named High Ambitions. High Ambitions was climbed by Samiran in december 2013 and this climb was filmed by couple of Americans for a documentary film on climbing in India. In this February, Rockclimbers Nasik group explored some new boulders at Anjaneri with friend climbers from Bikaner. Kishan  Rajpurohit and Ankit  Sharma. They have enjoyed climbing sports routes at Ramshej and bouldering at Anjaneri and they are looking forward to explore more. 

               Anjaneri fort is a place which has potential for all kinds of climbing routes.  It has 5 pinnacles (Pahine Navra, Pahine Navri, Anjaneri Navra, Anjaneri Navri, Karavali). Also Sunday 1, Sunday 2 pinnacles are very nearby. Anjaneri has 300-400 ft of rock walls to open multi pitch sports routes. (5-6 sports routes are already  been bolted by Samiran Kolhe.) There are many boulders at the base of fort and at back side of fort, near Pahine Village. Some bouldering routes have already been climbed there, graded from V2 to V7 and there are still unfinished projects which can be more than V8. Members of Rockclimbers Nasik group Bhushan, Sanket, Jitendra, Bhupesh, Sagar have explored some awesome high boulders in last visit to Anjaneri which are around fifteen to twenty feet tall.

 

            There is still vast area, waiting to be explored by climbers. Countless rocks, waiting  to come out of shadows. Nasik has so much to offer to climbers. There can be routes for beginners to masters. An event like climbing competition or rock trip would be a good platform to bring Nasik on map of climbing areas. Rockclimbers Nasik group invites all the fellow climbers from India to visit Nasik and open new awesome routes for future generation of climbers. And bring this rock treasure to light.

                                      

                       SO LETS GO CLIMBING FOLKS...