Bouldering ‘problems’ motivate many for first ascent as rock climbing gains popularity in India

In the summer of 2014, Delhi-based climber, Sandeep Kumar Maity, 28, spent three weeks in the hills of Belapur in Navi Mumbai. His objective was to climb a line called Black Stallion, which was said to be one of the toughest boulder problems in India at the time. Before arriving, he had connected with Vaibhav Mehta, a climber from Mumbai, to get more insight into the route. But despite his best efforts, he was unsuccessful in pulling off the climb.

Over the next few years, Maity went bouldering around the country. But Black Stallion remained a constant niggle at the back of his head. He would repeatedly ponder over the problem and recreate the moves that he had been unable to pull off.

“When I first attempted it, a route like that was beyond my imagination. It’s a tough, technical line because the holds are really small and not very obvious. The humid conditions made it further difficult to feel the friction between my hands and the rock,” Maity recalls.

Three years later, he returned to the problem, this time in the winter that offered cooler weather and better conditions to climb. He was stronger and more confident in his abilities. It took him three sessions to crack the problem and make the first Indian ascent of Black Stallion.

“I thought about the moves that would work and the body positions from one hold to another at a micro-detailing level. It was really satisfying to pull off something that I had imagined for so long,” he says.

There was little in terms of a celebration. The heady feeling lasted all of 10 minutes for Maity. It was time to get on with the next climb.

Maity’s effort summarises the sport of bouldering in the outdoors. In essence, it is a form of rock climbing that is practised on boulders of various sizes, though rarely over five metres in height. As always, the idea is to figure out a route to the top — called a problem in bouldering terms — which is later graded based on the level of difficulty. There are no ropes or harnesses; the only protection is in the form of crash pads to cushion a fall, aided most times by a partner known as a spotter, whose job is to ensure that the boulderer’s landing is safe.

Over the years, bouldering sites have cropped up across the country, even in relatively obscure climbing areas such as the Purulia district of West Bengal and Mount Abu in Rajasthan. But it was all very different back in the day. While traditional climbing and top roping goes back many decades, bouldering wasn’t as popular even in the early 80s.

“The issue with bouldering was that we didn’t have any crash pads. If you fall, you would probably land up breaking your ankles. So if the boulder got a little higher, which is what is called highballing today, we would use ropes for safety,” says Mohit Oberoi, 53, a climber who’s spent a lot of time pioneering routes around Delhi.

Bouldering lacked an identity of its own. Veterans like Oberoi would mostly dabble with it during bigger climbs when the weather turned. Though he remembers a handful of competitions that were held in the late 80s in the Old Rocks area of Lado Sarai in Delhi and Turahalli near Bangalore (now Bengaluru), they too featured the use of ropes.

“Bouldering was mainly training for bigger rope climbs,” Oberoi says.

***

India as a climbing destination offers everything from different types of granite in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka to sandstone around Badami and limestone in Nainital. Other forms of climbing regularly drew folks from around the world. It was a matter of time before bouldering picked up as well.

In the early 90s, foreigners started frequenting areas like Chhatru and Manali in the north and Badami and Hampi in the south. This included some accomplished climbers like Johnny Dawes, Jerry Moffat, Kurt Albert and Fred Nicole. These sites soon became household names in the world of bouldering.

Once crash pads were more accessible, Indian climbers started bouldering in the true sense. Abhijit “Bong” Burman, 56, first landed in Navi Mumbai around 1990. He and his friends soon discovered boulders in the area where land was being cleared for a new railway line. It gradually became a climbing hub in the region alongside Mumbra in Thane and Kanheri Caves in the western suburbs of Mumbai.

“Modern bouldering picked up in Belapur in 1995 and the grading system for these climbs was introduced in 1996-97,” Burman recalls.

With access to borrowed crash pads, younger climbers like Mehta started bouldering regularly around 2000. He says that a lot of climbers at the time were training to climb pinnacles in the Sahyadris. They also travelled across the country to other sites, where they met folks from their tribe who were looking to push the envelope just like them.

“In 2003, Chris Sharma came to Hampi and shot a film, “Pilgrimage”, which really set off the bouldering craze. The following year, the club I belong to, Girivihar, hosted its first natural bouldering competition in Belapur and by 2006, it had really taken off,” Burman adds.

***

While Mehta’s generation continued exploring the outdoors, the next generation of climbers started focussing on the competition arena, mostly climbing indoors or in a protected environment. Folks like Maity, who picked up climbing in school, were groomed and pushed on the Indian sport-climbing circuit.

“It felt like I was in a bubble, performing for a very different stage – qualifying for zonals, then going to the nationals. There were so many competitions and I was pretty occupied alongside my studies. I had no exposure to real rock,” Maity says.

It wasn’t until Maity visited Hampi after his 10th grade that he discovered outdoor climbing. This was all very different – just the feel of the rock and the elements in the outdoors made it a whole new experience. He started scanning the boulders for possible lines, hoping to attempt every single one of them before he left.

“From a sport, it transformed into an art form for me – endless movements that were somehow interlinked and which involved a lot of muscle memory, especially on the hard lines. You do powerful stuff and feed off that energy,” he says.

According to Maity, bouldering also lost its spark because no one was invested in teaching others how to climb. On the other hand, Gowri Varanashi, a climber from Bengaluru, believes that a few fell into the trap that climbing outdoors would disturb their training for competitive sport climbing.

“I think there was this weird misconception in India that the only true form of climbing was competition climbing. Families supported their kids because they were getting awards, certificates and prize money. So doing hard stuff in the gym became the norm,” she says.

***

Varanashi first took to climbing around eight years ago while studying in the United States. It was only on a visit back home to Bengaluru in 2014 that she found a few friends climbing in the outdoors. However, the first few times she joined them, there was this complete dislike for bouldering.

“I started out with sport climbing. The rope makes you feel really safe and you can take a break and rest when you want, shake out your arms and start climbing again,” she says.

“Of course, the hardest climbs are essentially multiple boulder problems put together. But bouldering is a lot more technical because you cannot find the holds easily. The shorter problems have hard, powerful moves, while overhangs too make it quite challenging,” she adds.

Over time, she realised that bouldering demanded more from her and in turn, was gradually transforming her into a very strong climber. It needed better body positioning and weight transfer, besides precise technique and footwork to tackle each problem. It also didn’t need her to lug heavy gear – all that was required was a crash pad, shoes and chalk.

“I feel so focussed and relaxed while moving up the rock. It’s like moving meditation,” she says.

It was the same for Aditya Bikram Pande, 28, who shifted base to Nasogi near Manali in 2018 to pursue his climbing goals. Though a mountaineer at heart, he started bouldering more often due to the independence it offered. He compares a boulderer to an artist, who uses the rock as a medium to express himself. At the same time, he sees elements of sport, since a boulderer competes with himself, besides the standard set by others around him.

“You need the mind of an architect and the body and grace of a ballerina. Almost 99 per cent of the time, bouldering results in failure because you are climbing at your limit. You need to develop a relationship with the rock and imagine what you can grab to make progress. And after attempting the same problem multiple times, the power of repetition steps in. You become really fluid as you make progress through the various levels of difficulty,” Pande says.

***

A lot of climbers like Pande had their first brush with bouldering at an indoor gym that started popping up across India. Bengaluru-based Harsha Tej believes that indoor gyms are also the perfect place to train for specific projects in the outdoors.

“In a gym, you can sequence a route based on what you are attempting in the outdoors. This allows you to repeatedly work on those moves and transitions, before getting back on the rock,” Tej says.

Besides, it’s where the community started growing, united by their common passion for climbing. Tenzing Jamyang remembers inviting top climbers from around the country to Gravi T, a climbing gym in Leh that he’s been running for the past decade.

“For two years, we invited some of the best climbers in India. Then we started exploring outdoor spots, because of which we have over 200 boulder problems just around Leh today,” Jamyang says.

Jamyang and Maity also discovered an area near Vasant Vihar in the heart of Delhi. It soon became a hub for local climbers and over the years, they’ve tried to open more such areas around India alongside a few others. One such trip led Jamyang to Suru Valley near Kargil, where they discovered multiple boulder problems. By 2016, it was the venue for Surufest that is currently in its 5th edition and was awarded the best climbing festival in 2019 by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA).

“I always tell climbers that they don’t have to come all the way to Ladakh to climb. A friend managed to find rocks around Jaipur. Then we’ve located small areas in Darjeeling and western Sikkim. So there’s now a community that is regularly climbing all around the country,” Jamyang says.

***

During similar climbing trips around Bengaluru, Varanashi realised that there were few women climbing. On a few occasions, she had also been given a hard time by cops and locals for being the lone female among men. She realised that women needed more access to the sport.

After receiving an international grant in 2017 for one of her personal projects, she decided to also pitch a women’s climbing festival. She connected with a few other female climbers from India and in 2018, put together the first edition of Climb Like A Woman (CLAW). Right after that event, they realised the need to make it an annual fixture.

“Of the 30, we had 25 first-timers who found the entire experience liberating – some things as simple as being outdoors and climbing in clothes that they were most comfortable in. There were women who feared heights and others who thought climbing was only for a certain body type. It was really powerful and we’ve been hosting it every year since,” she says.

Others like Sandeep Bhagyawant, 41, have been helping young climbers around Mumbai. He is a member of Giripremi, who organised the IFSC World Cup in Navi Mumbai in 2016 and 2017. That wall was dismantled after the event and has been installed at facilities in Nerul, Colaba and Powai

“The first step for any beginner is an indoor wall, so the goal is to maximise the number of such facilities through public-private partnership, so that common people get easy access to it. Once the skillsets are in place, it’s easy to move to the outdoors,” Bhagyawant says.

For the sport to grow, Oberoi feels that there’s an urgent need to bring out guidebooks, similar to his effort with “Guide to Rock Climbing in and around Delhi”, which can lead climbers to specific areas and enlighten them on the various projects on offer.

“It’s being done, though at a very slow pace. We need more people to climb and verify the same routes. I’ve been documenting my climbs and once there’s enough collective information, we can turn it into a book,” Maity says.

***

Bouldering has gradually opened up avenues to make some money as well. Jamyang used to lead outdoor trips in the past and has now set up base near Mangar, where he runs an outdoor climbing facility called the Crashpad. Maity works with government departments to develop climbing as part of tourism projects. Tej recently modelled for an outdoor brand that wants to be associated with climbing.

“It all depends on your skillset and how you can make a living out of it. We still aren’t at that stage where one can focus only on climbing and hope that someone supports it. So you need to figure things out and make it possible for yourself,” Pande says.

For close to three years, Pande has been attempting a line behind his home called Rick and Morty. Away from the boulder, he’s spent hours visualising and training specifically for the climb.

On his last attempt, he fell off one move from the top. Rest assured, he’ll be back at it in the summer, stronger and wiser. And once he tops out, simply move on to the next one that has his intrigue.

The author is a freelance writer from Mumbai who thrives on narrating a good story. Views expressed are personal.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.