The Breaking of a Trail-runner

Sequel to The Making of a Trail Runner.

Background: After a sub-4 hr road marathon debut at TMM 2020, I blew a podium position in 2020 Deccan Ultra 55k by losing about 45 mins due to a navigational error and settled for a 4^th position finish. Well, in a trail ultramarathon, enjoying the mountains and finishing safely itself is a victory, so I was happy.

Deccan Ultra 2024:

After 2020, my priorities switched to climbing and I kept running only as warmups for climbing training, and occasionally hiking Nandi hills. However, in January 2024 I managed to get a few solid trail-runs and felt reasonably trained, so I looked for a comeback with Deccan Ultra 2024 30KM. I thought I’d finish in the top 5 if not on podium. Anyway, I needed some such goal, given I already train and travel so much for climbing, and have such a crazy busy job that I am always counting hours/ROI on my time, why would I take two days off for 5 hours of running. I also signed up because one of my close friends from Mumbai agreed to join me.

After 4 hours pleasant drive from Mumbai, we reached the race venue late afternoon. For the first time in 6 weeks I did nothing for a few hours; well-deserved break the hectic Mumbai life where I had been teaching 8 hour-weeks besides other work and zero downtime. I was psyched for the race, and we both hydrated ourselves well by drinking water regularly and consciously (which proved critical for what was to unfold the next day).

Our tents the day before.

Race day

The route can be broken into 5 ~equal segments separated by 4 aid stations; each segment approximately equal 10 kms running on flat road:

Start to Bari  Ascend Kalsubai  Descend to Udawane  Panjare  Finish

I had 500ml water and two gels on me when the race started in the crisp, chilly weather.

At the start line, 6:30am. Roshan (3003) in center. At twice his age, my arms look equally muscled 🙂

I ran a good clip till Bari and saw what seemed like an aid station, but I wasn’t sure and skipped it. By this time the sun was fully out, unlike the cool misty 2020 edition, and I regretted skipping the aid station. I consumed a gel and all of my water while climbing Kalsubai, Maharashtra’s highest peak, realizing I was pushing it. Then, a monkey very deftly snatched my remaining gel from my shorts inner pocket, a caffeine one that I had planned to power me through the technical descent, dealing another blow to my race motivation. Unfortunately, more chaos followed at the top and confusing directions given to me, and I realized I had missed the second aid station too. Now I have to do a technical descent without water! This is a semi-autonomous race, meaning aid stations are kept to the bare minimum, every one of them is mandatory, and I had missed not one but two consecutive ones; imagine my state of mind then. The descent section is very remote and technical and even rescue is extremely difficult there. I took a judgment call to go ahead as I know my body; I have done such stupid things in climbing. I shifted my race strategy from finishing well to just reaching the next aid station safely. I did execute it, slowly but securely, and felt amazed at what a 50-year-old human body that works on a computer 12 hours a day, in a polluted city, is capable of. I had run ~3:15 hrs, the equivalent of 30km road, in the hot sun, with just 500ml water.

It is views like these that make it all worth it.

This image gives an idea of the scale of the event. Descending from the top of Kalsubai (the peak in the far center) to where I took this pic near aid station Udawane) is one leg. 30km has five such legs. 55km is about 8 such segments

This is as much a mental game as physical because those racing ahead run alone and won’t see any human for hours, in a remote mountain/forest terrain, while most others at the back paired up or formed groups and ran together for safety/morale.

The Mahajan brothers were another interesting chaps I met, not the fastest but were having the most fun: https://shyamgopan.com/2019/05/30/the-mahajan-brothers-and-may-22-on-everest/ pc: Hitendra C Mahajan

Anyway, I reached the aid station feeling OK (I can’t be fully ok because it is impossible to rehydrate fully while running after hitting dehydration), thinking maybe I’ll run slower but I’ll do it. Ran to the next (and last) aid station Panjare feeling not too bad. Then with about 5km to finish, I saw confusing bidirectional arrows, and where I should have turned right, I ended up turning left (towards Kalsubai via the 21KM descent path) and kept going for 2-3 kms till I saw the 21km runners coming in the opposite direction, that’s when I realized I was fucked.

The red line is the extra I ran out and back, approx 45 mins

I felt like a man fallen on the ground, getting smacked hard repeatedly on the head so that he doesn’t ever rise again. I had already lost my way 4-5 times (minor) and maybe ~15 mins of race time so far; I had tackled aggressive monkeys (screw the gel, a small scratch would mean I’d have to take rabies shots), dogs, a herd of cows on a remote section, dehydrated and mentally drained, and now I had again run out of water due to this unexpected turn, it was blazing hot, and now I have to retrace the miles I had excruciatingly covered. The wrong turn had cost me the equivalent of about 10km tarmac run extra! By then I was sun-burnt. Luckily, what I lack in talent, I make up for in sheer determination, so I kept jogging/walking resolutely, thinking I am about as bright as Forrest Gump.

Then, can you believe, about half an hour of suffer-fest later, I again saw a runner running towards me from the opposite direction! I was gob smacked, I groaned, God, Nooooo, not again, I am already fucked! Luckily this time it was the other guy who had erred; he agreed and turned around to run with me. We got chatting and he said he holds the Guinness record for the maximum marathons done on consecutive days by an Indian and I felt good I was running with him despite losing about an hour of race time. I finished with him. I didn’t bother to check the time; my race was long lost and I had stopped caring.

The true heroes were the organizer/volunteers. I arrived at the finish line feeling down and beaten but the way they greeted me, reminded me I was a winner like all others who finished despite so many challenges, and made sure we smiled.

I thought I would be among the last to finish, but surprisingly, I found my friend had yet to finish, and many runners kept arriving as I waited for him. Roshan (the sculpted dude in my first picture) arrived about 20 mins after me. Then my friend arrived. All within the cut-off time. We collected our finisher medals, a quick dip in the dam, packed our tents, lunched, and drove back. We gave Roshan a ride to Mumbai and learnt he was former a gymnast who won Asian Games gold for India, he had completed his debut marathon at TMM in an impressive 3:30hr. Hearing that felt good, because I had finished before a much fitter athlete.

My analysis of the official results later, confirmed my estimate (sans the detour) would have fetched me 3rd position. No excuses though; a mountain trail race includes the ability to navigate, it is all par for the course.

Lessons learned:

All said and done, this was an excellently organized race. Nutrition was all natural stuff like quality dates, bananas, oranges, boiled sweet potatoes. It took as many volunteers as the 100+ runners to mark the trail and arrange aid at remote locations; brilliant logistical feat. Despite that, some of us lost our way to varying degrees, but it means we have to improve. I take pride in being a minimalist runner, but I have to change it. Most runners had GPS watches, I will wear one next time. Having dressed for a morning run, I got sunburnt; next time I will dress better. I carried two gels and a monkey stole one; next time I will carry more and hide them better. I will also carry trekking poles to beat the monkeys*.

* Not easy as it sounds. My friend narrated a recent experience: his group was similarly attacked. One friend returned to the car, picked up trekking poles and went back to teach the monkeys a lesson, and a few minutes later he was seen running down as fast as his legs could carry him, with monkeys chasing him from behind, with his poles in their hands. Picture that!

Ice climbing Cogne

Antares WI4, the line in the middle of the pic

I wrote this primarily for my climbing partners, people who risked roping up with me and taught me ice/alpine climbing in the Alps over a decade ago. But at a general level, it is also for my school and college friends, who will turn 50 along with me in 2024, a gentle reminder that we have only 50 more years left on this beautiful, fast-warming planet of ours; we need to plan and make every remaining year count and I hope this will inspire you to do the same!

Cogne 2022

As some of you know, I had negligible water-ice experience, and after some spicy alpine ice north faces in the Alps, I had not climbed alpine for 11 years since moving back to India; it was hard enough to juggle locally available rock, raising a teenaged boy, and a very hectic job, in Mumbai of all places. So in 2022 December, I hired a top mountain guide, Enrico, to brush up my alpine skills, and teach me ice, mixed, and dry-tooling over 5 intense climbing days. The cost was steep but so was the learning curve; I felt totally secure in his presence and could focus on pushing my technical skills to the limit, without ever worrying whether I’d get home safely. On the last day I followed a classic mixed line Monia Mena Sexocet (M6) quite competently.

TT following Sexocet

While I also followed water ice up to WI4, classics such as Patri Gauche and Antares, my foot placements were crappy. I relied too much on my arm power, which meant I’d get pumped and needed like 1 hang per pitch even on TR. That is still very respectable for someone with so little ice experience as I had, but that’s where I left 2022 as I got busy with life.

Cogne 2023

Valnontey, Cogne, in the evening, with the ice route Thoule in the background

I just got back from a 10-day trip with an awesome climbing partner, and I thought I’d write it up before work consumes me and I forget the details.

First, about Subhash, my climbing partner, a 32 yo IITian, data scientist, who since 3 years has been my main roped-climbing partner in Bangalore. I can name 100s of climbers on my friend list but I can count on my fingers those that actually climb with me and help me progress. And count on one hand, those exposed to all disciplines of climbing (bouldering, sport, trad, ice, dry-tooling, alpine) and still have some fingers free. Subhash is one of them. It was because of Subhash that I got integrated into Sethan bouldering scene with the current generation of climbers. Many climbers in my age group can afford a climbing trip to the Alps and I had dropped hints but it was Subhash who expressed interest in partnering with me for this trip and that’s how it all started. This is important because you can boulder with almost anyone; sport climb with most, but once we get into alpine one needs to be selective, and ice-climbing (for which just the approach can be short, serious mountaineering) is at the extreme.

Getting the visa itself was one huge adventure: having booked the visa slot in July and done all the paperwork, I only got the visa less than 48 hours before my trip; until then the trip was hanging by a thin wire. Good thing is, this time they gave me a visa valid for a whole year, so the next trip will have so much less drama. We flew from Bangalore to Milan together, rented a car there, and drove to Cogne. I first heard about Cogne from one of my early climbing partners, Ron from Israel, and we had contemplated going together many times but it never took off. Cogne is among the best ice climbing destinations in the whole of the Alps, so finally getting there with my own climbing partner was a big deal, a dream come true in itself.

We spent a total of 9 days climbing, based in the lovely Hotel La Barme in Valnontey, a small ski/climbing village in Cogne. We had left Bangalore at 4 am on Wednesday, and Thursday 9am we were already climbing ice in Cogne, and climbed the whole day! That’s way easier than I have experienced in my attempts to climb ice in the Indian Himalaya and I am still in disbelief.

Thoule, our Day 1 climb.

On Day 1, on a nearby ice route, Thoule WI4, I began to see my climbing partner’s abilities on ice in the real for the first time. All along I had assumed that as the older, more experienced climber, I would be the one leading (or arranging a guide to get us started independently, because compared rock, ice climbing is intrinsically many times more complex and dangerous, just too many variables). But it turned out that Subhash had acquired solid skills from ice-climbing in the Himalaya, and was an expert at setting up Abalakovs, so I felt fine letting him lead everything, and being a competent follower doing laps on TR to get the mileage I wanted.

As this point one major issue became apparent: there was going to be a heatwave, and it later turned out, Italy’s warmest winter in 135 years. I could see it was ~10 Celsius warmer than my 2022 trip. This meant we were restricted to only the shaded routes and even then we had to back off the upper pitches if it got too warm or sunny. But neither of us was interested in ticking routes; we just wanted mileage on steep ice and rock, and we got lots of it. We also went to some superbly bolted dry-tooling crags.

The views from the dry-tooling crag Lilaz Beach

Some of the routes we climbed (fully or some pitches) in the trip: Sentinel Ice WI4, Patri Gauche WI3, Thoule WI3, Antares WI4, and two roadside ice crags not in the guidebook. I don’t want to read too much into grades because ice forms differently each year/each week. What I do know is my comfort level from last trip to this. This time I was able to do legwork, heel drop, and rest my arms on steep ice, and in the entire trip I did not lose my footing or “take” (hang on the rope) even once, and I could do 2-3 laps on TR continuously, which meant I was getting it. With better weather, perhaps I would have led steep ice, but I am in no rush, I have at least 10 more years to improve! Unlike my previous trip, this time, due to the heat I worried about safety most days and we turned back well before we were tired. On dry-tooling, I on-sighted a D4 and put in upto 6 laps in D4-D5 grade range in a single session, which is a huge leap from last year when I could barely do 2-3 laps. For comparison, I can climb about 20 pitches of rock climbing in a single day session.

Did laps on this D5- route at Lilaz Beach. Felt very stiff mainly due to lack of experience climbing on mono-crampons.

Onsighted this D4 route, Lilaz Beach. I would have climbed it without rope on rock shoes, but dry-tooling it is a whole new order of difficulty

In summary, I got 3 to 6 pitches of steep ice or dry-tooling every single day of the trip, with ZERO rest days and ZERO injuries (some days we called off way before we were tired, to keep a safety margin). On the last day I led low-angled pitches just to get lead experience, before changing and packing the suitcase at the crag itself and driving off to Milan at 2pm.

It helped that we stayed in a cozy hotel, with sumptuous breakfast to start, and three-course dinner at the end of a hard day of work in the cold. And having a car obviated needless exposure and walks in the cold, we were easily able to drive around to different valleys: Valsavarenche and Lilaz chasing good weather.

Subhash wasn’t into pictures, and we were mostly focused on keeping each other safe, so we took almost no climbing pics

I rate this as one of my most efficient, enjoyable, productive climbing trips and finest partnerships ever. And while I have done dozens of climbing trips in Europe with outstanding partners, this was a first with a climbing partner from India, with whom I could joke in Hindi, and keep a water bottle in the bathroom and not have to explain why.

2024 plans (and the search for the climbing partner)

While I have offers of excellent partnerships in the Himalaya, my work schedule doesn’t allow such travel and acclimatisation time. I prefer the more pointy Alps and focusing on the technical climbing, with the safety of bolted belays and a nice dinner and a cozy heated hotel room. Hence, the Alps it will be. I have a work trip to Zurich in summer 2024 and I plan to catch up with the Zurich hiking group and then take a week off for alpine rock or mixed climbing in the Alps, for which I am exploring partnerships.

I also plan to do an ice trip to Cogne in December 2024, now that I am familiar with the area, and start leading WI3 and more, so, happy to go with a stronger or weaker partner. Feel free to shoot me a message if you wish to discuss more.

This was a WA status from my high-achiever PhD student which resonated. It answers how I fund such trips, how I manage sleep, work, other training etc.

Climbing 7b and publishing in POM

After over a decade of rock-climbing at the intermediate to advanced grades, I finally broke into expert grade, with my climb of Sloper, French 7b (YDS 5.12b), in Badami. A grade I never imagined was possible for me in this lifetime (I did progress to these levels rapidly in alpinism, climbing icy north faces in the Alps, but I have shelved it due to life constraints).

A few weeks ago, as part of my day job, I got my research published in POM journal, the top journal in my area. It is the culmination of seven years of intense work, sleepless nights, numerous rejections and revisions, ably supported by my co-authors (Narendra, incidentally, has also been my climbing partner for the longest time).

And today I set the course record on Nandi hills steps among Strava users in public domain, with my son Rahul unexpectedly offering to pace me and finishing with me (to give an idea, it takes 15 minutes by car/road).

All these activities fiercely competed for my intellectual, physical and emotional energies. Some of these involved direct trade-offs: the body adaptations for climbing and endurance running conflict since climbing is all about explosive power, upper body strength (besides technique), whereas running is all about slow-twitch muscles and lungs and strong legs. Both long hours of running and sitting before the computer impair hip flexibility, which is crucial for climbing, so I had to devote additional stretching to compensate for that. Plus accommodating rest days (err.. what’s that?). Within the limits set by normal family commitments!

What helped immensely was following a custom training plan that an ace-climber-friend of mine wrote for me, which involved advanced exercises done at maximal effort, but only once a week. His words: “I’ve never seen anyone as dedicated and meticulous as you when it comes to training!”. It made up for my constraints, like I could not go to exotic climbing destinations like Sethan and climb with the best climbers and up my game, as I had to calculate the ROI on every hour I spent. Likewise, I began to run only once a week but I made sure the training load was intense and progressed to doing 2-3 laps of Nandi hills with 13kg pack, always turning back because I ran out of time, not because I felt done. I could not spare 10-12 hours a week to run like my runner friends, but this would do.

To give some context, 7b is not Elite; it is more like running a 3-hr marathon while the world’s best are pushing 2-hrs. Nor is the publication: while it was the first time research from my school was published in a journal of this level, profs in the word’s top B schools publish dozens of them. And several excellent researchers don’t bother to chase exclusive journals.

Frankly, while these things meant a lot to me, what level you climb or publish in or run don’t mean anything in the larger scheme of things, they are mostly storms in one’s teacup. I do believe, however, that they hold instrumental and personal value: to motivate you to work hard toward a better version of yourself. The real value I derive from these endeavours are the friendships, the climbing and running partners and co-authors who gave meaning to these pursuits. And time management (running till you feel your lungs bursting, or climbing till your fingertips are raw and muscles screaming, is pure pleasure and easy in comparison!). And family support, or shall I say indulgence!

The (re)making of a trail runner

One of my running buddies, a colleague, showed me this site last month asking whether I knew AB. I didn’t, but reading his website (he has done the UTMB 100 mile plus other such mega runs) rekindled the dormant trail runner in me; it evoked an overpowering desire to get back to long distance running, an activity I had set aside over ten years back when I decided alpinism and climbing would be my main sports; sports that demand upper body strength. I immediately set up a meeting with AB, followed by a trial run with him and realized I was massively inspired by this dude. Although I had never run longer than two hours/half marathon distances in over ten years, I knew I had a solid base and felt a few solid training sessions are all I would need to be able to run longer than the traditional marathon distance. I managed to get solid hill training over the preceding two Sundays.

I couldn’t wait to test my hypothesis. I started my 2019 December vacation with this Sunday run up Nandi hills. I chose to go solo and parked my car at Nandi Upchaar restaurant, to make it a committing out and back run. I took the road as I didn’t know the trail.

It went very well. The run itself was spectacular. The weather was perfect, very cool and misty, and the road so smooth, the setting reminded me of mountain pass roads of the Swiss Alps.

But my run had no tranquility or meditative solitude: I had underestimated the weekend motorised hill-seekers. Literally several thousand cars and 2-wheelers passed me during my run. Several hundreds of them (one out of the every five vehicles or so) slowed down to cheer me, say something nice and feel inspired. Unfortunately many Indians still can’t handle the sight of shirtless men unless it is a film star or a religious guru (I run shirtless for functional reasons). So I did get cat-called/booed by a tiny minority idiots. Sigh!

Anyway that’s how I ran this run; all of 42.26 kms out and back to the car, with 822m net elevation gain in about 4:50 hrs, self-supported. Cut and ate a whole watermelon to rehydrate myself, a strong coffee at Nandi Upchaar to revive me and a pleasant 30-40 mins drive back home listening to old Rajkumar songs on radio was how I ended the trip. How happy I was feeling is beyond my abilities to express properly; even after a good night’s sleep I am still experiencing the after-glow of the run as I recount the experience.

From Air Force to Academia

How come Air Force to Academia? is a question I have been asked several hundred times till now and will probably hear many more times in the years to come… Here’s my detailed response in case you are contemplating career choices or just curious.

This poignant post written by the brother of the late Flt Lt Abhijit Gadgil provides a good backdrop to my response. The article hits the nail on the head from the right angle! Let me add that those that join the services tend to be a bit idealistic, full of josh, full of life, virile and starry-eyed young men. Heck, they even made us watch “An Officer and a Gentleman” as part of our Indoctrination (that’s the official word for it!). That forms the backdrop for what I am going to write further on.

Abhijit was neither the first nor the last officer who I would dine with and, sometimes barely a few hours later, would be described as “still warm pieces of burnt flesh” by the recovery party because that’s typically what remains of the pilot after a fighter plane crash. Abhijit was one I remember particularly vividly because he was my neighbour at the bachelor officers’ quarters a year before his death and a very fine officer, a clearly superior human specimen.

Even before that, in my previous posting at Pathankot, just as Op Vijay was tapering down, I had been admitted to the military hospital for jaundice, a juvenile civilian illness and saw from close quarters soldiers returning from J&K with gory battle wounds that made me feel I was not made of the same material as these men! Kind of “impostor syndrome”! My ward mate was a Major injured during a para commando training. He must have been a strapping fellow, at the peak of his physical fitness then but now moved around in a wheelchair with a colostomy bag (bowels emptied once every 3-4 days manually and no hunger) and a catheter, and the prognosis was, that’s how he’d spend the rest of his life. He was married to an ayurvedic doctor and they had hopes that he might eventually regain some sensation and function even when modern medicine had given up. The quiet strength and dignity with which he talked about his situation seemed super-human to me and felt unsure whether I am made of the same material and whether I want to be so in the first place. That and the treatment meted to Lt. Saurav Kalia made me ponder deeply.

Even before that, within my first few weeks of ab initio training at AFTC, while at the small arms firing range, a trainee airman (who was barely be a teen), lost his fingers when the vintage .303 rifle we were firing had a chamber burst. I didn’t personally see the injury but we were told he would be discharged from service with no benefits/compensation because he was still on probation. Okeey…I tried to wrap my head around this, it didn’t make sense to me but there was no time to dwell on this as my own indoctrination was still on.

Point is, reality is gory. Those gory details aren’t shown in films or advertisements. Films are made to evoke certain sentiments and ENTERTAIN AND SELL. So Border (1997 when I was still a trainee officer in Bangalore) was the LAST war movie I saw. I didn’t watch Rang de Basanti. I didn’t watch Uri. I didn’t watch any war movie. I found it abhorrent that someone makes money out of entertaining someone else, and the person who lost his bladder and bowel control or life, on whose story the film was made, he or his survivors get nothing… Sorry, I digress to terrain that no one likes to talk or hear about.

So beyond the daily likes and dislikes of my job, I found myself in deep, philosophical conflict with the whole notion of nationhood, war, torture, of willingly giving up one’s life and limb for a “larger good”. As for the daily affairs, I was at best an average officer, too much of a thinker and not enough of a doer. I found most officers far smarter than me and were thriving in that environment. They enjoyed the party life, some could drink 10 times more than my liver could handle, I get tired of small talk very soon, like to have my dinner at 8 and sleep at 10 and would rather go running or play squash than socialize in the evenings. I hated the late night parties, cracking the same old PJs, humouring the CO and his wife (“CO ma’am” as the more servile officers used to address!) and the same whiskey and soda and dhaba menu. Others relished it it but I felt miserable.

The things I enjoyed were all in the outdoors, firing (got to the stage of competitive .303 rifle firing at Western Air Command level), becoming a parasailing instructor, training with and earning my parajumping wings along with No. 2 Para, one of the world’s more elite special forces, and such perks that I lapped up greedily. But they were few and far between.

It is no wonder that I opted out, after serving my six years bond as an SSC officer, honorably. With two service medals (Op Vijay and Operation Parakram) on my chest and para wings on my shoulder, I left feeling proud of having served in one of India’s finest organizations working with the finest men. Most of my brother officers who quit service quit because they felt they were too good for the services but I quit because I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t want to live like an impostor forever (that said, somewhere deep in my heart I think, if the situation had warranted, I too would have delivered. I have had such moments as a climber).

Now, over a decade and a half later, I have not the slightest regret of hanging up my uniform that I so cherished and used to wear with immense pride. Today I am able to enjoy dual life as an academic and a climber with full gusto, exploring new ideas and new vistas, that only a climber and an academic researcher can enjoy. I feel like a free bird that can soar across countries, across mountains and forests as per my will…

Sadhguru [Insert Your Name]

Thoughts on Gurus and Sadhguru

 

North Face of Tour Ronde, with Ron Milgalter, September 2011

 

 

 

 

18 Oct 2018, Mumbai

These thoughts originated during a private group discussion among my school buddies from UAS Campus School. The discussion gave me some insights that had not occurred to me earlier, busy as I was climbing the mountains of my life. I thought of penning my thoughts down to gain more clarity and here it goes.

Of all the gurus and babas that lived in India, my personal favourite has been Mr. Jaggi Vasudev, whom I prefer to fondly call Jaggi. I first heard of Jaggi in 2012 from Prof. Ashish Pandey, whom I have known since 15 years, first as my batchmate during our doctoral student days and now as my colleague, and whose scholarship I respect. Ashish’s area of research is spirituality and management, an area he has been pursuing passionately since 2004. Lately he has been using neuropsychological tools to study the effects of yoga and stuff on individual and organisational performance, practices what he preaches, and he has recently been sharing his research insights with Mr. Ravi Shankar of Art of Living.

The point being, if a person of Ashish’s caliber, who knows my aversion to anything religious/spiritual felt I would find Jaggi refreshing and real and benefit from his talks, then it must be worth hearing Jaggi out with an open mind. And that is what I did. And over the years I developed a kind of ambivalent liking towards this guy. His dashing looks, tasteful dress sense, and flowing beard aside, almost everything he said made sense to me. There were some issues on which I got better clarity after watching his videos. Of course, there was also a lot to learn on aspects of marketing, personal, and corporate brand management, after all he is a great orator and savvy entrepreneur.

However what struck me as new during the last few days while we were opening up within our batch to our life experiences of the last three decades were the following.

To start with, I realized, purely in terms of life’s exposure, Jaggi’s wasn’t any superior to mine. Jaggi and I were both born in Mysore. While he sat and meditated on Chamundi Hills during his youth, I was running up and down the 1100 steps leading to the top; I climbed it every weekend and holiday during my four years of BE (undergrad studies), once getting to five laps in one marathon session, that was my form of yoga. My free solo moonless night ascent of Savandurga back in the 90’s, with my climbing guru Keerthi Pais remains one of my most life-altering experiences.

After college Jaggi travelled across the country on his Yezdi gaining rich experiences, while I joined the Air Force, married early and travelled widely, as a veteran of two of the most major military exercises/threats India faced during my generation. While Jaggi was flying micro-lights, I was jumping off planes as a para-jumper (I had the honour of training with and earning the para-wings along with No. 2 Para, Special Forces of the Army), or flying people up as a Parasailing Instructor. While he drove expensive race cars, I drove giant missile-laden trucks (without my CO knowing about it!). Volunteered for an Armaments course at Amla, horse riding in NDA Pune, competed at Western Air Command level rifle and sten m/c firing, all activities requiring systematic training and progression as opposed to ‘thrill-seeking’ activities. ALL of them purely voluntary, beyond my primary duty as an engineering officer. I used to ride a bicycle to office in full uniform, before it was even socially acceptable for Commissioned Officers to do so!

While Jaggi hiked up mountains I was enjoying the mountains far more intensely, climbing vertical cliffs and ice walls around the world. When you are perched delicately on an ice wall, connected to the mountain by no more than 2mm of bite of the crampons tips and ice axe tips, that is all that holds you from falling 1000 feet down, moving one foot after another, delicately yet powerfully for 12 hours straight, it is safe to assume that it provides a kind of intense, meditative experience not normally covered in standard spirituality texts! So, if life’s experiences were a qualification to be a guru, I realized I had been reasonably lucky!

Now some takeaways (in case this came across as a rambling reflection of memories, bordering narcissism):

1. Don’t look up to people; look at them. That is what Jaggi used to tell his daughter (as he explained during the recent Youth & Truth at IITB): “if you keep looking up to me, you will miss the person that I am.”
2. Jaggi wasn’t the first or only guru that has affected us positively. Charles Fernandes from my school days was a great guru, ahead of his times; he used to take a bunch of us young kids on our first outdoor camps in the forests of Karnataka. The life lessons he taught us kids and the life he himself lived, the work he did for conservation, was no less than any Guru with a fancy name and flamboyant robe.
3. If you look around, you will likewise find yogis in your acquaintance. I was fortunate to meet many during my stint at ETH Zurich. One Icelandic MSc student of mine was on the Olympic team and trained SIX hours daily, and yet aced his acads. There were many such people in my circle that lived life intensely, as Phd students or CEOs or corporate honchos, while performing as elites (or amateurs pushing their personal boundaries, be it running mountain ultra-marathons or climbing the Alps). These are all yogis to me. They gave me a vision of what is possible in one lifetime, even for me who has very modest abilities.
4. When I moved to IIT Bombay, there was no dearth of yogis! Too many to single out, but one that fits well with the theme of this blog is my running partner Prof. Sharat Chandran. I saw that he put his mind into everything he did, be it at work or on the track. Even a simple email in our faculty discussion forum, he would craft it with precision and proof-read it and put it across in a way that exuded professional pride; one could almost see a computer program there (I am reminded of our Air Force training days where we were told, leave your used plates in such a condition that one should make out an Officer had eaten out of it). Even a routine morning run, he would record it on his Garmin, perform some analyses and share some insights with us, because every moment is precious and we can learn something by keeping our minds awake and alive each moment.
5. While concluding the discussion covering all the decades of experiences gained on various lands, it kind of came as an epiphany that my first, biggest, and truest guru was actually in my own house, my dad! I find a true yogi in him even today. For his work ethic, commitment to bringing up their families etc., even if he may have sacrificed his passion for some sports in the process, as was wont to his generation. My dad is my biggest hero, guru, yogi.
6. The next biggest guru is right within yourself! Once you set a big, hairy, audacious goal, a mountain of your life (it has to be big for you; compete with yourself) and train for it, then you will soon feel yourself as a big guru and it is a very satisfying and empowering feeling. Try this exercise:

What do you see in YOUR mirror?

If this blog struck a cord with you, annoyed you, or brought a chuckle to your face, let me know!

References:

1. An account of our ascent of Tour Ronde North Face
2. A picture showing our ascent and descent routes

High Lonesome, Simul-climb

Bananthi Mari Betta

Put up by Dinesh Kaigonhalli (Dini) in 1995, High Lonesome on Bananthi Mari Betta or BM Betta (Betta = hill) in Kanakapura, near Bangalore used to be a classic 7-pitch X-rated sport climb. According to Sohan Pavuluri, Bangalore’s climbing historian/guidebook author, it is “a local cult line”. Quite rightly so, because it is about as long as multi-pitches in South India can get.  The only other mountain that offers routes of comparable length and character is Savandurga, which has quite some global standing/coverage. However, the real reason HL is a classic is the way it was climbed during its first ascent 23 years back.

For scale, the dried “twigs” below the red line are actually full grown dead bamboo trees! Pic from Bangalore Climbers FB group, courtesy Sunny/Sohan

Legend goes (and confirmed during a recent re-bolting exercise) that the entire route, about 800 feet long, had only 17 bolts including six double bolt anchors, and the last pitch at 5.7+ (5a+) grade had only one bolt. Bolted ground up over four weekends by this bunch of climbers from Bangalore, on the fourth weekend, Dini being so close to finishing the route just ran out the last pitch with only ONE bolt and finished the FFA rather than come back another weekend to place more bolts. So that is how the route remained for 23 years, as perhaps the most run out sport route in South India. One-bolt-pitch to top out of a huge multi-pitch makes for legends and stories…enthralling us kids 🙂

How do I know all this? BM Betta is in very interior forest area of Kanakapura and not many city dwellers would have even heard of it. I heard of it only in 2016 thanks to the current crop of climbers who bolted a new, easier route Cicada Uprising right next to HL in a bid to revive the legacy. Even the approach is an adventure in itself. Seeing those pictures and reading up those discussions whetted my appetite for this climb. High Lonesome…the name itself sounded grand and apt…you are indeed a tiny speck, high and lonely up on a massive, seemingly endless granite wall…it is a different world out there. Set deep inside the forest near Bananthi Mari temple, where leopards, bears frequent, perhaps elephants too. And Mari temple, of all temples…. The location and the names and the people behind it all add up to the enigma and allure of the place…I had simul-climbed Cicada Uprising onsight in May 2016 when it was barely a few weeks old, with Sohan (who had bolted the route) and was duly impressed.

Bold yellow line is Cicada Uprising. The dotted line is the famous 1-bolt last pitch of the original High Lonesome. I used to get goosebumps each time I saw it and pictured myself being up there. Picture from 2016, courtesy Sohan Pavuluri/”Bangalore Climbers” Facebook Group

Coming back to HL, true to its name it remained proudly high and lonesome all these years, with almost no one attempting it, but everyone talking about it in hushed and reverential tones. Apparently Ravee Bhat nailed it many years back and that is the only known ascent of the original route. My interest in this route grew stronger when I climbed Deepawali in 2016 by a variant that involved a 70m slab pitch with almost no protection; how would that climb compare with this one? And I wondered, would it be simul-climbable?

Circa 2018: HL finds company
An enterprising visiting climber Sunny Jamshedji and Dini came together in late August 2018 to edit the route, replacing old bolts and adding 10 bolts and rappel rings, in the process and making it accessible to the general climbing community. Four friends in two parties then climbed it last week and posted material and pictures and my interest in this rekindled. A burning desire is more accurate. HL sat high on my to-do list! I wanted to climb both HL and Cicada Uprising in a day, but I didn’t have partners, so I kind of suppressed the desire and waited.

Then, during a visit to Bangalore just a few days later, I met Madhu CR at the Avati crag and mentioned in the passing how I wished I had a partner who was fast, safe, and willing to simul-climb with me. When I explained simul-climbing, he got excited and offered to climb HL with me the next day. It was an offer too good to be true; I couldn’t think of a better partner than Madhu for this attempt. It was already past 7 pm then, so I quickly wound up my climbing and went home to research the approach/gear and ready myself.

The next morning, 9 September, I picked up Madhu from Kanteerava stadium and drove to BM Betta. Apparently Madhu had been bouldering till past 8 pm the previous evening but he seemed well-rested and seeing that, I just felt old. I break the rest of our adventure into three parts:

1. The drive
The drive from Bangalore to BM Betta was tedious. Apparently there is one more Bananthi Mari temple in the area and we ended up getting conflicting directions and moving in circles. What should have been a 2 hours drive took us almost 3.30 hours. The saving grace was internet/FB, I was able to copy the coordinates from Sohan’s old topo of Cicada Uprising on the FB group and somehow got to the correct temple, by which time it was hot and I almost thought we were done for the day, because the real challenge/uncertainty of trail finding still loomed large!

2. The approach 
The trail is confusing/counterintuitive and challenging in the best of times and the 2016 trail is now gone. You don’t see the mountain until you have walked half an hour on the trail/bushwhack before it makes a sudden, grand appearance. So, as per plan, I called up a friend Srivats who had been part of last week’s climbing parties and his brief description worked perfectly. The approach is about 45mins to an hour depending on how much bushwhacking you end up doing, and it has a bit of everything else, including down-climbing a little bouldery hillock and crossing a stream.

3. The climb
Our plan was to simul-climb this route or parts of it, if I felt good (and if it was good for me, obviously it would be good for Madhu because Madhu is an elite climber). It was Madhu’s first time simul-ing and I had explained the process during the car ride and showed him the mountaineer’s coil at the base. The following are the pitch descriptions (borrowed from Sohan/Sunny’s topo; since I was simul-climbing, I didn’t pay attention to bolt count).

1. Pitch 1: 5.8 old school, stiff 5.9 (5c or 5c+) per current standards. 6 bolts and a No. 3 BD cam.
2. 5.7 (5a), 5 bolts
3. 5.7 (5a), 3 bolts
4. 5.7 (5a), 4 bolts
5. 5.6 (4c), 3 bolts
6. 5.7 (5a), 4 bolts
7. 5.7+(5a+), 3 bolts.

Each pitch is about 37-38 meters long, with double bolt anchors with rap rings (for loose comparison, the steep Rest Day, Mumbai’s longest sport route, is ~32m long and has 17 bolts and it feels far from over-bolted). Another 40 odd feet of well-protected scrambling to top out.

Narayan Pai leading P1 last week. This was kind of deal-clincher, I loved this picture and pined to climb this!

Given that P1 at 5.9 stiff is the start of the climb, I opted to lead it belayed and see how it felt before making a more informed decision regarding simul-climbing the upper pitches. There were some moments and I took my time, but it went OK. The number 3 cam sits beautifully! Thought the crux is just after that. The pitch eases after the bulge and 6th bolt, and the section to the anchor has about 8m runout at low 5.7 grade and gives you a good feel for how the rest of the route goes. The climbing isn’t hard, but if the runout gives you jitters, now is a good time to backdown.

It is steeper than it looks!

Once I had belayed Madhu up to P1 belay, I continued on P2 and after the first 2-3 bolts, by which time the 60m rope was at mid-point, I informed Madhu of my decision to switch to simul-climbing. I had carried 10-12 draws on me and left 4-6 with Madhu because our plan was that I would lead the next 3-4 pitches until I run out of draws, and let Madhu continue leading from there. Once I started climbing, I found the climbing pretty secure and soon enough I was wishing I had carried all the draws so I could continue to cruise along till the top. The route is well-featured and has no loose rock. The fact that I knew Sunny and Dini had bolted this route (the most meticulous route setters, apart from being among the most experienced climbers in this part of the world, and with sound engineering education and experience behind them) played a huge role; I absolutely trusted their bolt placement/judgment.

After simul-leading some 3 pitches, I ran out of draws and stopped at the anchor to belay Madhu up to me (we had kept about 30m rope between us for the simul-climb; it was creating some rope drag but anything shorter would not ensure we always had 2-3 pieces between us). By then it was very hot and Madhu’s feet were hurting from tight shoes, so we decided that I lead the rest of the pitches as well.

The rest of the pitches went more easily because by then I had gotten familiar with the rock and climbing style and I had left fear behind at P1. Anchors and bolts are extremely well-chosen for a run-out classic. I even managed to skip some 3 odd bolts where I felt the rope drag would offset the additional safety, or to conserve draws, to finally reach the last anchor. About 40 more feet of scrambling leads you to the summit proper.

Summit and descent.
We had started climbing at 11:45am and topped out at the mound at 1:30pm. That is 1:45 hrs to climb about 800 feet of granite.

GTS mound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Trigonometrical_Survey

Once at the top, the 750ml water we had brought for the two of us got over and it was blazing hot, we didn’t even consider the possibility of doing CU next (Within an hour of descent, I drank more than a liter of water and 2 tender coconut waters and still didn’t pee!).

So that is how we onsighted High Lonesome!

We hiked down to the temple about 30 mins, just in time for brilliant mutton-chicken-ragi mudde communal lunch, cooked over log fires! Couldn’t imagine a nicer finish!

Delectable Ragi mudde baad oota

Thanks to Madhu for the brilliant partnership, and topos/notes by Narayan, Sohan and Srivats, and of course the gentleman who bolted this fabulous route, which all together made this possible! As an intermediate level recreational climber, I rank this among my three most memorable climbs in India, behind Deepavali ascent with Samiran (2016), and our hairy, unroped ascent/semi-free solo of Cloud Nine behind Keerthi Pais (1996), the latter two being on Savandurga. HL felt way less scary than the other two. But then I haven’t done the original HL…

As for the future, I would be happy to hear offers of partnership for a sub-1 hour ascent, and/or doing more than one lap in a day.

Climbing diary: Bangalore July 3-7, 2018

In my previous blog I had mused why I am not a climber. Well, the injury I had sustained in May was actually a metacarpal fracture (the one supporting my left hand ring finger). Which means, I had been climbing 8-9 pitches daily for 10 days in Italia Alps, wearing a smile and enjoying the trip despite the pain all the while having a broken bone, because I had commitments to my climbing partners. Hmmm, not bad, maybe I am not such a softie after all?

Anyway that and a visa issue meant that I had to cancel an invited talk in Italy and a climbing trip I had in the Alps in June-July, inform all my partners I had committed to, and make sudden plans to head off to Bangalore instead to cool off/heal. This is my first fracture in my life. I was told to wear a splint for a month and not exert my left hand for 6-8 weeks. Now all climbers are programmed to feel shattered and cry when they have injuries that force them out of action and I called up a close climbing partner to do just that.

However a few days in Bangalore back with my family set me right and I was also able to catch up on work while on vacation. Bangalore now has lots of excellent badminton halls and my brother has been playing regularly lately after work/weekends, so we began to do family trips. My dad would also join some days, and we would typically book two courts so all 6-7 of us could play. It was so much fun that I began to get used to life without climbing! This continued for about 2 weeks till I began to feel I could perhaps start with light climbing without stressing my injured hand. At this point the motivation was more to empirically test and reassure myself that I haven’t lost my climbing mojo. I was no longer craving to climb and that scared me!

Trial Day: It took me a while before I could go and test my condition before I could commit to partner with anyone. That’s because I had to go on something easy where someone else would be there as back up in case my fingers hurt under climbing load, if  I wasn’t able to climb and finish routes. The opportunity came by way of a group climb with Sunny, Suma, Kamalesh and Latha, who each are in their 40’s or 50’s and are veterans with 20-30 years of climbing experience. So we began with Karekallu in Ramanagara, which has nice easy routes on good quality granite. Chandra (my wife) got to climb a few pitches fully on top rope, which is something she was struggling to do here in Bombay. It was also inspiring for her (and me) to see these other ladies climb fluidly, with skill rather than brute strength.

After that, Sunny and I blocked 4-5 days to climb together and below is a picture album/diary of stuff we did, with links to the topos for those who may wish to climb some of those routes themselves.

Day 1: Kabbalu (Kabbaldurga):
This is the place where Sunny had been reviving some uber-classic climbs, the so-called old-school Bangalore climbs, under the guidance of Kamalesh Venugopal, one of those early climbers. Climbs with long run outs, done wearing canvas shoes and non-climbing ropes and no helmets back in the 80’s by a bunch of enterprising teens/young adults, apparently explorers at heart with balls of steel, having no other care in the world, and with a lot of time at hand! A profile that current climbers can’t perhaps match for various reasons. Much respect to those old-school climbers regardless. Kabbalu is where  multi-pitch climbing around Bangalore started.

Here’s Sunny bolting an anchor with Kamalesh for a hairy route he had climbed a few days earlier, one of the hardest and most impressive climbs around Bangalore in recent times (hard to repeat due to a combination of run-outs and difficulty of climbing and/or protection). I was happy I got a chance to top-rope it safely. I thought it was an extremely high quality climb, and not just another Bangalore granite slab. Stayed over at the homestay/room in Savandurga, one of my favourite locations to stay, so close to the forest and my favourite hill.

sdr

dav

Day 2: My main goal in this trip was to go do volumes on Banyan Tree Pillar trad climbs. Unfortunately the approach trail to BTP was overgrown and we didn’t have the equipment to fight the brambles. Each time I venture into BTP area my respect for the folks who identify/maintain the trail increases; almost anyone can climb but not everyone can handle vicious thorny trails in bear/leopard territory that BTP is. It is one serious confusing trail, the approach itself would be a fine adventure for rookies. We did give a serious attempt before feeling it was not the best ROI for us that day, so went on to do some sport climbs in Prana area instead. I didn’t have the head for leading and I didn’t particularly enjoy those climbs to be honest but I did do a couple of laps on TR to really test/push my fingers.

Moved to Achalu for homestay with Kumar’s. I love this homestay, including all the earthy smells, the bovine dung, sounds of animals, crickets, mosquitoes and insects and and stuff. Authentic lifestyle. I sleep blissfully there on the floor with a thin mattress.

Day 3: Spanish Rose. We started the day by climbing this rarely climbed classic. A nice granite crack bang inside the city of Ramanagara! Thanks to Dini for patiently taking our calls and providing us the directions to the climb and Sunny for planning and leading it. I have added some pics with captions in the topo for those who may wish to climb this route.

sdr

dig

dav

dav

It was a hot, sunny day, so we rested a bit before heading to Broomberg for an afternoon climb when it is in shade. I have climbed this route twice before, onsighting the pitches without too much trouble but this time the run-outs and the flaky rock played on my mind and I was happy to follow all pitches.

Day 4: Rest day. Sunny needed a rest day since he had been doing all the leading, the heavy lifting the last several days. So we opted to go hiking in Kunti Betta and see if we could identify or bolt some new climbs. We didn’t try too hard, and didn’t find anything.

I have been wanting to bolt some things here but Bangalore climbers justifiably don’t find it attractive because they have better options on the way…so this is a pending project for me and Prashanth. If you can arrange a drill and have genuine enthusiasm to develop climbing in Kunti Betta, message me or Prashanth Rajashekhar.

Day 5: Boom Shankar. Now this one is a mega classic! A 5-star route, in the league of Savandurga/BTP in my opinion. I am so happy I got to climb this route. Don’t ask me what is a classic or why this one is a classic; some just are and you know it when you climb it, and this is one of those. Dini described it to us and Sunny had the fortitude to explore it and I was happy to tag along. The quality of rock is perfect, the setting is grand, the exposure is terrific and in hindsight, the approach isn’t too bad either though I had serious qualms about it earlier.

The route is on the middle hillock in the picture below.

The approach seemed difficult (as you can see from the picture above), and while it did have some tough sections, including one where you are precariously crawling on all fours taking care not to unsettle a red ant nest or the thorny brambles, finally emerging out of the opening that is made and maintained by a resident bear (yeah, we were essentially following the trail made by a local bear; many of these climbs in Ramanagara are in bear territory, but me coming from leopard territory (which is IITB Powai campus!), I see it as just another animal-human co-existence, take basic precautions and move on.

Of course, as belayer while Sunny was leading the first pitch, I was a sitting duck should the bear come to investigate or the bees get agitated (there was an active bee hive at shouting distance and the leader would be an easy target for them), I was mentally ready for my emergency protocol in case I get attacked by the bear: lock off the belay and just get on the route asap. If bees, lock off the belay and roll on the ground and cover my head.

 

None of that happened and all we got was 5-star climbing. Here’s Sunny leading Pitch 1: Starts as a thin crack, the first part filled by a banyan tree root that you can use as holds, continues as a roof crack above the tree, followed by the crux move. 

Sunny finishing Pitch 2.

Peering down from Pitch 1 belay.

This is me just after the crux. One of the hardest single moves I have done on a crack climb so far. The route is graded 5.8, but in my view it is much harder, around 5.10. 

By now the crux is past and the rest of the route is fun. I wish I was carrying my Gri-Gri, which would allow me to take a few pics of Sunny leading as well (the device isn’t a hands-free device but it is easier to take pics while using one). But that’s in hindsight. before the climb all you have is the fear of the unknown, the anxiety to finish as safely and quickly as possible, and hence any extra weight is a luxury I could do without… 

 

Pitch 2

Pitch 2 is sheer joy. The point when you change from a grimace to a smile of relief as you realize the route is done! 

 

 

 

Once at the top, Sunny cleaning the anchor while I sit down to take in the views. Did someone ask why climb? Dubaara Mat Poochna! What a way to end a 5 day partnership with the Yogi of trad climbing, Sadhguru Sunny Jamshedji. A man from whom you learn a lot about everything including diet and life, besides the finer aspects of this art called trad climbing (onsight!). “Evolution”. “Expansion of the mind”. “Chop Chop Chop” (to do things quickly, with practiced precision). These are words that will haunt in my ears, and play at the back of my mind as I shift from climbing mode to my work mode. Until we meet again and the whole cycle begins. That is why we climb.

Actually this wasn’t the end, we spent some more time exploring stuff on Madhepura Betta and climbed the three single pitch routes there. Neither of us was tired ( at least I wasn’t, as I wasn’t leading) but it got dark and drizzled by then and I had to go back to my family and prep for our journey to Bombay and that’s how this trip ended. One a high note if there was one. Many notes higher than what I had envisaged when I first heard I had a fracture.

Thanks Sunny for some spectacular partnership/mentorship and coaxing me to do things I wouldn’t do if left to my choice, Dini, Sohan and Bangalore climbers for route development and info sharing.

The end!

Why I am not a climber

I have this habit of writing trip notes at the end of every climbing trip. It helps me reflect on, and see more clearly what I accomplished for the money and time I spent away from work and family. It also helps me connect with like-minded climbing partners for future trips, for, as you grow more experienced (euphemism for just plain older, eh?), you get more choosy on who you like to spend your precious time with, and vice versa. I believe I have been extremely fortunate in finding amazing partners in ALL of my previous trips in India or abroad all these years, with partners ranging from 18 years to 55 years old and bar stewards, nurses, professors and CEOs or plain climbing bums. In each trip I have acquired some new lessons, new experiences, and new perspectives and the process usually start several months before the actual trip when I start locating potential climbing partners and working out the details. Last year in Indian Creek/Colorado, for example, when I was with a smart and seasoned climbing partner, I acquired more learning and techniques in a few weeks than I would hope to in an entire year. So I say success of a climbing trip is 10% rock/place/country, 30% weather, and 60% climbing partner, or something like that.

Given this background, as I sit here in a hotel room, reflecting on the last ~15 days of almost daily climbing, fine Italian coffee and wines (I later heard the coffee beans actually come from Chickmagalur near Tarikere) in Finale Ligure, Dolomites and Arco, which are arguably among the world’s finest climbing destinations for a combination of grandeur of climbs, weather, and cuisine, the one single lesson/revelation that struck me hard is, and this can seem a big let-down to whose who know me as a climber, that I am NOT a climber!

Let me explain.

Today’s narrative of climbing (or running marathons) is that of an escape from a boring job or a difficult marriage or just plain midlife crises or a combination of the above. The archetype of climber is a “dirtbag”, someone who doesn’t really work for a living, doesn’t have a family (note that the male to female ratio is less than 5:1 in this circle and you can figure out the rest), eats frugally, and lives to climb; shave and shower are optional/occasional. While this term/style was made famous by some really talented climbers like Fred Beckey in the US more half a century ago, today talent isn’t all that important, especially if you have the money to spend as a climber-consumer. Chuck the city job and go travelling and climbing full-time is the motto popularized by the industry and by people who genuinely have bad jobs/relationships, for whom such a break may be justified, and that is what makes you a true climber in the popular culture. That’s the dominant paradigm. Now I don’t have the time to mull over these things in too much detail when I am in Mumbai, but I got a chance to just this in this trip and realized, alas, (ahem, pardon the smugness here) I just don’t fit this bill in any way, not remotely! So I can’t be a true-blood climber!

Because barely one week into the trip (and despite having such amazing climbing partners and having the best time of my life), I had begun to miss my family and my work (in particular my doctoral students who are my research partners) because it is when you are away that you realize how much/whether you love them and how you didn’t have the time to appreciate that. And I was constantly thinking how I could make my wife a part of my future trips (which is the primary reason I am writing this note). Today is the last day of an academic conference that I am attending in Udine, Italy and the highlight of the conference was an organized tour of Venice (a city I haven’t seen). I opted out of it because I began to feel I have already had too much of these wine tasting and dinners, I just wanted to sit back in my hotel room and use the hours saved to catch up on work from which I was having withdrawal symptoms, and reflect on my days spent before I board the flight to Mumbai tomorrow.

A contributory factor to this realization was my climbing partners in this trip. One was a quintessential Swiss, extremely precise and polite in his manners, who seemed to enjoy the perfect balance of his IT work and climbing. He is single and for his talents and personality he could go on to become a climbing guide (an IFMGA guide is a pretty tough-to-acquire skills and a well-paying job in Europe, particularly CH) if he wished but he had clarity on why he didn’t want to become one. (That is different from my case where I can’t become one even if I wanted to).

The other was a German professor friend of mine, a couple of years older than me and has a family like I do. He has been climbing for 30 years and seems to have found a way to enjoy climbing, with intensity but without showing it. Each day with them was super-efficient and productive, as much as I do with full-time climbers as climbing partners, Ending the day with good conversations, good food and good wine. Clean, Type 1 fun, which is becoming a rarity in our circle, it seems. I only hear stories of Type 2 fun, the scary, masochist type of fun.

Now, cutting to the chase, I end this note with plans for the future. My 2018 plans are already made, but when I make plans for 2019 I am definitely planning to make my lovely wife a part of it and if the idea appeals to you you are welcome to join. Most of these climbing locations in Europe are highly amenable for comfortable family-trips with no limits on the more ambitious climbers to push their grades/volumes. I have done such trips in the past, notably Mallorca, with my Swiss single climbing and my family, where it was possibly to climb 100% seriously, using rest days to spend with the family and such. The days are so long (over 16 hours) that there is so much more you can do, no one can climb more than 6 hours per day back to back days.

So if you are one of those mature climbers in Mumbai or Bangalore, have a non-climbing wife that you want to get into climbing but not so seriously, or are a young/single rope gun who knows how I climb when I am on a climbing trip (when I climb I climb with seriousness and 100% commitment*; I don’t have spare time or cash to splurge), and think you might want to do such trips with me, please get in touch by commenting below or pm . If your wife isn’t climbing yet, get in touch too! We need to develop more family-climbers in Bombay. I do have a list of more serious alpine stuff that I want to do in the Alps in this lifetime, which I would separately take off for, after doing a week or two long family trip. I know 2019 is a long way, but those of us in the mid-40’s have less than two decades of climbing time left (if we are lucky) so we need to plan ahead and use our time well.

* There can be exceptions. Earlier in the day that I took a lead fall in Finale and hurt my hand (it is a minor injury by the standards of hardcore climbers but I admit I am a wimp; it is a big deal for me who professes injury-free climbing), I had heard the news that my paper with my former climbing partner Narendra had been chosen as a finalist for the best paper award at the top conference in our field (Academy of Management to be held in Chicago later this year). That meant a lot to me because I am not such a big league player at work and it was playing on my mind when I went to the crag that day. And after the fall, I remembered the story of Sage Jamadagni and his wife. On that one day, the one fleeting moment when Mrs. Jamadagni gets distracted from her 100% commitment towards her husband and gazes at some random handsome young dude bathing or something, she could not no longer make a pot out of loose sand like she used to before… I should have gone easy that day; I needed rest and mentally I was less than 100% into the climb that day. I paid a price. Trust me, lesson learnt.

The middle peak is Punta delle Cinque Dita (the five fingertips), with the distinctive thumb being our objective, in the Sassolungo Group, Sella Pass, Dolomites, Italian Alps was one of the routes we wanted to do in this trip. It is a low grade, poorly protected route approx. 10 pitches (depending on how you make pitches), but we couldn’t do it since we got rained out. We instead did some sport climbing at its base.