In September veteran climbers from Pune organized a trip with climbers from the “new generation” to stimulate interest in big-wall climbing. The Sahyadri Range, east of Mumbai, is composed of black basalt, and offers innumerable opportunities for rock climbing. The biggest wall is the vegetated 850m north face of Dhakoba. It had only been climbed once, in December 1989, by Pune climbers via a route on the right side. We climbed a new route on the left side over four consecutive days in early January 2013. The total length of our climb was around 1,100m (21 pitches to 6b+/6c).

December and January are the best months for climbing in the Sahyadri, and as the wall faces north we were cool the whole time. Our only problem was active honeybee disturbance: This lasted two hours every morning, and during that time we simply had to cover ourselves and stay calm.

Samiran Kolhe, India