The Great Wall of New Delhi

Plastic Sketch-tastic!

Presenting the World's Scariest Climbing Wall, in New Delhi

Published in Climbing Magazine # 270, October 2008 

Download the original article here.

 
I'm supposed to be belaying Mo, but it's tough. The hot sand in the pit is burning my feet. A scrawny stray bitch is barking at me, protecting her puppies hidden behind the wall. Vicious mosquitoes, breeding in the murky green pond, spiral like Stukas above my head, dive-bombing in ten at a time. I smear on chalk but it's no use. A skinny young "instructor" in tight jeans and a tattered circa '80s harness is waving a notebook at my face – he wants me to sign in before climbing. Suddenly, Mo yells – the hold on the overhanging wall has just rotated, throwing him off. Life is always just a little over the top in India, and the chaos just never lets up…
 
If Austin Powers were a climber, this would be Dr. Evil's secret headquarters. The Indian Mountaineering Foundation is the most powerful institution in the world - if you have any interest in climbing in the Indian Himalayas. Planning a trip to the Arwa Spires, or even that giant, Kanchenjunga? You'll have to negotiate your way through the permit raj of the IMF, located in New Delhi, India. Its exterior is deceiving. A pleasant complex of trees, tended gardens, vine-covered buildings dominated by a large, outdoor climbing wall. This is where hardcore Himalayan alpinists, driven to exhaustion, meet their final challenge – waiting for lost airline baggage and finalising permits. What is an expedition to do in these circumstances? The only thing left to do of course - climb the damn wall.
 
The Great Wall of New Delhi (otherwise labeled "Tata Climbing Wall" for its main mega-corporate sponsor) is the centre of climbing in the city. A fearsome overhanging grey monolith, baking under the sun, cracked, ribbed and streaked with dark weathered stripes. Rising fifteen meters to the sky; protected by sharp, furry rust-red thorny bolts, pocked with sprouting bushes of weathered holds, guarded with broken, gaping panels and waxed jugs strip-threaded-in with the wrongly-sized screws, acquired in the last bulk purchase by the pot-bellied, tea-swigging, TPS Report packing mandarins of Indian mountaineering.
 
In 1991, nearly 40 years Tenzing Norgay managed to obtain a Sherpa license from the permit gremlins, the IMF decided to build a wall in the city to "train young climbers". Two noob tradsters from New Delhi's premiere architecture school sent in an ambitious proposal. A construction clusterfuck duly ensued, till the original, modular panel wall, with changeable angles controlled by steel cables, monsoon-rusted into a perpetually overhanging position.
 
This is where they all meet - elite international climbers, clueless Indian gym rats and a host of other hangers-on. Gilles Morris* is a Frenchman, an alpine climber who works for Air France's Delhi office. We discuss the moves. "Zat yellow pocket zere, vell, zhat was a pocket but eet rhotates to ze lheft. Maybee you could undercleeng eet", he says. Mo shrugs. "Just climb it dude", he says, in the typical make-do-with-what-you've-got Indian je ne sais quoi.
 
Climbing here is neither safe nor secure – in many senses of the word. in 2003, someone fell awkwardly while traversing four feet off the ground and broke his leg. "Climbing is unsafe", the Director apparently muttered, "we cannot allow such risky activities to continue at this institution!" **
 
The wall then remained closed for half a year until some "difficult foreigner" complained. The re-opening was accompanied by registration, membership and fee-paying, all regulated by a collection of rag-tag instructors.
 
New routes are put up by willing participants. There are no tapes or other markings, so the six meter-wide wall will have three routes – left, middle and center. Often, visiting French climbers and self-declared foreign "experts" strike deals with the establishment to run "route-setting camps".
 
Climbing here costs practically nothing, and operates under the old iron-curtain discriminatory system of "Indian vs. Foreigner", the former paying much less. Maybe that's what stopped the Huber brothers from jumping on the wall when they were here organizing their permits for Shivling?
 
I lower Mo. Mohit Oberoi, the local hardman ("local" covering all of India) is the author of the only published guidebook in the country, for Delhi; sold from his climbing store a few hundred meters down the road. It's getting late and the lights have stopped working again. Someone's got to take the top draws off. Amit offers to solo up the steel support structure at the back (there's no other way to access the top). Obsessed sport rat 'Samurai' Tony says, wait, let me tackle that rotating hold. He jumps on for a last round before a night of beer, kebabs and Taka's slideshow from his solo base-climb epic on neighbouring Trango.
 
*Certain names changed to protect identities from being blacklisted from the Indian Himalayas. And his accent's not that bad, actually.
 
**As reported through a source
 
 

BOX: The Great Rocks of India
 
Delhi and the foothills
The only city with ease of access, a history of "clean" trad and guidebook to the area's rocks, Delhi has several climbing areas clustered within and around. Such as the dusty, loose-rock crags of Dhauj, where FAs get put up in 44°C and boys follow you up 5th class rock in rubber flip flops, while a crowd of a hundred villagers gather to watch "a death taking place today".
 
Bangalore and around
The Bollywood uber-classic Sholay (which ran five straight years in one theatre) was filmed just 40 klicks from the IT center of the world, in Ramnagar, a little collection of granite hills anywhere from two hundred to a thousand feet high. It's got everything – from tenuous, sparsely bolted slabs to overhangs and cracks. Check out Shanti, an accessible three-pitch "adventure" bolted climb following a crack system, with a descent via a steep claustrophobic chimney that leads to a "bear cave". No kidding.
Hampi and Badami - Sure, Chris Sharma in Pilgrimage showed us that Hampi has some of the best rock in India, but they didn't talk about the several miles-long cliffs of Badami, not too far away in the same state.
 
Bombay and the Western Ghats
The pleasures of jungle bushwhacking can be had outside Bombay in the Western Ghats, the western walls of an ancient volcanic plateau. Established ascents include rock towers in the Sahyadris (like the Khadha Parsi Spire), to Duke's Nose near Pune. Just don't drown in the monsoon rains.
 
Kashmir and Himalayan Areas
With the Kashmir situation getting better, some of the best Indian outdoors are getting easy to access. Barely 4 hours from Delhi (local flight + drive time), Sonamarg with the easy-to-reach Thajevas Glacier has easy access 5000m+ peaks. Huge alpine rock faces line the valley - in fact, RAF personnel posted in the early 1950s scoped the area and wrote a now-mythical guidebook.