Vanarlingi (Khada Parsi) Re-bolting Project completed by Giridarshan & Safe Climbing Initiative team

March 18, 2010 - PRLog -- Pune 18th March 10:- Shri Satish Marathe, President, Giridarshan Trekking Club along with Mr. Anil Khaire, President Safe Climbing Initiative (SCI) jointly announced that Vanarlingi ( Khada Parsi ) re-bolting project has been successfully completed.

The scenic location of Vanarlingi (Khada Parsi) is situated near Nane Ghat, 24 kms away from Junner. One can go to Ghatghar Village from Junnar by road after which a small trek route of 2kms leads to Fort Jivdhan where we can reach in approx 1 ½ hrs. This fort was a controlling point on a trade route passing through Nane Ghat which was in use since more than 2000 years. The location of the Vanarlingi ( Khada Parsi ) is just next to Jivdhan fort. Climbing height of this pinnacle is 400ft from its base. This pinnacle posses a great challenge to rock climbers & adventure lovers. It was first climbed in 1983 by a Mumbai based Mountaineering Club. The climbing grade of this pinnacle is very difficult and one should always carry a complete set of rock climbing equipment with them. Earlier many rock climbers used to climb this pinnacle on old bolts which were not tested for their weight capacity & life.  

Mr. Satish Marathe, President, Giridarshan Trekking Club , said “ On Thursday 11th March 2010 this expedition started with team members from both NGO’s Giridarshan Trekking Club and Safe Climbing Initiative, reached the base of Vanarlingi which is also called as Khada Parsi. The first day was kept reserved for establishing the campsite and arranging for other things like water etc. On 12th of March actual action started with the climb of the pinnacle.

Indraneel & Shripad started climbing the pinnacle in the morning at 7.30am & reached on the top at 11.30am, while climbing they placed the safety bolts at each station till summit. There are 4 stations and the distance between 2 stations is about 25 Mtrs. While doing all this Swanand Joshi started climbing the pinnacle. During his climb he marked all the re-bolting points for placement of bolts.”

From the 2nd day technical team started placing all the bolts on the climbing face and after placing all the bolts 2 teams climbed the entire pinnacle to recheck the positions. Corrections were made according to their suggestions, and finally the route was made safe.

Mr. Surendra Shelkhe , Secretary, SCI said “ The main attraction of this fort is Valley crossing, which is now safe by successful completion of rebolting project. The new bolts are made out of V2A steel. The climber’s need to drill 9 cm deep and 18 mm wide hole at the marked location, with this we also use a special Chemical Tube for fixing the bolts. Battery operated drill machines used for this only drives 4 or 5 holes in one recharge and for this a generator was arranged on the site. By using this method the climb was made safe by placing 62 bolts on the pinnacle”.

After this Jivdhan fort was made safe by placing 15 bolts. Trekking route from Ghatghar side to the fort was made safe by using 4 bolts of 9cms & the other entrance of the fort was made safe by using 6 bolts of 9cms. The top section of the fort from where people do valley crossing directly on the Vanarlingi ( Khada Parsi ) pinnacle, at this location we used 18cms long bolts.  In all 77 bolts were placed for safety of the Pinnacle & the fort.

Shri Anil Khaire (President- SCI) has requested all Climbers, Trekkers, Mountaineers all Trekking and Mountaineering clubs to join SCI for this work.

Special Thanks to Mr. Dieter who got the special machine from Germany, which helped the SCI members to finish the project on time.

There was a strong team of 150 members from Giridarshan and Safe Climbing Initiative to complete this project. Purshottam Thakar from Giridarshan trekking club & Vikas Kaduskar from SCI were the project leaders for this project. Surendra Shelke, Vivek Marathe, Swanand Joshi, Shripad Sapkal, Dr. Narendra Patil, Ramesh Gulve, Sagar Palkar, Indraneel, Balaji Mane, Somnath Shinde, Sudhir Nigde, Satyavan, Praveen, Shrihari, Kalidas, Anand Birajdar, Prashant Pawar etc. installed the bolts & completed the project at actual location. Kitchen, Logistics and all other work was well managed by Shrikant, Siddharth, Pramod, Adinath, Shrikant Chavan, Rajendra, Amit Modak, Ranjeet, Ajit Kale, Yogesh, Ishani, Santosh, Avinav, Amit Govande, Kavita etc…

Dr. Bhushan Dhande from B J Medical College Mountaineering Academy took care of Medical facility for this Expedition. Photography credit goes to Prasad Dabke & Video shooting credit to Prashant Pawar.

About Girdarshan Trekking Club, Pune is a NGO formed in 1994 for promotion of trekking & adventure activities. Till date they have visited about 250 forts and have gathered detailed information about them. They have also done extensive trekking & bike expedition in Sahyadris & Himalaya. For their purpose they arrange photo exhibitions, slide shows, cleaning drives & lectures at various places. Till date they have more than 1200 members & also more than 10,000 people have participated in various activities. The club has published 2 sets of VCD’s on various forts.

About Safe Climbing Initiative (SCI)

Eight years ago renowned mountaineer and climber Prof Nicholas Mylander visited India he was here for Yoga but got to know about climbing happening in Sahyadris. He went to many climbing routes had a survey on this and came to a conclusion that climbers over here are risking there life’s while climbing on these routes. The bolts used on these routes did not have any standards; many bolts were in a very pity condition and almost broken due to rusting and aging. He meet climbers in Pune and told them about this and taught them about Safety this resulted in formation of a NGO ‘Safe Climbing Initiative’ which is formed for making safe all the climbing routes in India.

After the formation of this NGO the first activity done was Dukes Nose. Dukes Nose activity was a success for this project the bolts used were manufactured in Germany and were donated by Nicholas Mylander he also gave SCI drill machine for the drilling work to place the bolts. Every time getting bolts from Germany was not viable on financial basis as it was very costly to have the bolts from Germany for this SCI started preparing their own bolts for which a special type of steel called V2A steel was used the angle which has to given to the bolt needed a bending machine, Nicholas had given a bending machine which was modified for the bolts by Vijay Limaye and the bolts were prepared in India. The bolts were made but this needed to be tested for the safety norms as per the International Standards for which the bolts were sent to Germany and tested, the tests showed that the Bolts withstand upto 3000 kg.

SCI does this projects in a very unique way in which one project is given to one organization in other words any organization can adopt one or many projects from SCI. SCI has a very important role in this and Bolts, Chemical Tubes, Drilling Machine, Equipment is provided by SCI also during the project SCI gives training to people for bolt placement. The organization which has adopted the project are required to sponsor the project in which they have to arrange food, transport, generator, photography, video shooting, press etc. The most important part for them is to make maximum participation in this so that more and more people get aware of Safety. Till date SCI have done 4 such re-bolting projects in Maharashtra.