Suru Boulder Fest
The Indian climbing community is scattered all over India with the topmost climbers spread throughout the nation, ranging from Pune and Mumbai to Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta and other regions. While they are climbing at places nearby them and do yearly trips to Hampi and Badami and send some really hard routes, everyone longs to go to the Himalayas and climb someday.
Ladakh is the heaven for climbing and mountaineering. Guided peak climbing expeditions are are a hit with hundreds of mountaineers coming in to climb to summit of the snow-capped mountains but rarely do we see an open event for rock climbing. With this in mind, Suhail and Jamyang from GraviT (India’s first and highest artificial bouldering gym-cafe in Leh, situated at altitude of 3500 m) came up with this idea of organising an open. Both of them are strong & inspiring climbers who have been instrumental in developing the climbing community in Ladakh and they regularly guide and climb with so many foreigner climbers and host Indian athletes who want to climb in Ladakh. This festival is supported by Woodland and 4Play
Suru Valley, located at altitude of 4000m, is one of the most beautiful and picturesque valleys in the world to have innumerable boulders, high-balls and so much to be explored. With this in mind, they have put up this “Suru Boulder Fest” to give opportunity to climbers all over India to come and climb in this bouldering-heaven, meet fellow climbers from all over the nation, exchange guidance, tips, techniques and climb together.
Bouldering in Suru
The valleys in Ladakh are remote and sometimes difficult to access on our own. They are not yet commercial, hence the routes are not in guidebook, frequency of public transport is scarce and management of logistics such as food, tents, safety and orientation, first aid and rescue for more than a week is a huge task which makes it even more hard to go there despite having friends who want to go there. So this festival is a great chance to everyone to come there and climb as all the above things have been already taken care of.
Some of the top sports climbers and national medalists have already registered for the trip and you have a chance to climb with them or witness them climbing. The area is so less known and less explored that you might even have a number of first ascents to your name.
Even non-climbers or beginners will have superb time of 2 weeks with a hoard of other activities like yoga, slacklining, fishing, juggling and much more.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHP2I2gBgzn/?taken-by=adventureishani
The cost for this 14 day trip is Rs 24,500 INR per person which includes transport from Leh to Leh, camping during the trip, healthy meals and technical guidance and expertise.
About Suru Valley Rock Climbing Location:
One of the first climbers to explore the area was the legendary duo Micah Dash and Johnny Copp in 2007 when they arrived in the area to climb the 1000m Shafat fortress. They spent a few days bouldering in the area while acclimatizing before their climb. The team at Gravit explored the lower Suru area in 2011 and has had few trips there since. In 2015 Swiss climber Pirmin Bertle opened the hardest boulder problem in India ‘BACTERIA ‘in the upper Suru region.
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