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Hmachal 2012

I want you want, FA   5.10+, traditional, April 2012  Vashisht, Manali 

As the summer was getting intense we decided to leave Kolkata for Manali, and was looking forward to some adventure in the mountains.
We arrived in Manali via Delhi on 13th of April, we reached in early morning and the fresh cold mountain air rejuvenated us from our travel through the intense summer plains. On reaching Vashisht we took shelter on a friend's guest house behind the temple.
Vashisht is situated above Manali about 2.5 km from the bustling Manali bus stand.The hot water spring and the adjacent temple attracts a lot of tourist to this place. Behind the temple one can see cliffs rising above the grassy slopes and without any hesitation an intrepid climber will feel attracted to its sheer faces, slabs and cracks, offering classic and worthy challenges  for putting up new routes. 

I want U want 5.10+

 On 15th of April we went up to check possible lines. From the guest house a steep hike through rough trails leads towards the cliff bands which is situated above the orchard fields and the boulders. The rock is compact without much loose stuff,  so we looked for crack lines to attempt routes from ground up, without using bolts. We hiked around and found one such line in danger zone sector, ( thus named by Dave Morahan a British climber who lived at Vashisht for few years) a steep spliter crack on the middle of a 70 feet wall, but the crack dose not lead to the top of the wall ,so it looked like we have to traverse right over a bulge to a slab section which leads to the top of the cliff, by that time it had started to rain, so we decided to go down to the guest house. At night after dinner we sorted out our gear, cams and nuts will do for the crack, mostly of 2 to 3.5 size cams (camp and cassin)  and a set of nuts, a 50 mt 10 mm rope, 6 quick draws and some slings for the belay anchor,there are lot of trees for the belay above the cliff, which helped to trim down the rack. we packed our staff and went to sleep with a lot of anticipation for the next big day.
The next day we reached the bottom of the route early afternoon, Jibbi went for it, climbing the crack smoothly and placing the necessary gear,then he had to traverse right towards the easier slab, the crux of the climb, which is consisted of some bold rock over moves on tiny crimps, he almost pulled it off  but  for a foot sleep, he took a long swinging fall and hurt his back, he was lowered off the high cam he placed just before the start of the traverse, while lowering he cleaned the rest of the gear. We got down to the guest house, Jibbi was having significant pain in the back and had to take painkillers, so we decided to rest for the next day.
On 18th we were back on the bottom of the route, Jibbi was still suffering from the pain but was ready to complete the route ,this time i went for it, with the cam in place from our previous attempt, the crack is really nice and offered good hand jams, after that the crux of the climb, the thin traverse towards the slab ,with chalk marks and beta from the previous attempt it was a bit easier and i managed to complete it, the last 20 feet  has no protection but the climbing was easy. Jibbi followed and cleaned the pitch, i did the route again placing all the gear in lead and thus made a proper free ascent, Jibbi followed again and cleaned it, because of the traverse it was not possible to clean on abseil. We were super happy with our first ascent of this pure line.
For the  next few days we invested some time in cleaning some other lines, one very nice looking overhanging arete was among these ,but frequent rains and heavy work of cleaning made the progress slow so we decided to call it off for this time, We were very happy to put up a first ascent and left Manali with lot of satisfaction.        
        
  
View from Vashisht 

    

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