Shailbhramar Mountaineering Club is completely devoted in promoting adventure sports and nature conservation. Primarily a rock climbing club highly invloved in advanced rock climbing in shyadris in Maharashtra, India. Also active in doing Himalayan expeditions from last 20 years.
Activities
- Climbing
Known as a hard core climbing club in the Mumbai, shailbhramar has come a long was in this particular area. The club is graced by having fantastic climbers of all time who conquered the toughest pinnacles in shayadris. The first stone was laid by Mr. Ashok Pawar Patil who took the first climbing expedition to Nasik. Further from there Mr. Prashant Chaugule lead the team to Lingana which was again successful. Lot of small expeditions started going which boosted the confidence of the club members and so the climbers got established in the club. Along with the new people joining in the team planned for its first Himalayan expedition under the leadership of Mr. Sanjay Rangnekar (Mumbai Police) and successfully climbed the peak “Hanuman Tibba”. In the initial stages the club had financial hurdles for buying expensive climbing instruments which was tackled intelligently by the club members. All the expenses and purchases were done in phases and according to the climbing expeditions which were organized after much planning and discussions between the members. There were few good rock climbers who joined in during these expeditions who brought good experience with them for the club. Members like Satish Borse, Sunil Kadam, Bharat Vichare, Suvarna Bendkhale, Prakash Revdekar, Harish Dalvi, Vasant Utikar, Chandramani Jadhav, Sanjay Ghag, Sandeep Bendkhale, Girish Thakur, Narendra Sankpal, Manik Malji, Santosh Nigde and Gita Utikar started regular expedition of rock climbing and successfully completed those activities. Further in 1995 Shailbhramar took up projects in Mahuli where the team climbed a virgin pinnacle named later as Vajantri. No other team has till date tried to climb this pinnacle because of its tough climb. Later the club had more new members coming in like Hitendra More, Sunil Totre, Pallavi Vartak, Sanjay Tambe, Vaishali Rane, Manoj Satardekar, Prathmesh Parab, Sachin Pawar and many more coming in to be a part of this club. With Hitendra coming in the club has prospered in these years with climbing almost 40 virgin pinnacles with the help of Sunil Totre. This duo has their own style and grace of climbing and fantastic coordination which helped the club to climb multiple pinnacles in one expedition. They have also received lot of awards and recognition for their outstanding performance in this field. To further mention the name of Pallavi Vartak who has done a big contribution for the club in terms of climbing maximum pinnacles in shayadris and recognized by multiple awards. All these members have taken the name of Shailbhramar to new heights by setting very high standards.
- Film Festival
Taking difficult challenged in climbing the most toughest routes in shyadris, Shailbhramar thought that all these extraordinary activities and talent has to be captured in some way or other. So that it can be shared to a wider audience and let people know about the work we do in this field of climbing. Initially there were article published in local newspaper but due to article length constraints and availability of columns we have to be dependent on them. Also there was a constraint on giving pictures captured during the climbing programs as the newspaper was not keen on adding colour pictures and similar issues were faced. Then came the idea of recording the full program and since the Girimitra Sammelan a controlling body which takes account of all the work done by different clubs in such areas came up with a exhibiting these talents by showing the films in the yearly meet under a larger audience. We then started covering all our programs and did the necessary editing to get the film a proper presentable format.
For initial years this was a confirmed activity for the club. Then going further we thought that we can also come up with a film festival format where we can exhibit our as well as other clubs who have done similar activities in rock climbing and nature conservation and who have covered their programs in a documentary format can be featured. Shortly Shailbhramar came up with this program properly worked upon and came up with the first film festival in the year 2005. The response was overwhelming and that gave us a boost to continue this show till date. This year it was the 5th Film Festival organized at Sachivalaya Gymkhana on 20th September, which also a very good response where 7 films were featured on Rock Climbing and Nature Conservation.
Objective
The main objective of Shailbhramar contribution in Rock Climbing and Nature Conservation is to give the youth a guidance and vigour to a purpose to explore the inner side of their personality and in a way contributing to conserve nature for coming generations. The sport brings out the best qualities inside a person and also ensures that these qualities are harnessed to become a fantastic human being which people admire. It helps the youth to know the best inside them and harness those qualities rather than getting involved in unnecessary addictions which now-a-days happening more often.
Conclude
To conclude with this introduction welcome all the mountaineers at this new initiative taken by the club of having a blog open to all of us to express ourselves to this world and contribute in some way or other to groom this sport in Maharashtra. In my sincere efforts to bring this platform i take this opportunity to thank all those who have stood beside me for my work, all my teammates without which we couldn’t have reached these heights. Looking forward to see a lot of knowledge sharing from all of you.
-Prakash Walwekar
