Telbaila

Telbaila
Region : Mulshi
Height : 3322 ft (above MSL)
Base Village : Telbaila

Telbaila is basically a watch tower built to guard over the Sahwashni ghat near Pali. It consists of two rock walls , the left and the right clearly differentiated by the col in between. Though not of much historic importance - the rock walls of Telbaila offer great rock climbing opportunities of technical grade.

I climbed the left inner wall on 19-20 Jan 2008 , with trek-di (an organization which organizes treks). This was my first technical rock climb and I was very excited.

We started on saturday from FC at 3pm towards telbaila in a sumo. We were around 7 participants + the trek leader (Shridhar) from trek-di. Rock climbing experts were to join us at Telbaila village in the evening. We reached Lonavala at 4pm and started towards Telbaila via Amby valley , had some tea at Peth Shahpur and proceeded. The road after Sahara city is a mess with big craters on the road. We reached Tel Bail phata and turned right and went ahead. Here there is a kaccha road upto the village. We reached the village at 5.30pm and got a house veranda to stay. The walls were looking cool from here. I was a little apprehensive about climbing but decided to do it anyway.

Some time later rock climbing experts Bhau Satarkar (who is an expert and has been climbing for almost 20 years now) and Hemant came in. They were to fix ropes for us and help us during the climb. As the sun set the cold started creeping it. We learnt that it was "Urus" time in the village and so the village was very crowded and loudspeakers were blaring at full volume. We had a good dinner of chapati-bhaji and went off to sleep. But we could not sleep because the loudspeakers blared the whole night ... it was like someone used to sing bhajans turn by turn all through the night..it was very irritating but we couldnt do any thing :)

We woke up in the morning at 5.30am and had hot tea and breakfast and then got our harnesses and carabiners from the experts and started for the base of the wall at 7.45am. We reached the base - there is a temple at the base and people from the village come there to pray. There is also a water tank at the base with cool water. We then sat at the base while Bhau and the others went about their task of fixing rope by free climbing. The wall is not very difficult but you cannot climb it free style. The route goes in this manner - the first patch is about 60 feet of rock - after that patch we traverse left and walk over half broken steps and come to a small cave - ahead there are steps again broken and there is a cave next where there is a a water tank. Next patch is about 40 feet but its an overhang with no holds in the rock but small cracks , we have to jumar up holding the rocks and go ahead. Above there are steps again broken upto the top. The top is very narrow about 2-3 m wide and nothing to see on top just rocks and the amazing views all around like Sudhagad , Ghangad and sarasgad and others.

One by one all of the climbers climbed the first patch - some climbed fast - some slow. On my turn i climbed successfully , at some points there was absolutely no foothold and I had to literally pull the rope and get up - but that experience was too good. Got some bruises on my hand but nothing compared to the experience. After the first patch traverse was done from the left over half broken steps and to the 2nd cave. Had a lunch of methi parathas here and waited on my turn to jumar up from here. The jumaring part was a little tricky and Bhau was helping us go up by using a pulley and asking us to jumar...me as i was doing it for the first time did it quite fast and it didnt feel difficult but while climbing I used to get a little frightened but i had faith in the equipment. After the overhang i came to the steps and went ahead and in 10-15 minutes reached the summit at 2.30pm. Reaching the top I was very happy and elated...saw some cool views around. On top there's nothing much and its too narrow so we just sat there for 10 minutes admiring the views and started climbing down the same way till the first patch. Then we rapelled down the first patch - that was also a very great experience coming down. It was around 6.30pm when everyone came down and we started for the village down - it was sunset already but the moon was almost full so we found our way fast.

Coming down we started for Pune at 7.30pm and came home by 10pm.

All in all it was a great first experience of climbing rock patch with all the things attached.