The Duke's Nose

Saturday May 26, 2007

After a brief chat conversation with Shripad, I decided to fit one more thing into my already packed sack: some beer…errr some gear to climb Duke’s Nose. Shripad has been up this wall some 5 times and was looking for someone to climb Duke’s again for some practice before he set off to the Karakorams for an expedition. He got more than what he had bargained for. Instead of one climbing partner, he got 2 more – Sneha and Meenaz. The whole planning over the net was somehow getting a bit too impersonal. I mean the butterflies in my stomach were missing initially. But as D-day started to come closer the butterflies attacked in hordes with each passing day.

As the speakers blasted “Papa was a rolling stone”, Sneha, Meenaz and I were rolling on the Mumbai Pune expressway. It was roughly 6 am when we met Shirpad and his friend Mithika at Lonavala. Since none of the shops were open at that time, we couldn’t get waste anytime drinking tea or coffee. So we proceeded towards the base village. Mithika happened to know Sneha. Both of them were at NIM together.

This was the third time I was meeting Shripad. I met Shripad some months back, after we bumped into each other on orkut. Over the months I kept in touch with him but rarely met him. This was the first time I was all set to climb with him. He is a well known face in the Pune climbing scene. Not one of the loudest, but yes one of the most humble kinds. After much probing he will tell you his long list of impressive climbs. Climbing Duke’s Nose with his regular partner in 1.5 hours flat or the first ascent of Kapro Kangri in the Karakorams for example.

As we walked towards the base, all of us just got to know each other better. The walk was more or less gradual and took 30 mins. We suddenly came out on this plateau from where I could see the Mumbai Pune Expressway. Just then Shripad had a wicked smile. He asked us to turn left. And BOOM! Here it was, the massive 800 feet rock monolith called Duke’s Nose. For a few minutes none of us could take our eyes of it. There was a strange mix of fear and excitement.

This is the first time I had ever seen Duke’s Nose in person, having studied it only in photographs, but my first reactions faded away quickly and my body started to sweat when I thought about what I am going to do. I have taken the challenge of climbing Duke’s Nose, so the height that brought me to a frenzy, now was giving me some serious goose bumps. My lifelong fear of falling had suddenly overcome the initial excitement as I continue towards the base of this giant.

While chanting I can’t believe I’m going to climb that over and over in my head, I soon found myself anchored on the ledge below the upper 300 feet of this rock monolith along with Sneha, Meenaz, Shripad and Mithika. Mithka had come along just to soak in the fun and yes the sun. But having her around was simply great. She took the camera and promised us that there will surely be some snaps cool enough to be uploaded on the orkut album. It was decided that Meenaz would lead the first pitch. Shripad would be the second man followed by Sneha and I would clean up the route. Shripad told me that they refer the last man as the jaduwala. Err…whatever man, who cared.















At 8.30 Meenaz clipped on the first quick draw on the face. The first pitch was a steep route but with places to rest and the occasional jug hold. She led it very smoothly. 12 QDs clipped and she was up the 1st ledge. Till some days back Duke’s was something that we had just dreamt of, so it was great to see her lead. Fortunately, the weather was unusually cool, and we were able to check out the first pitch while it was still in the shade. Shripad zoomed off like a spider. Sneha followed him. They hauled up two small pittus with 3 liters of water and a few bananas. I swept the place after explaining Mithika how to use the camera. The friction was superb. And before I could realize, I was at the 1st ledge a bit dazed. WHOA man!








The next pitch say just about 40 feet above was Shirpad’s lead. This small traverse towards the right seemed to be a routine affair for him. In about 30 mins all four of us reached this ledge. The ledge was a tiny one, but big enough for 4 of us to hang. The route above was clearly visible. It was an up going traverse towards the left, right below the overhanging crack. Shirpad said that the next pitch will be the one directly above the crack and not below it. A banana and a few sips of water and he started the lead again. He reached the base of the crack quite quickly. After that it seemed quite an effort even for him. I shouted a few words of encouragement as Shripad tenaciously worked his way up the pitch. Quite a few push pulls and he was finally up this hair rising pitch. “Alright guys…Am anchored”, he thundered.

I figured the climbing would be easier above, but this didn’t turn out to be the case. Meenaz and Sneha went after him. Both of them climbed till the base of the crack and then clipped on their jummars on the supply line to go beyond the overhang. That’s when there were slight problems. The sun started blazing. We ran out of water! And more importantly there was a problem with the jummar. Shripad was used to jummaring with a single jummar. We weren’t. So he lowered the 2nd jummar. But then again it dint have a proper leg loop, something that we were used too. So it took a some effort for these two iron janes to jummar up. The wind was so loud that communication would have been a big problem if not for Benji’s walkie talkies. I was below on the ledge and Benji’s words were ringing loud and clear in my head. The words which always asked us to practice jummaring. I was relived to see Sneha finally reach the next ledge. Thanks to the heat and parched throat I ran up the wall. Jummared the crack quickly and finally came in the shade. Phew!

Shripad offered me to lead the final pitch. He had almost convinced me that it was the easiest of the lot, just with a bit of scree. Well just a bit. I remembered Benji’s description of leading this last pitch. I politely asked him to do the needful so that we could go up fast. But before going up he extracted a promise out of me. That I’ll have to treat him. Treat…dude I was willing to go up and dig a well! We could see a long shadow of Shirpad leading the final pitch on the Duchess, a rock face exactly opposite Duke’s. Another 20 mins and his voice boomed again. “Ok am there”. One by one all of us started climbing the last bit. Of course there was loads of scree and the holds were crumbly as well. It was around 5, when all of us topped out. On the summit we were exuberant and parched. But to my surprise Mithika had come up there with 2 big bottles of water. God bless her.

AHOY! So we were finally on top of this rock tower of which we had till date just daydreamed. We reached Mumbai at around 12 and we were still dreaming about it.

Snaps courtsey Mithika, uploading mehnat by Sneha. Enjoy the snaps -http://picasaweb.google.com/sathe.sneha/DUKES