12th Mar 2006

After a long climbing break Bhramanti had another successful climbing day. It was only second climb in this climbing year. The team of 8 members whihc is one of the climb record for Bhramanti. First time ever it happened & hope to see many more in future.

12 years ago in we two core members(Milind & Myself) of todays Bhramanti visited Mahalaxmi temple and never thought at that time that we may climb the pinnacle which is on top of the Mahalaxmi temple. I recollected all my old memories the way we travelled at that time as compare with todays travel.

Saturday 11th Mar 06 evening we started from my home with the team and all climbing equipments at 6:00pm. We reached Mahalaxmi in next 3 hrs. Had dinner in the near by hotel and closed our day by 10:00pm since we wanted to sart early morning next day. We stayed in the Dharmshala the same place where we stayed in my last visit. The difference was last time we almost drained our poacket till this place due to lack of knowledge of the place etc.

Sunday early morning we started the trek to the base of the pinnacle. Their are plenty of steps build now days for the devotees to reach the main Temple of Mahalaxmi. It took 1 hr to reach the temple and then after small break continued our trek to the base further for another 45 min.

This time the leed climber was Rishi and the second man(Belayer) was Hemant. I was 3rd and 4th was Rajesh. Nitin, Prashant, Pankaj & Anand was in the support role. We started our climb at 10:45am. We set first patch at the height at 25 ft with the help of peg. Then the verticle climb of 15 ft. wher we set our second patch by anchoring to the boulder. Then the traveres to the left & at the height of 20 ft another runner fixed. The last patch was of further 20 ft. Their are two peg already fixed firm for anchoring on the summit.

We had quite entertaining day since the watchful monkey (real one) first had look of what we are doing then they decided to attack our support team for easy access some food stuff. Later on this dare devil snatched one plastic bag having Santra/Mosambi. I was on the way to descend down & bit nurvous about the stand taken by our support team. These monkey were roaring on them and the support team was standstill trying to protect whatever remainings.

Anyways these things are forgotable in view of our success. We took some time for winding up excercise. We asked half team to move forward. It was dark while descending the steep scree at the base. We reached the newly build steps area by 8:00pm and the cheer team happily returned back to the start of our trek chit chating the glorious moment of the climb and sharing each other s experience. While on trasite to Mumbai we had nice entertainment session along with interview of all members copared by Anand. All were in the happy mood and express their willing ness for many such adventure in future.

Written By Rajan Rikame