Footprints on the Mountainside

Yeah, I’ve been missing from here for a long time. Too much happening in real life. My work at resonate, then my work with Wide Aware, some training for trainers I’ve been in the process of organizing….

Now, Wide Aware is in the process of designing a three day training programme for activity instructors in the outdoors. The current scenario with instructors is that there is no specific training that they undergo. Some instructors do the mountaineering courses in an effort to get some skills, but they are not particularly relevant to taking groups into the outdoors.

As a result, there are a lot of hit or miss processes.

This programme we are planning is a three day initiative designed specially for instructors who use outdoor adventure activities to support experiential learning objectives. While the course is still being designed, some of the intended content includes:

• How to handle activities
• How to execute programmes
• Handling ropes
• Belay systems
• Sequencing activities for optimal design
• Ratio of instructors to participants for various kinds of programmes
• Attitudes toward participant management
• Strategies and skills for working with different age groups
• Participant observation, interaction and guidance
• Risk management

Other possibilities being considered are orienteering, first aid, and some other subjects.

This programme is not intended to develop facilitation or training related skills, but restricts its scope toward activities in the outdoors and the role of the instructor conducting them.

The programme is planned for November at the YMCA campsite at Mulshi.

This programme is well suited for anyone who would like to develop skills for working with groups and conducting activities in the outdoors. Feel free to comment here with your feedback or if you would like to be informed when the final dates are announced.

Outdoor Ed - News Article

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It is rare to find such information in India, where the selling of products takes such priority that unwelcome news is rarely circulated beyond a “bad reputation” and discouraging people from the product.

I admire this step from New England Ropes. Two of their ropes - Maxim Apogee 9.1mm and Maxim Pinnacle 9.5mm have been found to have risk of breaking on impact posing serious danger to climbers at a moment when security is a must.

People who own these ropes have been invited to return them for a free replacement. Do use this opportunity to get them changed if you own them.

Its becoming a habit. I have a conversation with someone that sets me thinking and I come here and write about it

This time it is about Kanheri Caves and what is happening out there.

When I learnt climbing, Kanheri was a regular haunt of climbers. On Sundays and public holidays, the place was literally swarming with outdoor people. A public bus service ran up to the caves from the Borivli station. We used to use that shabby bungalow to hold training camps. Those were the good old days.

Today, the crowd is hardly there. For some bizarre reason, the authorities have forbidden climbing there. Probably something to do with their weird sense of preservation of ancient monuments.

Let’s face it. Rock cut caves that have withstood the centuries and have fairly nothing in terms of paintings or delicate art are not exactly going to crumble when they see climbers. In any case, no one actually climbs the cave walls (mostly - no promises - climbers are crazy). Climbers sweat a lot, but I am fairly certain that caves will not faint or erode from it.

Sarcasm aside, I see this as a situation changed for the worse:

1. The area has hardly any people any more, and trouble with anti-scial elements is on the rise. Earlier, the abundance of the climbers made it a pretty busy area with an abundance of fit and valuable free people who were passionate about the sanctity of the place likely to come across trouble makers.
2. Climbers generally have a well developed sense of affinity with nature and served as excellent policing of trash throwers and often brought back stray trash they found in remote spots. Today, you have families throwing garbage all over the place with no one to try and make them aware of the need not to do such things.
3. The social feel of the place. The climbing community, the families and the overall busy feel brought an impression of a busy, thriving place with immense value to a variety of people. Today, there are few people who dare to go beyond the main area for fear of the isolation, except for couples who use the caves like private bedrooms to make out in.
4. Monkeys are a menace there. A busy community makes it less likely for someone to be attacked and hurt. A simple suggestion of not bringing any eatables to the caves would have sufficed to discourage moneys over time when they realized that there was no food stuff forthcoming. However, the authorities are not interested in anything like that, even after repeated suggestions of solutions, complaints about monkey attacks…..

I miss the old Kanheri Caves, where I as a teenage girl could walk around without fear; where we were there to stop tourists from littering, rather than make occasional visits and be depressed by the litter; when monkeys could actually be scared away without resorting to extreme measures……..