Hi there! I’m Neerav or ND.

This is my first time at Camp Augusta and I’m quite excited to begin the summer. It was a quite a soul searching ride just getting through my interview process and having been through it- I’m really glad I did it! I have had 5 years of experience working at other summer camps but I’ve never felt this exhilarated at getting the job before.

I was born and raised in Mumbai, India. (Yes…ok…the land of Bollywood- and No I will not do Bollywood song and dance impersonations!). As a kid, I wasn’t great at school and was dreading the prospect of a ‘respectable job’ that my traditional Indian family hoped for me. My life changed when as a teenager I discovered rock climbing. I won a prize in one of the first climbing competitions I’d participated in and I was hooked.

The climbing community has been my extended family ever since my teenage years and are a big part of who I am today. We all come from different parts of India with different age groups, values, culture, religions, food, strengths and weaknesses and climbing is one of the things that brings us all together.

My community of climbers has been conducting climbing competitions and workshops for children for years. Ever since my introduction to them I’ve been helping out at each event because I loved it so much. Eventually, my experience with the outdoors and climbing world turned into a career.

Now, I also free-lance with a company that does high access and rope work rigs for shows and events. I get to travel for those projects and meet interesting people and performers.

I want to share with you the proudest moments for our community of climbers. After more than a decade of hosting open international climbing competitions, we decided to make a bid to organize an IFSC Climbing World Cup in India for the first time. Incredibly we won the bid and in 2016 we organized our first IFSC Climbing World Cup. I was part of the team that built the Climbing wall for that event.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve been working at another summer camp as the Rocks & Ropes Director. I’ve met some wonderful people along the way and I cherish the friendships I’ve made. One of the friends I made there introduced me to the fascinating world of scuba diving and that motivated me to get my first basic scuba certification!

And over the past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my little nephew so he doesn’t forget me when I return after the summer!

And that’s all for now folks! More when we meet in person…