The Mount RiverCrew™ and the ShredShed™ (OR: 5 Dudes and Their Woody - Nothing Suss!)

Preamble: 

 

I've long had this theory about Mount Riverview (where I am -technically- a resident) in the Blue Mountains, and its links to Island Tameness and Isolated Island Syndrome. Keeping the explanation simple:

Island Tameness refers to a loss of fear of predators found in prey animals in environments where they simply have no predators... Think of the Dodo, for example, and how it had no fear of Mariners who harvested them into extinction.

Isolated Island Syndrome pertains to the flora and fauna on an isolated island (a controlled environment) settling in to a very specific homeostatic environment which seldom has reason to evolve or change.

So, what does this have to do with Mount Riverview? Well I've long held the belief (read: excuse) that because Mount Riverview sits on an isolated ridgeline to nowhere, with no reason whatsoever for any outsider (non-resident) to travel there, we've lost any fear of predators, and have settled into a homeostatic environment where we have no reason to evolve to counter outside threats or improve beyond our simple existence. In short, I've long believed that it's made us all a bit soft, and I hold myself up as the living embodiment of this theory.

Recently, our homeostatic environment was turbulently disrupted with the invasion of several outsiders, who -as with the demise of the Dodo- were only too happy to wack us stagnating Mount Riverview Residents over the head unless we evolved to counter the threat. Ben Jenga sauntered in from Valley Heights, Mitch Perkins flanked from the Hawkesbury Region, and Strong Geoff has been slowly encroaching on our borders for some time now (he resides on the border of Mount Riverview and East Blaxland). With 3 strong climbers (and me) now occupying this isolated little ridgeline, it was time to embrace evolution by natural selection, and start toughening up to these outside threats.

So naturally, as climbers, this evolution translated to building a unified training environment -in the form of a Woody- in the back shed of my house. 

After some initial preparation of the shed (read: throwing out all the junk I had stored in there and knocking down the ancient partitions and shelving), we were ready to commence construction...

The Shed, as Jenga, Lara and I began dismantling the interior.

The interior office partitions come down.

 

The (mostly) empty shed awaiting a new Woody. The beer bottles on the right were like that when we got here...

Building the Woody:

 

On the weekend of the 15th of August, Strong Geoff, Ben Jenga, Mitch and myself were joined by Damion Best (who had been granted a greencard as an honorary citizen of Mount Riv, due to an ongoing relationship with one of the local wallabies -they both have a similar amount of fur), and set to the task at hand.

As with any good worksite, we began by carefully organising and strategically positioning our tools:

Our initial drawn designs were perhaps a bit primitive, but fortunately Jenga "had the design clearly in his head", so we began construction on that premise. 

Did I mention that one of our number is a Draftsman? No, really... I'm serious.

Cue the A-Team Montage theme song...

First up came the main bearers, which were probably the most technical aspect of the project, due to the varying angle of the Woody.

With the bearers and their associated reinforcement sorted, the panels (with holes and T-nuts already installed) were screwed on.

 

 

The others -clearly recognising my genius and natural adeptness with power tools- assigned me the complex task of marking up the T-nut placements and drilling the holes. Oh, and I also bought lunch. And Beer. And documented the construction process.



 

With the basic panels installed, we took to the more complex task of constructing and installing the "feature" panels (all of which were also T-nutted) to fully enclose the face of the Woody.

Finally, with the weekend over and most of the construction completed, the others went back home to their "normal" lives, while Damo and I sanded and painted the Woody, ready for it's grand opening.

Oh look, they let me use ANOTHER
powertool! My abilities are endless!

The Christening:

 

On the evening of the 21st August, the construction team was joined by Ninja (Jason), and Lara and Elise (Ben and Mitch's significant others) for the christening. Geoff supplied the barbecue, Elise cooked up a storm, and the entire group set about installing the several hundred holds we'd managed to acquire.

Not even CLOSE to the total number of holds awaiting installation.

Ninja approves the height of the Woody.

PICTURED HERE: The total number of jugs these crushers put on the Woody.

The completed Woody at the end of the night.

The First Session:

 

On the evening of Monday 24th August -our traditional gym training night-, Ben, Mitch and Myself were joined by Ninja, Lindsay, Ben (Guns) Young, Will Krampitz and Dan Cross for the first session on the new Woody.

Oh look, a picture of ME actually training. I'm gonna be a crusher!

The Peanut Gallery. (Left to Right) Lindsay, Dan, Ninja and Jenga. Mitch is climbing (visible in the reflection).

Left to Right: Will, Jenga, Lindsay and Ninja.

So, all seemed to be going great, and it wouldn't take a prognosticator to foresee a great deal of convenient training in my near future... But, inevitably (perhaps more so, where training and myself are concerned) I had an awkward fall while heel-toe-camming near the end of the night, and managed to rupture something in the side of my knee. So, in the interim I'm relegated to hangboarding, limping around, and being bored out of my brain. Typical.

So, what's next for the Woody? Well, some sort of roof-cap at the very top seems likely; at the right-hand side there is about 1m of additional room in which to add another panel; and the rest of the group has another few hundred holds on order (and en route). I'm also psyched on some roof cracks and crack-features to add to the training environment (I've used primitive roof-crack devices in the past to train steep crack climbing) which has been met with... um... "mixed opinions" by the others... But they'll come around to my way of thinking, I'm sure!

At any rate, there's now 3 weeks remaining until I'm off to Yosemite; I've managed to recently send the last of my bolted Projects - Impetus (more on that in my next update); and I have a few obscure goals I want to achieve before I depart (in particular, because I return right at the onslaught of summer). Add to this my downtime while my knee heals... and it's looking like quite a tight schedule.

We'll just have to see if I can fit it all in.

I also wanted to say a big thanks to Lara and Elise, who visited us during the Woody construction, bearing treats and gifts (and beer!).

a² + b² = c² in Gariwerd

"Since of all things numbers are by nature the first, in numbers they (the Pythagoreans) thought they perceived many analogies to things that exist and are produced, more than in fire, and earth, and Avater; as that a certain affection of numbers was justice; a certain other affection, soul and intellect; another, opportunity; and of the rest, so to say, each in like manner; and moreover, seeing the affections and ratios of what pertains to harmony to consist in numbers, since other things seemed in their entire nature to be formed in the likeness of numbers, and in all nature numbers are the first, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things."

- Commentary by Sir William Smith in 1870 on the Pythagoreans, the philosophers who studied under Pythagoras.

a² + b² = c²: 

 

Let's face it, who wouldn't want to climb this?

Anyone who has been blessed enough to climb with me in the last year or so (basically, since I went to Eureka and ticked Archimedes Principle, and subsequently wet my pants at the mere site of Pythagoras Theorem) has had to listen to me frothing over a return trip to the Grampians National Park with the sole objective of ticking that reputable, ridiculous grade 26 Trad stemming corner. If you can't look at the photo to the right without peeing yourself in awe (or terror, I'll also accept terror), then you need to surrender your climbing gear and take up croquet.

So, with about 1.5 months to go before I leave for Yosemite, I seized on the famously stunning weather (read: hideous weather) at this time of year to team up with my old buddy Scotty Wearin from Natimuk to lay siege to the beautiful Eureka Walls in the Grampians.

As predicted, the weather was utterly shit. But amidst arctic conditions ("welcome to VictArctica, New South Welshman"), freak storms that destroyed Scotty's tent on the first night and blew away my Gazebo-cum-TentCity structure, I managed to spend 6 days up at Eureka Wall tackling Pythagoras Theorem and a number of other routes.

Scotty Wearin modelling VictArctica attire:
400 layers of clothing and an expression
of despair.

Eureka Wall is famous in particular for the spectacular Archimedes Principle (25), an improbable 45m face-climb all on Trad gear that tackles the aesthetic black streak up the guts of the wall. For the sake of a few laughs, I've included a video of Ben JengA and myself taking some big falls on our Onsight and Flash attempts on Eureka last year, a bit further below.

Pythagoras Theorem is the other "mega classic" route on this wall, and, for a trad climber in Australia is a very big "tick" to aspire to. Working this route is no small task, with a 35min uphill slog each day to get to Eureka Wall, the route in question is 40m long and on gear (although it does have 3 carrot bolts after the crux, which -funnily enough- are harder to equip than the trad gear), and it's in the Victoria Range part of the Grampians, which is more popular as a Sport Climbing destination then as a trad destination, in particular because it's quite a drive from world famous Tapian Wall. Regardless, it's worth pointing out that Eureka Wall is covered in Classic routes (even aside from Archimedes Principle and Pythagoras Theorem) which are extremely rewarding to climb in their own right, for anyone who will put in the effort to climb here.

Rock Climbing in the Grampians - Archimedes Principle (Trad 25) - Big Falls from P T on Vimeo.

Extreme stemming on Pythagoras Theorem.

At any rate, aside from tackling a few other climbs in the area, I threw myself at Pythagoras Theorem, blowing the Onsight at the lower crux (some tricky laybacking), and getting utterly shut down by the main crux: a 3m section of near-blank slippery Grampians rock, with holds that are only usable in the conventional sense of the word holds at about Grade 30... but with some tricky footwork, can be exploited to climb the corner at a more reasonable Gr26. On the Second day, I finally figured out the crux, which involved (for me) an 11-foot-movement sequence to negotiate 3m of climbing, smearing my feet and hands and doing my utmost to form the hypotenuse of this ridiculous corner feature, and thus demonstrate the c² of Pythagoras Theorem (a² + b² = c²). The stress on my groin and hips of this extreme stemming became so bad, that on the morning of the 3rd day working the route, I fell out of my van as I attempted to step out of it and my hips simply gave out, landing flat on my face. Good Morning Victoria!

This route can be quite stressful to work, as the bizarre movement, extreme body positions utilising muscles seldom used in climbing, and unpredictable nature of the "smear" moves, lead to some surprising (and probably hilarious, for the belayer) falls. Nevertheless, on my 3rd day at Eureka Walls, and on my 3rd lead attempt (6th lap total, including 2 top rope laps, and one Rope Solo lap to equip the route), I managed to keep it all together and score a clean lead lap on one of my long-term Climbing Goals. Can you say "dream send"? I've attached a half-arsed video below of the Send (and spliced in a bit of video from a previous attempt). Take note of the ridiculous starting move... it's not so bad when you've got the cam pre-placed, but on my Onsight attempt I was convinced I was going to die.

Rock Climbing in the Grampians - Pythagoras Theorem (Trad 26) from P T on Vimeo.

Me climbing Return to Gariwerd (22).

After succeeding in ticking Pythagoras Theorem, I was also blown away by a few easier trad routes in the vicinity, which I was lucky enough to Onsight as warmups on separate days. Return to Gariwerd (Trad 22) is on the Eureka Towers, about 15min extra walk above Eureka Wall, and is -in all reality- like a smaller, tamer, and easier version of Archimedes Principle. It forges a very improbable line, all on gear, up a 25m section of immaculate and aesthetic rock, and might very well be the best 22 I've ever climbed in Australia. Sailing Away (Trad 23) at Red Sail is a line which is visible from before you even leave the car (and commence your 40min walk up the hill), as The Red Sail is a narrow, proud, tower of vibrant red rock that stands out amongst it's neighboring rock outcroppings. The line itself follows a sharp grey arete for 45m on the right side of the tower, with some rather bold runouts at the start (with fiddly gear), and steep arete-slapping pumpiness (and a few spaced bolts) right at the end. Though somewhat inferior rock for the Gramps, and perhaps not as mega as some of the other more well-known routes here, Sailing Away is a line on a proud feature on an even prouder feature, and is a line I've salivated over for years.

The Red Sail. Sailing Away (23) climbs the arete
on the right up to the top roof.

The line of Return to Gariwerd (22)... Aesthetic perfection.

My rope showing the line of Pavlov's Dog (29).

Aside from some sport climbing elsewhere in the Victoria Range, the other line that utterly blew my mind was Kent Patterson's Pavlov's Dog (29), a 40m sport route up the right side of Eureka Wall. Aside from the amazing climbing, perfect rock, and aesthetic beauty of this line, it's almost as if Kent went out to bolt a line that is specifically tailored to every one of my strengths: it's ridiculously sustained (there's one "jug" on the entire route), in the "slightly steep" category, stressfully long, each of its 5 cruxes are solved with a nice mix of power and technical trickery, and it oozes inspiration from every sandstone pore. One of the best lines I've ever been on anywhere in Australia, and one that I'm almost desparate to get back to tick. Below I've attached a half-arsed video I made of one of my Top Rope Soloing laps of this masterpiece.

Rock Climbing in the Grampians - Pavlov's Dog (29) from P T on Vimeo.

So, all in all, a very successful trip to the Grampians, despite the weather doing its best to ruin the experience. As Scotty went back to Uni, and the number of available climbing partners thinned due to the cold and rubbish weather, I did a few days of exploring and a number of rope soloing adventures, before eventually returning to The Blueys with the goal of trying to tackle some harder climbs (to really test myself, and actually project something properly, for once), and also visit a few of the adventurous crags which are "winter only" crags before I head off to America.

Advanced Air, Yeah Yeah!

 

Now back in the Blueys, I did a day working an amazing gr28 Trad route Pit Fighter at the new crag The Pit at Katoomba, and made good progress on that one; I bolted a new line below Pole 28 -Impetus-, which -aside from being a stunning, sustained, and rather bold line in its own right- is the line that you look at when looking out from The Sporting Complex at Medlow Bath; Neil Monteith sent his awesome new line at The Sporting Complex Buckley's Chance (Hard 24), and I did the First Ascent of the obvious, classic, super-sustained linkup of Buckley's Chance and Being and Nothingness, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (26); and my old partner in crime Stephen Varney and I headed out to a crag that I've wanted to visit for years: Bald Head.

Pit Fighter (Trad 28), this shot doesn't convey the steepness!

Me climbing Neil Monteith's new line:
Buckley's Chance (24).

A shot from the top of The Sporting Complex, looking over at my new line Impetus below Pole 28. Impetus tackles the
obvious steep face (which faces left in the photo) in the middle of the shot, with some rather ridiculous runouts.

Bald Head in Blackheath is -when viewed from the Bells Line of Road side of the Grose Valley- possibly one of the most aesthetic walls in the Blue Mountains. Its vibrant Tiger Stripes and long, blank faces, visible from over 20km away and perched high over the valley below, have called to me for years. Unfortunately, it's aspect that faces the sun for most of the day, 50min+ walkin, lack of traffic, rap-in climb-out routes, and pitches around the 50m mark has always kept prospective belayers away. Stephen, as it turns out, is a sucker for punishment, and was only too happy to investigate Bald Head with me.

Bald Head main face (Sector 1) from the ledge.
Maybe not quite as spectacular up close.

Bald Head Main Face (Sector 1). The Tiger Stripes are
distinctive.

Bald Head Main Face from further away. The stripes and long,
blank faces are eye-catching even from a distance.

The walk in probably took us 1.5 hours due to getting lost when the trail ended in the middle of nowhere, and finding the first climb -Advanced Air Studio (20)- likely took another 45min due to some rather crap crag/Access details in the old 2002 Blue Mountains Climbing guidebook (the last one to cover Bald Head). Furthermore, finding the main sector later in the day took us at least another 1.5 hours of rather sketchy cliff-edge bush-bashing (fortunately, I've updated all of the access and crag/route navigation details for Bald Head on TheCrag at: http://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/blue-mountains/blackheath-area/area/12013003 ), but nevertheless we still managed to get some climbing in.

You know you're totally not going to have an
epic when this is all that's stopping you
falling 150m into the Grose Valley.

Advanced Air Studio (20) is probably the only climb anyone
knows about at Bald Head, and is a 30m long sport route that starts from a small ledge you rap into, and follows a ridiculously exposed arete feature positioned 150m above the Grose Valley. Somehow, despite the fact that both Stephen and I usually carry Bolt Plates everywhere we climb, we both managed to leave them in the car, which inevitably (applying Murphey's Law) meant that the rap anchors and belay bolts turned out to be carrot bolts, necessitating some totally safe improvisation.

Stephen on Advanced Air Studio (20).

Stephen lead the pitch and I followed him on Second, to find that -despite the testicle-shrinking exposure and enjoyable climbing- the moderately crap rock leads to a pitch of climbing which isn't really the Classic it's cracked up to be. The climbing is hard at the grade, and gets continuously harder all the way to the top-out. Not a bad route by any means, but hardly worth the 50min+ walk.

Looking down at Stephen from the
top of The Dimerisation Interface (22). It's a bit exposed, no?

Next up, after losing most of the day trying to locate it, we rapped in to tackle The Dimerisation Interface (22), a 52m face route at a different part of Bald Head. I scored the Onsight on this pitch, which was thoroughly enjoyable, and climbs like the crux moves of Mirrorball (21) at Pierces Pass, again and again for 52m. Extremely long, quite sustained, and unrelentingly thin, it is marred (in my opinion) by somewhat fragile rock, and being somewhat limited in the range of moves encompassed within its length. I also thought it was quite hard at the grade, but knowing that the First Ascensionist -Megan Turnbull- is something of a gecko when it comes to thin face climbing, I'm hardly surprised.
 
As the day drew to a close, accompanied by quite a few dark ales, it was clear that Bald Head warrants another visit from us. We'd barely scratched the surface of the climbs here, and the aesthetics (and exposure) of the area offer the sort of inspiration that I love in the Blueys. Now that I know how to get to the crag, and how to navigate around it without the sort of cocking around we suffered today,
another trek here won't be such a mission. Hopefully I'll have time to return before I head off to America.

Stephen on the lower crux of The Dimerisation Interface (22).

In the meantime, the Mount RiverCrew (an "elite" group of climbers (and me) who -bizarrely- all live in the tiny suburb of Mount Riverview in the Lower Blue Mountains) have written off climbing this weekend so as to build a new Woody. So, prospective Climbing objectives and goals need to wait until next week, before I can decide exactly what adventures are on the cards.

I suspect I'll be able to think of something... I'll let you know what I come up with...

Hardly Sporting Steepness

Author's Note: Alright, so much of what I've posted on here lately has merely been an Ode to Paul's New Routes in the Blueys... After this update I'm off for 2 weeks to the Grampians (or maybe back to Tassie, depending on the weather), and when I get back to the Blueys I promise that it'll be a return to normal Obscurist programming, as I finally get back to traveling the Climbs less traveled, and having some obscure, adventurous, horrorshow epics...

HARDLY SPORTING: 

 

Alright, so when last I updated this I was in the process of Top Rope Soloing 2 routes that I'd bolted out at The Sporting Complex, Medlow Bath ready for the First Ascent. Well, on the 28th June I went back to the Sporting Complex with Neil Monteith, Lee Cujes and Sam Cujes for a day of Sendage.

For those unfamiliar with the crag, here's an improvised Topo I designed with the help of Microsoft Paint, and in the vein of the current Nowra Guide (I'm channeling my inner Rod Young):

The Green line is Neil Monteith's project (which I bolted for him in a marathon night session). It goes at 24/25.

At any rate. after doing a warmup at home (including a Theraband session, Gripmaster finger workout and drinking copious amounts of coffee), I jumped straight on Leviathan as a warmup, and despite battling finger-freeze I managed to score the First Ascent first shot of the day. Luckily for me, Lee was abseiling past me as I went through the crux top bulge, and managed to score these amazing photos of the showstopper finale:

The drive-by move to initiate the crux sequence.

Crimpy goodness.

Some crazy footwork to finish the crux. This is my favourite move on the route.

I also managed to grab the following stills from a GoPro video I made when I returned to The Sporting Complex the following day with Stephen Varney to tidy up the area a bit:

The super-crimpy bottom-crux. Launching off two match-box crimps.

And a different perspective on the funky crux footwork. Did I mention that I love this move?

This route is called Leviathan (after Thomas Hobbes' famous novel on Social Contract Theory) and goes at 25/26.

The lower crux (at about 8m height) is a sustained 7-move sequence on microcrimps with tricky footwork, leading to a no-hands rest. The middle-crux (at about 15m height) is again very crimpy, but this time it's about extreme body-positions around a small rooflet and flake to gain the length and height necessary to reach the next tic-tac hold in the sequence. This again leads to a no hands rest and easier, sustained gr20 thin slabbing on grey rock. The top -showstopper- crux is technical, pumpy, awkward, thin and powerful as you launch through the steepest headwall on The Sporting Complex via a rounded flake, a series of weird pockets, and some small (but positive) crimps.

The quality of the cruxes is -in my opinion- better than the cruxes of Life of Riley (THE line of this crag), but Leviathan isn't as sustained as Life of Riley (hence the 2 no hands rests) and the easier climbing on grey rock isn't particularly memorable (nor the rock quality as good as the easier sections of Life of Riley). So, on merit, they are about equal, or perhaps Life of Riley is slightly better. Regardless, I would rate this as one of the best climbs I've ever put up.


Here's a video I made of the climb:

Rock Climbing First Ascent - Leviathan (35m 25/26) in the Blue Mountains from P T on Vimeo.

Neil attempting the In Absentia Project before its
re-imagining. At this point in time, I'd bolted the
route to continue up the orange streak in the
headwall to the left. Never fear, despite the misleading
perspective of this photo: No Cracks were Retrobolted
during the Making of this Climb!

With the rest of the posse ready and rearing to climb on one of the finest slices of rock in the beautiful Blueys, Lee Cujes set about onsighting Smoko (23), and then scoring the very proud onsight of Life of Riley (25). After a lash at Get a Black Dog Up Ya (24) and being misled by a red herring bolt (the last bolt on that climb is about 1.5m too far left, and actually tricks you AWAY from the holds you need to use), he and Sam climbed out by onsighting both pitches of Like a Cut Snake (21).Neil, on the other hand, threw himself at a line I bolted for him in absentia (consider it something of a present to a New Daddy... Climbing isn't over for you, Neil, you merely have more worthy activities to fill in the blanks between climbing (some would say that I worded that list of priorities back-to-front, right Kathy?)). The joys of trying to bolt someone elses' vision, is that the odds of misinterpreting that vision are probably reasonably high. Suffice to say, Neil and I had different ideas of how the top half of his route should go, so despite having 3 very worthy shots at the route as *I* envisaged it (which would be in the vein of hard 25), Neil presented an alternate option (requiring a few more bolts) which meant that his new line didn't go down this day. Since then, while adding anchors to some other routes at The Sporting Complex (quite a few of the lines are bolted specifically to be topped out, and bring up your second, which makes it hard to work some of these routes), I've since added the bolts to Neil's Project, and it's now awaiting the first ascent... hurry up and send it Neil!

The red line is Neil's In Absentia Project. To the left is me attempting the First Ascent of Being and Nothingness (25), and to the right is Lee Cujes Onsighting Life of Riley (25).

I then jumped on my other project at The Sporting Complex, tentatively called Being and Nothingness (after Jean-Paul Sartre's seminal work on existentialism). The line starts a few metres left of the open-book corner you can see in the above photo. It begins with an easy slab (gr17?) to a no-hands rest. From there you go straight into the initial crux, which involves some desperately small square-edge crimps off a bit of a ledge, leading to easier climbing (gr20) to a no-hands rest below the bulge beneath the orange streak on the top headwall. In the photo above, I've just reached the jug at the end of the initial crux.

The top headwall is the upper crux, and is quite sustained, as it wanders between the vibrant orange streak and the vague black streak on crimps, slimpers, and weird pockets. On my first attempt of the day, placing the draws, I actually made it through the hardest moves of the top crux, and was on-track for the send until I had a foot slip and went flying past Lee, who -as in the photo above- was still in the no-hands rest of Life of Riley, watching me fighting my way up my route. After finding some improved beta, I sent it solidly (though very pumpedly) second shot of the day, and gave it gr25. The top moves to the anchors are "sportingly bolted" and quite committing, despite not being very hard, creating potential for some big air. While working the moves on my first shot of the day, I fell from right near the top of the orange streak, to below the bulge beneath the headwall (Neil did a good job paying out enough slack as I fell to make sure I didn't HIT the bulge)... exciting!

As for the quality of the climb... unfortunately it's a mixed bag. The top headwall is brilliant, and if that was all the climb was judged on, it would be a classic. But the initial easy slab, the somewhat unpleasant (and slightly scary) initial crimp crux, and the slightly doddly (by comparison) middle section (which utilises the crack as necessary, only because it would be contrived to regard it as "out" considering its proximity) means that as an overall route, though still of Very Good quality, it can't truly be called a classic, especially considering that Life of Riley and Leviathan sit just a handful of metres to the right.

Stephen Varney on Pitch 1 of Like a Cut Snake (21), the
following day.

With that done, and Neil too trashed for another lash at his Project, we all climbed out via Like a Cut Snake, a two-pitch 21 which -despite some dubious rock- has great exposure, and very straightforward, pumpy climbing up a steep arete-feature.


Lee managed to catch this photo of Neil as he climbed out of the crag, which perfectly captures the beauty of the location, the stunning position of the climb, and makes a good fullstop upon which to end this recount of the day:

Neil Monteith leading Pitch 2 of Like a Cut Snake (21) to exit the crag. No one can deny the beauty of the position.

STEEPNESS:

 

After another 3-day trip to Nowra (this time featuring less spankage than I usually experience in that haven of burliness), I investigated and ultimately bolted the last line in my "little black book" (thanks for popularising that term, Mikl) of prospective "high quality" climbs to develop/bolt. This time, and as something of a rarity, I put up a sporty-sport route in the vicinity of popular megaclassics, at a well-traveled crag: Bardens Lookout!

Ticking Haystack Madness (20) back in 2011,
and wondering whether that face and roof
to the right would go free.

When I ticked the outrageously steep crack Haystack Madness (20) back in 2011, I remember looking over at the face and crazy roof-cap to the right of the crack, and wondering: "how come there isn't a route there?" A recent re-visit to Bardens reinforced that question as I spent most of the day walking back and forth trying to get perspective on the prospective line.

2 weeks ago I went out with the goal of seeing if there was -in fact- a line there. Long story short, I'm utterly rubbish at the logistics of bolting roofs, and this was a bloody big roof. It took me 2 days to rap and pin the line, rope-solo it to make sure it actually went free, bolt it, and "prepare" it (removing loose blocks, scrubbing and tick marking crucial holds).

With the route ready to go, on Saturday 11th July, I went out to Bardens with Gene Gill (my climbing partner on the Totem Pole) with an eye to doing the First Ascent.

From the bottom looking up. Beneath the 1st
bolt you can see clipped is 2 more horizontal
metres of steepness.

If I'm honest, I'm not particularly good at climbing very steep routes. I have great endurance and can hang on for weeks, but my roofing technique has never really been perfected mostly because I so rarely get on roof climbs. And this new line of mine was a proper steep roof. Consequently I was extremely nervous, because unlike other climbs I've bolted (whereby I don't mind a long journey to the First Ascent, because they're more in a style I enjoy), I knew that a long siege of this would become quite stressful. For my psyche alone, I really needed to Send it today.



The line in question starts up an easy slab, which lands you beneath a bouldery move past the 2nd bolt (the clipped bolt in the photo to the left) to get established in the steepness. It then heads straight up the middle of the steepness, with big moves between enormous jugs and ironstone breaks. At the lip of the 1st roof, you come to the crux, which involves a tricky move to get established on the face, then a powerful series of moves left on a thin rail to gain the crack of Haystack Madness. You climb the crack for a metre or so, then traverse back right into the middle of the face. It was on the traverse left that I fell off on my first shot of the day, pumped silly and uncertain of how to use my feet to make the burly moves left to gain the crack.

Looking down from the anchors after doing the First
Ascent. Notice how far out the trail-rope is hanging?

Despite knowing that I could do the moves, I doubted that I had the steep endurance necessary to tick the route. Nevertheless, I started up the line again, and this time (with some outrageous footwork, involving using my left leg to meat-wrap a horn-jug and produce a fulcrum to rock-over and gain the crack) I managed to make it back to the middle of the face, pumped but feeling strong.

The line is still surprisingly steep as you head-up the face, via a few long moves on thin holds, which eventually lands you underneath the big roof cap. A tricky move on a pocket then lands you in the middle of ridiculously juggy roof climbing. The entire roof-cap features quite-possibly the biggest jugs you'll ever fall off, as you climb almost horizontally to gain the anchors (about 1m from the lip of the top roof-cap, as the rock turns to sandy choss beyond that point). Fortunately, I kept it together and scored the First Ascent. I called the route "But the Raven, Sitting Lonely..." and gave it the grade of 24... which may or may not be a sandbag, depending on whether or not I really am as rubbish at Roof Climbing as *I* believe that I am.

The name itself is taken from the first line, of my favourite Stanza from Edgar Allan Poe's epic poem "The Raven":

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a feather then he fluttered –
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before –
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Aside from the fact that I like the poem, I was intrigued by Mitch Warren's nearby route name "These Terrors be but Arguments for Children", which doesn't make sense out-of-context (despite sounding pretty rad), but is actually (at least as far as I can tell) a paraphrased quote from the Life of Sir Thomas More, and actually goes: "My Lords," quoth he, "these terrors be arguments for children, and not for me..." So, it was in that naming trend that I chose to name my route.

A rough topo of where the main lines go on that
slice of cliff, taken from the Red Sails area. I
appologise for the crappy photo quality.

So, how good is the route? I'd say that in the vein of steep climbing, especially considering the relatively tame grade, it's an almost classic. Unfortunately, the fact that I had to traverse a few moves left into the crack, then back into the face again to make the line go free ruins its purity as a line. The traverse moves are actually heaps of fun, and it doesn't detract from the quality of the climbing, but it does taint the line itself. I spent many hours trying to go direct, which encompasses a huge move to a 1/5th pad mono, some desperate footwork, and a "loft" move to a mega-jug. Despite my best efforts I never managed to do better than getting my finger tips on the jug, and this single 2-move sequence would go at 26/27, in a route which is otherwise 24ish.

However, Gene Gill proved (on the day) that the move DOES go free. It seems like it is easier if you are extremely strong and shorter (than me, at least) or significantly taller (and only as strong and me). Regardless, even with revised beta I was still unable to do much more than circumcise my finger on the mono, so I'm more than happy to leave the "direct" version of the route as an Open Project. Though it will be a more "pure" as a line, I think that the original McDougal version will remain popular due it's sustained nature and kind difficulty (especially for those wanting a taste of this sort of extreme steepness).

At any rate, I'm off to The Gramps for some more of the best climbing in Australia, so I'll talk to you all when I get back home. Be safe.