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Mt Arapiles (Victoria)
What can be said about one of the best known Australian crags? To say it has perfect rock, fantastic lines, 3 star
classics at all grades, and takes bomber natural gear just doesn't do the place justice.
Mt Arapiles is located about 3 kms west of the small Victorian town of Natimuk, and about 33 kms west of Horsham, the
centre of the Wimmera region. The Wimmera region is semi-arid, and thus has weather resembling that of the desert.
During the day, the temperature often passes 40 degrees, while at night the termperature can drop to less than 10
degrees. The only consolation is that the humidity is usually relatively low.
The cliff line faces east with a touch of north, but because of the numerous buttresses, gullies and pinnacles, there
are climbs that face in all directions (so shade or sun can always be found). The rock is a beautiful quartzite
sandstone that is extremely hard, and forms everything from glassy, smooth bulges to ridiculously huge, positive jugs:
it is definitely the best rock I have ever climbed on. The cliff reaches about 180m in height at the Tiger Wall (the
wall in the centre of the picture on the front of Louise Shepherd's guidebook).
The routes at Mt Arapiles are predominantly trad routes, with everything from two placement boulder problems all the
way up to 100m+ adventure routes. There are some sport climbs, but most of these are in the harder grades (25+), so
if you're just a bumbly like me, forget about doing sport routes! If you're a newbie to trad gear, it's the perfect
place to learn: the rock forms cracks and seams that are tailor made for passive protection.
A decent rack is required for most of the longer routes. A double set of wires (including some micro wires or RPs)
and half a dozen cams is probably the minimum you could get by with on most of Arapiles' routes, but a set of hexes
and a couple more cams will make life a lot easier (particularly on the long pitches). Tricams are also surprisingly
useful, with the small pink and red sizes very handy on some routes (eg. Auto Da Fe, where triples of each would
significantly improve the protection!).
Along with world class routes, Mt Arapiles has some of the best bouldering I have ever done (see
for an example). At various stages the cliff line has shed some enormous blocks, almost all of which are perfectly
suited for bouldering. Although just about every boulder at Arapiles has great problems, of particular note are the
Declaration Crag boulders, the boulders hidden in the trees in the Central Gully and the huge boulders down in front
of the Pharos. There is also a bouldering guidebook available from the Arapiles Mountaineering Store (in Natimuk),
but I probably wouldn't bother since with a bit of imagination each boulder will keep you entertained for hours.
A word of warning before I launch into the route descriptions: because of the size of the cliff, descents at Mt
Arapiles can be long and at times strenuous. Remember to allow enough time for a safe descent. In a nutshell: "An
Arapiles route isn't over until you're back on the ground." (Courtesy of Greg Andrews, after our epic descent from
Phoenix back in 1997.)
There are a variety of guides to the area. If you can afford the rather stiff price ($40 at most stores), the
Mentz / Tempest "Selected Climbs at Mt Arapiles" guide is highly recommended. The Louise Shepherd "Rock Climber's
Guide to Arapiles/Djurite" guide is more complete, but suffers somewhat from a number of inaccurate access and route
descriptions.
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