Introduction to Barden's Lookout

After having my full weekend of family commitments reduced to Saturday Tim and I made a last minute plan to head up to the Blueys on Sunday for a bit of vertical action.

It was pretty warm and sunny (although a tad windy) at Blackheath when we stopped for coffee and pastries, so we decided to head to Barden's Lookout to check out some of the new routes there. Once at the crag (which is shady until midday), it was pretty damn cold (mainly due to the wind), but the promise of eventual sun kept us put.

"Hermione" (* 17) was picked as the warm up climb. Not bad, although it's spoilt somewhat by four ledges and one of the largest bird shit encrusted caves I've ever seen (it even had a pile of bones and fur in one corner!). Although it's equipped with ring bolts, you definitely need to take some natural gear (#1 camalot and a small-medium wire) since the bolts are pretty widely spaced. Tim hiked the route as well, replacing a dodgy cam up high with the wire (I hadn't taken wires with me when I did it).

We then moved on to "Change Junkies" (* 19), to the right but still on the same face. This route offers some great swinging up a series of steep, juggy breaks (along with some pretty suss rock down low!), then suddenly hits a steep, blank slab (the crux). I was very tempted to pike 2m left to easy ground (on the neighbouring route), but I stuck with it and after nearly falling off managed to get the onsight. After some route finding difficulties down low, Tim reached the crux section with a flash pump and needed a rest to pull through the sequence of crimps that make up the crux.

These other two guys had been doing laps on "Starman" (* 22) just to the right again, and made it look pretty easy so we decided to jump on that next. With the "help" of what turned out to be the most ridiculously dodgy beta ever, Tim managed to pull the apparently heinous crux move on his second or third attempt (straining most of the muscles in his torso in the process).

I jumped on it next, thinking that I'd just aid the move if it felt like I was doing myself permanent damage.

<beta warning>
The move in question is just above a small rooflet, at the second bolt. From a jug on the lip, you reach up and right to a thin but positive sidepull crimp, that has a reasonably decent opposing thumb hold (so it can also be pinched). From here you have to hoik one foot up to a juggy break just above the lip of the rooflet (about 2 feet below the sidepull), and crank up about a metre or so to a plethora of jugs up high.

The dodgy beta suggested that to stop the barndoor off the sidepull, you had to scum your left knee under the rooflet to oppose it, and then crank like a demon, with your left knee holding you down, while your right foot pushes you up (hence the torso strain).
</beta warning>

Anyway I wandered on up the easy ground to the move and then moved up to finger the sidepull. The crimp was much better than I expected (pretty small, but positive), so I had a bit of a go at moving up off it, thinking I'd just get a taste for the move before moving back down, resting and then having a go. Anyway, before I knew it the crimp was down below waist level, and rather than scumming my left knee under the rooflet, I'd actually stood right up and placed my left foot in the break beside my right foot. With the jugs basically at eye level I casually grabbed the nearest one and was past the move almost before I'd realised it! And it wasn't really strenuous or difficult at all - just a bit balancy!

Anyway, with the thought of my second ever 22 flash running through my mind I got incredibly nervous, but managed to hold it together up the next 15m of easy (~ grade 17) climbing to the lower offs. WOOHOO!!

Once back on the ground we talked a bit more about it, and I've since come to the conclusion that "Starman" must be the easiest grade 22 in the known universe. In fact I've given it 19, since although that move is reasonably hard, it was no harder than the hard moves on "Change Junkies" and as a route was a helluva lot less sustained (I was much closer to falling off CJ than S, that's for sure!).

Tim wasn't interested in redpointing the route (I think he was (justifiably) pissed off at the dodgy beta), so we headed back around to "Scheme of Things" (* 23), back towards the descent gully. This route heads up the underside of a short, steep wall that's very similar looking to the main wall at Centennial Glen (but only 5m or 6m high). After a couple of goes at the crux moves, Tim decided it wasn't going to be his day so he backed off it. I wasn't interested either and didn't get on it.

From there we wandered further along the crag a bit, looking at the impressive big steep walls around past "Electric Blue" (including the slightly scungy looking, but nonetheless impressive "Haystack Madness").

I've been wanting to do "Electric Blue" (** 19) for bloody ages so we decided to do that next, with an option to haul the packs up and walk out depending on how long I took (yes, yes so I'm slow when I'm on the sharp end! :-)

Thinking that the route took a significant amount of natural gear, I loaded up with wires and cams (from #0 friend to #3.5 camalot - quite a rack!) and started up the thing. A lovely little thin crack to start leads up to a chaotic ledge at about 10m, below the wall proper. From here up the route follows a short and scarily thin flake past a piton and then up the 20m slab / wall above. A couple of hard, thin moves led up past 2 bolts to a stance (of sorts).

That's where the nightmare began - I could see a bolt above me and to the left, and the holds looked pretty good over that way too, so over I went. After cranking up over a small rooflet (wishing I didn't have 10 tonnes of gear hanging off me), past the bolt and up to the next, I reached a section that looked dead blank. After staring at this horror in blind panic, and trying desperately to depump and not grease off the crimps I was on, I looked to the right and noticed a line of bolts following a lovely looking left facing flake (with good holds that were a lot more worn than where I was). With supposedly no bolts to the right of EB, Tim checked the guide, and sure enough, I'd strayed onto the 21 to the left of EB, and to get back on route I'd have to downclimb to the previous bolt, unclip it, and traverse right 4m to the base of the flake.

After the usual procrastination and thoughts of "ah f**k it - I should just pendulum over there - after all, how important is onsighting anyway?" I finally committed to the thin and desperate traverse and managed to gain the flake and a bolt. Of course I hadn't managed to unclip the bolt on the 21, so now I had the rope drag zigzags from hell. I contemplated climbing on anyway, since I sure as hell didn't want to repeat the traverse, but finally decided (after being unable to pull the rope at all) that I just had to clean the sucker.

Thankfully I could see a slightly easier traverse line slightly lower down, so I traversed back to the bolt, unclipped it and then traversed back to the flake again. By this point I was pumped absolutely senseless, and all that #$%^ing trad gear that I'd carted up with me was giving me the total shits. So I clipped the rack to the bolt I was at, spent about 3/4 of an hour trying to depump and then (with Tim snoozing at the belay) continued on. One last bolt and a final cool move and I'd gained the easy slab to the lower off. WOOHOO!! The epic was over (or so I thought) and I'd still managed the onsight!!

We then hauled the packs up (Tim pulling from the bottom, me from the top), and then Tim seconded in fine style, working out that from the 3rd bolt, there's a traverse right on reasonably good holds then a couple of moves up to the base of the flake. It turns out that neither of the final two bolts on EB are visible from below, so at least I was excused of poor route finding skills!

Anyway, Tim gained the belay, moved across to the ledge where I'd stashed the packs and then looked up. Oh shit - the epic wasn't over yet - a short (10m high) upper cliff loomed above us. I led on through with my pack on and thankfully the climbing turned out to be ledgy and reasonably easy (although at one point I clipped my pack to a bit of gear and threw it up onto a ledge before doing the move). Tim followed up and a short walk led back to the road and the car.

So all in all it was a great day out - 4 climbs done (4.2 for Tim) - I managed to onsight (or flash or whatever you wanna call it) all of them - grades 17, 19, 19, 19 - and all worth doing!!