Pierce's Pass

Despite the short walk in, the cliffs here are big, with walls between about 180m and 250m in height; most being extremely steep and daunting (see for a view down the valley). Despite this, there are some moderately graded routes dating from the 1960s and 1970s, and (more recently) a number of harder sport routes have appeared East of the pass itself (past Samarkand).

The guidebook for the area is the "Rockclimbs in the Grose Valley" guide, by Warwick Williams.

The climb starts below a great looking jam crack, about 25m right (facing the cliff) of the start of "Disco Biscuit 2000", a Mike Law grade 23 climb that tackles the massive orange overhanging wall that dominates this section of cliff. The start of "Disco Biscuit 2000" is marked with a square and an upward pointing arrow scratched into the rock, and is the only obvious climb marking we found.

Take a double rack of small to medium cams, one or two larger cams, a set of wires and maybe some hexes. Slings are also recommended for belays and in the event of retreat, and double ropes certainly make both climbing and bailing easier. Helmets are an absolute must.

Pitch 1 55m 18
An excellent pitch offering a wide variety of moves. Step up onto the initial ledge then tackle the excellent 10m jam crack (crux). Continue up the V groove above, taking great care with gear (since the climbing is still fairly hard and the pro is very difficult to arrange). Continue up the offwidth (large gear) to a large ledge and a poor belay (lots of gear in the crappy rock at the back of the ledge).

Once the second is up, move the belay about 10m right to below a nice clean corner.

Pitch 2 45m 14
Step up onto the pleasant wall just left of the corner and blast up past a variety of placements in horizontal breaks. At about 20m is a 3 foot shale band, with an unprotectable squeeze chimney above. Our best guess is that the variant start to "Proteus" continues straight up for another 10m or so to rejoin the original route. Being somewhat daunted by the chimney, however, I took the cowards option, and slithered right along the shale break for 25m or so, until I reached another ledge and a belay (good cams just around the arete). Take care with the crawl, since there is basically no gear for the entire 25m, and lots of loose rock in the break.

Although it looked possible to continue straight up from the belay, with about 200m of cliff still above us we decided we'd run out of time, so continued the traverse in the hope of finding a rap point.

Pitch 3 48m 4
Exposed bushwalking. From the belay continue right along the shale break (now a walkaround ledge), until a huge loose block appears. Although it is possible to climb over it, it's probably safer to head straight through the cave behind it. Step down into the shale break again, and crawl along until you can stand and set the belay in the corner (excellent #3 camalot up high, other assorted gear about the place).

Up in the back of the corner is a small triangular bollard, solidly wedged in the ground. We stuck a sling over this and rapped 15m down to the large tree on the ledge below. A 45m double rope rap off the tree leads back to terra firma.

There is also a fifth pitch (grade 21) up the impressive vertical headwall - it's about 40m long and has an abseil descent back to the walk around ledge.

See the Sydney Rockies website for detailed access descriptions and topos for the route.

Pitch 1 28m 18
A two star classic pitch - excellent rock and moves up a fine arete. Double bolt belay.

Pitch 2 15m 17
A rambly start leads to a pleasant second half up the orange wall. At the final bolt, move right 2m or so (straight up looks desperate!). The belay bolts are located up and to the left, on the next wall. Wander up the sloping slab and you'll see them.

Pitch 3 12m 15
A pitch for those who like dinnerplates! A technically easy but exciting pitch up the dinnerplate wall to the top of the pinnacle. While there's a good chance you'll break holds off on this pitch, there's not much to worry about since there are lots of bolts and you're not likely to hit anything if you fall off. Triple bolt belay in a superb position on top of the pinnacle - 180 degree views of the Grose!

Once the second arrives, move the belay back to the "bridge" between the top of the pinnacle and the main wall (double ring bolts).

Pitch 4 40m 18
Heads up the easy black slab, then up the orange / grey fin visible up and to the right (don't follow the ring bolts left - they're on "Disco Dancer" (22)). While most of the pitch is pretty easy, there are a couple of moves up the bottom part of the fin that are pretty tricky - some people move right (which isn't much easier, since you have to do a dicky little traverse back left). Tree belay (two she-oaks).

The climb requires a degree of care with holds and protection since it hasn't had many ascents (obviously!). A full rack is a must - take a full set of wires (including some small ones) and a complete set of cams (from micro right through to the #5 camalot). Duplicate mid size cams (#2, #3 camalots) are handy on the first pitch (but not absolutely essential). Also take some bolt brackets for the belays and the third pitch.

Pitch 1 28m 13
Not bad, but not great either (depends if you like chimneys or not!). The climbing is probably harder than 13 if you stick to the chimney the entire way - the first ascent climbed the face to the right down low and up high, but did the troglodyte thing at about half height where the face blanks out and the pro gets scarce (the theory is that it's harder to fall out of an unprotected squeeze chimney than it is to fall off an unprotected face!). Double BB belay.

Pitch 2 15m 20
A great pitch up the steep continuation of the crack. The initial vertical section is deceptively tricky, and requires large gear (#5 then #4 camalots). The upper half is deceptively steep and quite sustained, with some good moves up the thin crack. Protection is good (small wires mainly), but take care when placing it (some of the rock is quite gritty and coarse, making small placements tricky). The final splitter crack through the bulge is a potential heart breaker...
Double BB belay.

Pitch 3 15m 16
An exposed but basically pretty worthless pitch up the front dinnerplate wall of the pinnacle. Note that from the second bolt you need to traverse horizontally left above the lip of the roof for about 5m or so to a BR (reasonably prominent). 5 BRs in all, with one small cam (#0.5 friend or smaller) about halfway up. Belay as for "WWotM" pitch 3.

Pitch 4 40m 18
As for "WWotM" pitch 4.

FA: Peter Monks, Andrew Duckworth (alt. leads), 1st December 2001