Diamond Bay Doodling

Got home early on Friday night, preparing for a big day in the mountains on Saturday.

8:30pm - Tim calls - he's missed his flight back from Brisbane and is bailing on Saturday!

Grrrrrrrrrrr..............

So I ended up getting a late start and heading over to Diamond Bay with Peter Flegg and a couple of other SRC guys. One of the guys (Mark) had noticed a set of belay bolts above the wall between the chasm and "The Corner" and some faint initials at the bottom ("WP"), so we set up a top rope and had a bit of a play.

The bottom section was pretty hard (22/23?) but good moves. Very slopy but frictional moves up a blunt, undercut arete. Easy doddling for another 6m or so, then up a horrendously chossy yellow corner to below the steep headwall. The top section was really good - severely overhung but some good holds (along with a bit of loose stuff). Quite exposed too (you're about 15m off the deck at this point). Pete thought the upper section was only about 18, but I reckon it was a bit harder than that (20 or maybe even 21?). Definitely a route worth sinking some big-ass shiny ring bolts into! :-)

We also did the arete left of LP, which has a really tricky start that is actually pretty easy once you've worked out how to do the move. Between the 5 of us we came up with 5 different ways of doing it! Might be leadable on natural gear - the crux move would be well protected with a small cam, but above that I'm not sure what gear options there'd be. I reckon a single BR would make it perfectly safe. Not sure about the top section (we lowered off from a ledge at about 2/3 height) - it gets a bit chossy up higher, but I think you could traverse right to LP or left to the descent ladders.

To end the day I jumped on Gloucester Buckets (20) on the southern wall. *Much* better than I remembered!! The initial wall up to the crux is much easier than I remembered and has great rock too. The crux is harder than I remembered, and after a couple of half hearted attempts and a few small falls I backed off and handed the sharp end over to Pete. He also came up short at the crux, and lowered off to give some of the other guys a go. Mark (a relative beginner who hasn't led much, but has top-roped GB a few times) then top-roped up to the crux, and (after one exciting whipper!) pulled through the move and topped out!! He was crazy not to have led the whole thing, I reckon!

While I was on GB, Justin MacDonald jumped on Mompox (hard 23) just to the left. He got up it with a few anxious moments. I've had a couple of people say it's worth two stars, and from watching Justin do it, it looks great. It's equipped with good quality RBs as well, so is safe to lead. Although it doesn't really have a crux, it gets progressively harder with height, and by the top Justin's arms were fairly bulging.

I had to leave early, so that was it for me for the day, but as I was packing up two young ladies in bikinies wandered down the stairs (not without a bit of trouble) and then went for a swim in the bay. They must have been crazy, since both Diamond Bay and Rosa Gully are storm water outlets, and after all this rain there was a big brown slick floating about in the middle of the bay! Sick!