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Hello everyone!
Well it's been a while since my last trip report, but seeing as I've just spent two excellent days climbing basalt cracks on the New England tablelands, I thought now would be a good time to write another one.
As I'm sure many of you are aware, Will and I had planned to lead a massive contingent of SRC members up to Ebor and Gara gorges over the long weekend. Despite exaggerating the place until it made Arapiles sound like a boring choss pile, we got a rather poor turn out. In fact, the only other person to brave the long drive up with us was Greg Andrews, who isn't even an SRC member!
To put some perspective on things, however, we were competing with an SRC trip to Booroomba, so perhaps that'd explain things (still, I can't understand why anyone would choose a 4hr drive with 150m granite slabs at the end over a 6 hour drive with 10m-15m basalt cracks at the end!).
After a rather late start on Friday night, and a slow trip up the Freeway, we finally got off the beaten track and picked up on lost time up the Bucket's Way (which passes through Stroud, Gloucester and then on to Nowendoc). By 12:30am we'd had enough driving, and pitched our tents somewhere between Nowendoc and Walcha. With the temperature somewhere between 4 and 8 degrees and a cold wind blowing, it was the first decent night's sleep I've had since late November!
With Greg keen to jump on some offwidths (yes, he is certifiable!) and Will and I both keen to jump on some slightly more sane cracks, it was an early start the next morning. Two hours later we arrived at the upper Ebor Falls lookout, which stands out over the first of 6 buttresses (or "breakaways" as they are known) on the southern side of the gorge.
Now Will and I had previously spent two days climbing here over Easter 1997, and my overriding memories were of shockingly sustained cracks soaring miles into the sky. Standing on the lookout, however, staring down 15m of dirty basalt to a riot of overgrown sword grass, I have to admit I felt a little disappointed. Soon enough our eagerness to get on rock swept away our doubts, and we scrambled on down to the base of the 1st breakaway ().
Since Greg's unrequited love of offwidths was obviously getting to him (he'd developed a rather unsettling nervous tic), we decided to find a suitable crack/vertical trench to be his first conquest. "Caballero", a grade 16 corner and offwidth looked the ticket, so up went Greg. After a tricky start up a thin crack (), the business begins: a 5m offwidth (no, that's its height, not its width!).
Although we had brought along not one but two #5 camalots to help Greg indulge his urges, he had foolishly left both of them on the ground. So, when he reached the gaping maw of the offwidth, he proceeded to place the most tipped out, undercammed #4 camalot I think I have ever seen (actually it wasn't that bad, I'm just disappointed at not having witnessed Greg leading with two boat anchors hanging off his harness!).
With much grunting, arm barring and plain old-fashioned thrutching Greg pulled through the offwidth section to the steeper headwall. Here a great knee bar offered a hands free rest just before the slightly dirty top out.
I then seconded Greg, while quite a crowd of spectators on the lookout admired my fine form up the offwidth (I thought I might have heard laughter at one point, but it was a bit hard to hear over the loud grunting that was coming from somewhere very close by).
Although Will had his eye on a rather spider-webby grade 21 finger crack just under the lookout, he ended up choosing "Seizure", a grade 15 "textbook hand jam crack" as our next route. This climb offered many challenges: a V1 boulder problem to get over the blackberries and to the start of the climb, a grade 15 stemming crux over miscellaneous vegetation at the bottom of the crack, a grade 15 jamming crux up the nice crack above (), then a grade 15 streno crux at the top, which involved yarding off a rather dirty bush to gain an offwidth and a mantle to top out. Surprisingly, this climb was an absolute ripper: the jamming up the crack was excellent, and despite the slightly dirty nature of the crack, the jams were incredibly secure. Greg wasn't all that interested in a crack this narrow, and about this time some of Will's mates turned up, so we took a break for lunch.
For the afternoon's entertainment, we headed over to the 2nd breakaway, located about 100m downstream from the 1st breakaway. Eager for a lead, I jumped on "Hitman" a pleasant 12m grade 15 slab and crack. Perhaps it was because I do a lot of face climbing, but I felt that this route was rather overgraded (probably more like 13). Definitely a nice one to warm up on though!
Meanwhile Greg had decided that he'd had enough of offwidths (after doing only one!) and jumped on "Fingers", a 12m grade 18 crack that starts at fist width then gradually closes down to finger locks at the top (). Will and I both seconded it, and I can tell you, it's an excellent route! Because of the variation in the width of the crack, you pass through fist jams, rattley jams, tight jams, then finger locks all in a quick succession of moves, and there's not really much in the way of rests, either (unless you do what I did and sit on the rope numerous times!). Great stuff!
For my final lead of the day I wandered up "Ivory Stairs", a slightly loose little grade 15 up a rather dirty V corner. The crux was quite thought provoking, however, which made up for the looseness lower down.
In the meantime, Will and Andrew made their way up "Modern Electrics", a grade 17 sport climb. This climb heads up the front face of a clean, hexagonal column, with the crux at the top offering some nice arete moves - layaways up a blank section of rock.
After a wild night of good old fashioned country debauchery (dinner at the pub, home by 10pm), we had a rather late start on Sunday. Keen to get to some rock we hadn't seen before, we decided to spend the day at the 3rd and 4th breakaways.
After taking about half an hour to scramble about 100m down the steep, loose, grassy descent gully, held together by sword grass and prayers, we finally reached the first couple of routes. While a couple of top-rope projects on the first, steep section looked quite interesting (but bloody hard!), we'd completely lost interest in bashing the remaining 20m through blackberries, fallen boulders and thick ferns to the easier routes. So we bailed, and took another half an hour to get back up to the rim of the gorge! I'd definitely recommend rapping in, if you plan on climbing at the 3rd breakaway.
At this point we decided to continue on to the 4th breakaway, where my nemesis climb from last trip eagerly awaited my arrival. It's name is "Twist", and it's a 10m grade 16 jam crack.
10m I hear you chuckle? Well let me tell you, this route is 10m of the most evil hand-trashing, foot-squashing, arm pumping crack you can get. Last time I attempted it, it spat me off barely 2m off the ground, and proceeded to shatter my confidence by spitting me out after each subsequent piece of gear as well. Even Will, on second, was forced to sit last time around.
So this time, as I looked up this "mere" 10m of crack, I tried to persuade myself that the crack wasn't really sneering at me.
I quickly racked up and once on belay, stepped up to the crack, placed a #1 camalot as high as I could reach and prepared to start off. At this point, Greg gave me some much needed support, with "It looks pretty easy to me. Get on with it, you big wuss-bag!" I thanked him politely, and "got on with it".
Immediately my focus shrank to the climbing: getting my feet solidly wedged in the crack, trying to get my jams well set, and keeping my weight on my feet. A couple of glorious, bomber hand jams and I was past the #1 camalot, and starting to think about more gear. #2 camalot? #3? After a bit of fumbling, the #3 camalot went in and I reached up over it to continue the jamming.
Now as an experienced crack climber may tell you, a #3 camalot in a jam crack is usually a bad sign: cracks of this size become too big to comfortably jam but are still too small to fist.
Being the internationally acclaimed crack climber that I am, this little fact didn't register, until I started to pull on my jams. Suddenly my jams weren't as good as I thought they were! I quickly replaced my now obviously rattley jams, eyeballed the gear below me and cranked.
A timeless, hollow instant passed and then I'd pulled through, to a rest of sorts. At this point, a slopey horizontal break meets the crack, and forms a good hold just inside the lip ().
By this point I was beginning to fight the Elvises, so I quickly scanned the crack for gear, shakily selected a #2 camalot and shuddered it home. A quick clip and I was off again. A couple of solid jams up I noticed a nice little crimp just over a bulge to the right of the crack.
Now having come from a face climbing background, and having just performed a number of moves in a row without using any face holds, this tiny little edge stood out like an oasis in the middle of the sahara desert. And like the thirsty explorer, I was unconditionally drawn to the oasis, without any conscious thought or control.
I firmly grasped the little gift from heaven and with a gleam in my eye and a sneer on my face ("I've sent this sucker", I recall thinking), I got my feet up high, gave an almighty crank and reached up and placed a glorious jam in the crack.
PING!
Next thing I know I'm sitting on the rope, half of the crimp sitting in my hand, the other half sprinkled in Will's hair, and the back of my left hand running with blood.
Yep, you guessed it, "Twist" had spat me out again! And when I looked down, I was barely 4m off the ground, even though I'm sure I'd done 10 or 20 moves to get that far! A quick look at my beloved oasis revealed the worst: the beautiful little crimp was gone, crumbled into so much basalt sand.
Having blown my clean ascent, and sacrificed the backs of my hands to the Great Rock God, my motivation suddenly departed, and after a couple of half hearted attempts, I finally managed to shudder and shake my way to the top, past one more #3 and a #2 camalot.
Will then proceeded to do a clean ascent (albeit with preplaced gear), while Greg made me feel a little better by also falling off fairly low on the route (serves him right for calling me a "wuss-bag"!).
Although I was finished for the day (and for the trip, as it turned out), Will had been eyeing "Rooflet", a grade 19 jam crack also located on the 4th breakaway, and Greg was keen to second him up it. This Ebor classic starts up a deceptively tricky layback/jam corner crack then underclings out a 1.5m roof to the business: a tricky 5m jam crack, with no feet for the first 2m (because of the roof).
Will easily disposed of the initial corner and roof (), but after a couple of solid attempts failed to gain the jam crack above. After several more attempts, he aided the move and continued on to the top of the cliff (). Greg then seconded, and also put on a good show at the crux, grunting as he attempted moves, and variously cursing cracks, basalt and sword grass in between. After many attempts and much loss of skin he finally cranked the move free, and (once he'd gained a rest) began ranting about Ebor sandbagging, 19s that were more like 22 and sword grass (for a change).
From my vantage point as "French Film Crew" it certainly looked like a good route, and with Will and Greg both raving about the climb later on (after they'd calmed down a bit), I guess it was as good as it looked.
As it turned out, Sunday was our last day at Ebor, and after much discussion, we decided that in fact the grades are probably fair, it's just our ineptness at crack climbing that made some of the routes ("Fingers", "Twist" and "Rooflet" in particular) feel a lot harder than they are graded.
My overall impressions from the weekend? Ebor is an excellent place to learn to crack climb: certainly better than anywhere else I've climbed. Access is a snap (even by sport climbing standards!), the cracks are of all sizes and take as much bomber gear as you can place, and the climbs are short enough that you can concentrate on technique without having to worry about getting too pumped.
Definitely a recommended climbing destination!
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