Return to Thompson's Point

With the weather forecast for the mountains including the word "snow", Andrew and I decided to bale for warmer climes (climbs?) and ended up down at Thompson's Pt.

Neither of us had been there for a while (I haven't climbed there in more than a year), and hadn't really thought about it much so didn't have much of a tick list prepared.

We warmed up on a new climb (which isn't in the latest guidebook), just left of "Santa's Little Helper" on the descent gully walls. It has a move or two of about 18 up and over a steep bulge, but quickly degenerates after that to an easy slab wander - not a bad warmup though.

We then headed around to do "Vanderholics" (18), which was taken, so I repeated "Diddy Kong" (18) instead - very cruisy and pleasant. Andrew did the direct start (20), but with the rock at about zero degrees, his fingers froze solid and he fell off the sustained series of crimps at the start.

"Killer Boas" (22) was free, and neither of us had done it, so Andrew jumped on it and cruised up it for an easy onsight. After a few false starts, I preclipped the first bolt (33% of the gear on the route! :-) and sent it as well, for my first grade 22 flash!! Not bad for a bumbly, hey? :-)

I was keen to try my hand at some 21s, so we wandered around to the Shifting Sands area, where I put the draws up on "Day at the Beach" (21), but fell off after getting a bit lost on the final traversing moves. Andrew flashed it pretty easily, and then jumped on "Speedboat Wankers" (23) which he onsighted with apparent ease - a great effort!! It looks like a great route and not too hard for the grade, either.

After a bit of faffing around, I jumped back on DatB, and got up it pretty easily second time around (despite my Stingers nearly sending me plummeting twice on the hard move between the 2nd last and last draw!). I'll be sticking to my Aces from now on - they may not be "high performance" shoes, but I certainly climb better in them!!

Andrew then jumped on "Black Beddy" (23) and did well to get up to the last hard move before plummetting. He had two more shots in pretty quick succession, but decided to take a longer break before having another redpoint attempt. While this was going on, the peanut gallery all commented on how infuriating a climb it is. Mitch (who was working "Still Life With Chalkbag" (26)), commented that he'd attempted it numerous times and STILL hadn't ticked it. We ended up calling it "Mitches Curse", since if he was in the general area, Andrew would invariably fall off somewhere on the crux moves! :-)

In the meantime I jumped on "Real Buggers Don't Die" (21), which goes up the arete left of "Broken and Barbed". It's deceptively hard to start (it looks like a slab, but isn't), and then degenerates into a desperately greasy and runout arete. After resting on a couple of bolts and really not enjoying myself much I clipped the top ring on "Broken and Barbed" and aided up to the lower off. The top section was so greasy and unpleasant that I really couldn't be stuffed having another go, and Andrew wasn't interested either.

Andrew then jumped back on "Black Beddy" for another lap, and although it was his best effort of the day (probably because Mitch had disappeared!), he still couldn't quite get it. It'll go when he's fresh, I reckon.

We then decided to do one final warm down climb somewhere, and decided to do one of the boulder problem routes on the Mini Wall. The right hand route on the Mini Wall (an 18) looked juggy and well protected (with 3 RBs), so we jumped on that. Some fairly easy but ridiculously greasy jugging got me to below the final RB, but after taking a couple of small falls trying to get comfy enough to clip the sucker I bailed. Andrew got up past my high point, but slid off trying to top out. From my perspective it looked like a desperate, smeary, belly scumming flop up over the top. Yuck! It turned out that we were on "World According to Garf" (20). If it had half decent friction it'd probably go at 18 or 19 and be quite pleasant, but with the ridiculously greasy rock it's pretty unpleasant and difficult to grade to boot!

On our way out I noticed that Je Baise Ma Fraigne on the Pocketed Wall has been rebolted. It now has 4 ring bolts leading to a double ring bolt lower off, and has been extended in length by about 3m or so. The old fixed hangers have all been removed. With the new moves at the end it looks harder than it used to be, but I didn't get a chance to jump on it so don't know for sure.