Ron Finally Ticks Bentrovarto

Ron and I went out on Sunday, 5th March 2000 and did Bentrovarto (~110m grade 18 - more like 20) at Sublime Pt. This route has been on Ron's tick list for some time, and after two aborted attempts, he finally managed to tick it off his list this time around.

I led the excellent first pitch, a 20m thin crack in superb rock up a steep wall (it overhangs about 1.5m in the first 15m). Definitely a sandbag at 18 (probably more like 20), but actually not too hard technically (most of the moves are reasonably obvious). The moves themselves are quite sporty (lots of sidepulls, underclings etc.), and the climbing is very sustained and pumpy, with only one decent rest at about 3/4 height (almost hands free), see . I had to rest on the rope twice, once at the crux (which is only about 4m off the deck) and once again just below the rest (I could see it, but was just too pumped to pull the easy moves to get to it). Ron battled up the pitch and managed to get it free on second (a very impressive effort given that the wires I'd rested on were pretty solidly wedged in the crack!).

Ron then led off on the 22m second pitch, an easy (grade 6?) traverse along a fairly wide sloping ledge (). This passes by a big loose block and a double ring bolt belay about halfway across (where a Mark Baker sport route crosses Bentrovarto) to a second double ring bolt belay (with two manky old carrots from the original ascent). Ron wasn't too happy about the look of the ring bolts, so he clipped into one of the manky belay bolts and placed some bomber small cams in a break. We took a bit of a breather at this point and started playing around with one of the ring bolts. Much to my surprise, Ron managed to pull it out with his fingers!! The other one also came out without too much effort (I could spin it around after a bit of playing, but needed a nut tool to lever it out of the hole). It appears that the glue didn't mix properly, since it was quite soft and rubbery (it had about the consistency of slightly hardened plasticine or something - I could stretch it out and pull bits off quite easily). A very sobering incident.

Anyway, the next pitch looked really short (10m?) and ended at a very small belay stance, so I clipped the single manky BB and led on through. From the BB, the climb heads up a 6m pillar on awful rock () to a 2 foot wide ledge that traverses clean across the face (for about another 15m or so). This bit was quite thought provoking, since there are very few handholds, not much gear (one or two manky BRs and dodgy gear here and there), and two big loose blocks sitting on the ledge that you have to (gingerly!) clamber over. Still, the rock was back to being good quality, and the climbing itself wasn't too hard (grade 6?) so I just took it pretty steady.

At the end of the traverse is a wide vegetated gully, but the climb ascends the wall just before the gully. This bit is actually quite strenuous again, being quite steep with big holds on quite scary looking rock (in spots), but enough gear to keep me happy (mmmm......slung ironstone chickenheads......). I'd probably give this pitch about grade 13 or so (mainly just for the last 8m up the wall). A comfy little belay cave with some bomber cams (no sign of the BB the guidebook mentions) and I brought Ron across. A note if you plan on linking these two pitches together: definitely use double ropes, since it's a long pitch (~40m) and the line moves horizontally (10m), then straight up (6m), then horizontally again (15m), then straight up again (10m). Even with careful use of Ron's double ropes and almost religious extending, I had really bad rope drag on one of the ropes by the end of the pitch (partly because it had become pinched underneath one of the loose blocks - which I was NOT happy about).

At about this point the thunder that had been growling in the distance most of the morning suddenly got a lot closer, and Narrowneck started to disappear behind a wall of rain. Needless to say, we were both a bit frantic to get moving again. Ron headed back into the gully and had a bit of a play around with the start of the next pitch (which is supposed to head up the right hand wall at the back of the gully), but couldn't find a way up (partly because there was next to no protection and neither of us was keen on a factor 2 swinging fall onto the belay). He even tried squirming his way up behind a chockstone at the very back of the gully, but with the rain starting to tumble down we decided to bail and climb out an escape route Ron had done on a previous visit. This involved stepping across the gully (no mean feat with slippery wet rock everywhere), passing a BB (which is apparently on Bentrovarto, although buggered if we could work out why you'd cross the gully only to come back again), and then heading up an easy, but rather scary 15m dinnerplate wall (about grade 8) to the top.

Ron: Looking back to the route () as I was taking the escape exit, I believe the correct next pitch from Peter's belay would have been straight up the arete for another 3m; traverse left 3m and then continue up somewhere. The right wall of the gully I had been trying was very unprotected and a difficult start with a nasty fall into a tree or worse, unless you can squeeze up under the chockstone at the back of the gully. If you take that option then you're going to have some severe rope drag problems for the rest of the pitch.

By this time the rain was absolutely bucketing down, and with the wind howling I was getting pretty soaked in the belay cave as well (even though I had put on my goretex). After a slight communication breakdown (because of the rain) I finally got started up the pitch, finding the gully crossing rather nerve wracking (predictably enough, it had become a waterfall). Even the dinnerplate wall was pouring with water, and every time I reached up for a handhold, a litre or so of water ran down my arm, down my sleeve and into my shirt, underneath the goretex. In fact the rain was pouring so hard that I couldn't actually look up to see where I was going!!

Anyway, it wasn't particularly hard going, but was pretty exciting nonetheless (what with water everywhere, the wind howling and the dinnerplates creaking and snapping!). A good lead from Ron in very trying circumstances!

And that was about it. A 10m walk left dropped us onto the "Sweet Dreams" exit track (which both of us knew quite well) and the 10 minute walk back to the car. Luckily it stopped raining long enough for us to sort our racks and put on some dry clothes in the Sublime Point carpark. We then hightailed it to Leura, where we pigged out on meat pies, coffee and hot chocolate. By the time we'd finished it was bucketing down so hard that neither of us was keen to try to get back into the car, so we wandered up and down the main street of Leura doing a bit of window shopping.

An uneventful trip back (apart from that &@$*^%! Sunday evening traffic jam) capped off an excellent day's adventure. Now, does anyone know how to dry out my climbing shoes by next weekend? :-)