Texan Limestone (part 2)

The following trip took place on the 16th April, 2000.

Hello again everyone!

Having had such a blast out at Reimer's Ranch last weekend, we decided to head back out there on Sunday and get on a few more routes.

After an early start, we arrived at the ranch and proceeded to sign the required waiver and get the little access buttons. With an entry fee of US$3 and the one-off cost of the access button being US$1, I'm sure the Reimer's make quite a bit of money from climbers, and it's certainly well within most climber's budget. A nice little access arrangement, I reckon, although I don't know how the IRS view it! :-)

Anyway, after repeating the heinous 30 second walk in (the first climbs are literally 50m from the carpark!!), we proceeded around to Dead Cat wall for a couple of quick warm up routes. Having now seen a bit more of the crag, I now see why this wall is so popular. Although none of the routes are absolute classics, the climbing is all at a reasonable grade (5.8 to 5.11-) and varied enough to satisfy most punters.

We chose "Reimerama" a 12m 5.10- as the first cab off the rank. A big reach past the first bolt makes up the crux, then the climbing eases right off. A bit hard to grade, but probably about 15 with a grade 17 crux. We then moved 10m to the right to jump on "Bolted Like Mex", a 12m 5.10 with only two bolts (shock, horror!! :-). After a couple of aborted attempts at the grunty and quite slimy move off the ground, I deviously stemmed off a convenient tree to get underway. Unlike most of my partners in Oz, Leonie didn't jump at the chance to photograph this little ethical transgression!! :-)

Now feeling quite warmed up we headed around to the "Tit for Tom" area, to jump on another of the crag's classics: "T-Roofic", a 15m overhanging 5.10+. After waiting for a party of 3 to redpoint the route, I started up. After doddling up a dirty flowstone the fun begins at the first bolt, with an awkward but not particularly hard move to get onto the wall. From here the climbing steepens right up, with underclings, sidepulls and monster jugs taking you up for about 10m and out for about 5m. Apparently the move to the chains is the crux, being a pull around the lip of the top roof on "heinous slopers, dude". Having found a massive undercling, I could reach right up and clip the lower offs from below the roof, so I skipped that move altogether! :-) A really fun route; about grade 19 or so.

By this point the day had heated right up, and we all seemed to lose a bit of momentum. Everyone seemed keen to jump in the river for a swim (quite a few climbers had already taken that option), but somone reported seeing some water mocassins (no, they're snakes, not shoes!!) which are apparently quite poisonous, so we bailed on that idea. Some of the guys had a theory that they can't bite you under water, but no one seemed game to jump in and test the theory out! :-)

So we headed up to the "Sex Cave" instead, which is the closest climbing area to the carpark. The easiest route here is "Spider Grind", an 8m 5.11 traverse along the top lip of the cave. Being very well protected (4 bolts over 8m - yay!) and with a lot of urging from Leonie I jumped on it as a finale to my whirlwind US climbing trip. I clipped the first bolt no worries, but then somehow got onto a line of sucker holds before having a foot pop and ending up on the end of the rope. Damn! That blew my 100% onsight record in the US!! :-)

Anyway, I lowered off, jumped back on and followed the now obvious "correct" line of holds up to the traverse line. Despite looking ridiculously chalked and quite slimy, the holds were all juggy, and once you pass the second bolt, you can throw up a heelhook and cruise on out. Having clipped the fourth bolt and cruised on past, my pathetic heelhook technique managed to virtually remove my right shoe, and before long PING! I was on the rope again. Luckily my shoe stayed on, so I tightened it up, took a bit of a breather and got moving again. Past the 4th bolt....up to the clipping holds but I just couldn't get comfortable enough to clip them....PING!! Oh well, a bit more of a breather and then a relatively easy clip and I was done. Leonie cruised to the 4th bolt, but seemed to rather suddenly run out of energy and needed one short rest before pulling through to the lower off. She'll definitely tick it soon.

Another good little route, not very technical, but pretty pumpy. A bit like a short version of "Eat My Spinning Blades of Steel" at Nowra, but with much worse feet (since you can only heelhook towards the end). I'd give it a hard grade 20 or easy 21 I reckon.

With the crag now baking in the early afternoon sun (we found out later it hit 33 degrees) we decided to bail and head down to Hamilton Pool, a natural swimming hole about 10 minutes drive down the road. And what a beautiful spot it is too! A big swimming hole located in a huge ampitheatre, with a 25m waterfall dripping into the middle of the pool from above a huge overhang. The water was pretty cold, but with Aussie pride at stake, Leonie and I bravely shivered and procrastinated our way in. At least I got my hair wet (unlike the other "brave" Aussie in the group)! :-)

As we stood on the beach drying off, we watched a group of young kids trying to catch these huge, almost tame catfish that were swimming around their legs, looking for food. Apparently goldfish and large turtles also live in the pool, but unfortunately we didn't see any (given the number of people, I'm not surprised!).

Anyway, after a quick drive back to Austin, a lovely dinner and a quick visit to watch the bats swarming out of Austin's famous "Bat Bridge" (I'll leave that story for another day!), my first US climbing trip was over.

I'd like to say a big "thank you" to Leonie, Bryan and Charlotte who graciously drove me around, belayed me, and put up with my pathetic jokes. Thanks guys!