Thursday 14th I collected Rob and all his gear from Spencer St, both of us bursting at the seams for some more mileage on the Wimmera quartzose. Rob for 6 weeks, me for a measly 2 days .. .
Friday 15 October, I rushed home from work, Rob and I packed the car, and were in Blackburn at 5.30pm to collect Nicola. Pushing across Melbourne in peakhour was a bit slow, but we were chowing down on Chinese in Ballarat by 7.30pm. Driving through and past the amazing 15km+ line of trees (one for each Ballarat soldier who has died in war - the Avenue of Honour), we picked up milk in Horsham, and were ensconced at the Pines by 11pm.
Saturday morning dawned beautifully clear, and quite chilly at first (well, you needed long pants and a jumper, anyway). For Rob and Nicola's edification, we decided to go for the Bard first up, but after a slow start, there was a threesome already almost finished the first pitch. After humming and haahing for a while, we decided to do it anyway, and I led off up the first pitch at about 9am. I remember when seconding Damien he'd found bugger all gear on the initial 15m slab, but I found 3 or 4 good placements, including one sinker micro-offset wire. I continued up the nice corner crack above (its a remarkably good pitch to here!!) then up the easy ramp for 15m. I decided the belay would be better for 3 at the start of the 2nd pitch traverse (a small ledge, 5m above the usual belay on the ramp, 2 sinker wires, a great #9 hex and a #3friend) - and the photos were much better from there too!! :-)
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Rob and Nic seconded in style, then after waiting for the party in front of us to vacate the ledge at the other end of the traverse, Rob led off. He totally cruised the traverse, placing gear every 3 feet. After Rob waited a while for their seconder to clean a wire and set the belay, Nic also totally styled the traverse (even posing for some photos mid-crux!), making my recollections of "more like 16" seem a bit off kilter! I also found it far easier this time - no harder than 12. Despite a cramped belay, we managed to arrange the ropes for Rob to also lead the 3rd pitch, and after the haul off the ledge, he had a real ball, especially on the undercling traverse and stemming up the bottomless chimney. By this time Nic and I were starting to roast in the direct sun, and lusting after the shady Bard Terrace! Nic again seconded in style, and found the undercling traverse to be the crux of the route.
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Nic making the traverse look easy
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I seconded, finding the initial moves quite committing and tricky, then had to spend about 5 minutes bashing away at a welded (stuck!!) wire at the start of the undercling traverse. Not the most enjoyable thing to do in direct sunlight on a hot day (28 degrees), so I got frustrated and didn't enjoy the traverse much!
I did enjoy leading the 4th pitch though - it's MUCH better than I remembered. Starts with a 6m ramble up to gear, and then its about 10-12m of slightly overhung jugs, with as many sinker wire placements as you could wish for - you could just about blindly throw your entire set of wires at this bit of cliff, and they'd all hit a sinker placement!! Great position to swing foot free too - so I did.
Glad to finally make the terrace, I chucked some gear in and belayed the others up. As this was happening, some frantic action started happening down at the bottom of Tiger Wall - turns out a lady fell off Syrinx and was hurt pretty badly. While we were on the Terrace, the SES and ambulances and cops all turned up and the full-on rescue thing happened. Some confusion existed cause someone also came off the Plaque area and dislocated their shoulder!! Which diverted the ambos for a while . . .
But no idea how the lady ended up after they finally stretchered her into the ambulance.
Rob and Nic apparently heard lots of screaming (I didn't), so Rob was a bit freaked when trying the hard move at the start of the 5th pitch, so asked me to lead it instead. It is a bloody hard move!! The first 10m of v-groove on this pitch is also bloody hard to protect without a #4 camalot or bigger! I quite enjoyed this pitch (for the 3rd time!!) but by this time was bloody hungry and getting sunstroke too. Oh, and watch out for the big loose block at the end of the steep bit (ie don't put the obvious #2 camalot in behind it . .. . or sling the top of it . ... )
I was stoked to use a #0 DMM microwire in my belay on top :-))
Anyway, soon the others were up, and we worked our way thru to the rap, and were lucky (unlucky????) enough to bump into (wait for it . .. ) ???? doing a grade 16 route on the Fang Buttress (quote "don't bother wasting all that time setting a belay, I'm not going to fall off anyway" end quote).
I pleaded hunger and escaped rapidly, to return to the packs at 3.30pm - a mere 6.5 hrs on the route!!! We were all dehydrated, hot, and bloody hungry, so after some sambos thought about some easy shady routes on Bushranger bluff. Unfortunately the only decent looking route there (a no star 8 - a potential lead for Nic) was taken, and the moment the words 'gees I could go a beer' escaped someones lips, we were off to Horsham. So we only did the Bard that day (though 5 pitches in a day is quite respectable!). After a steak and some beers, Rob shopped for a few weeks worth of food, and then we were home and snoring (me quite loudly apparently!!) by 9pm.
We had an early start the next morning, and Rob and I were on the classic Watchtowers waterstreak route, Brolga, at 8am. Rob led the first pitch, which heads up to a bulge at 14m. A tricky step L under the bulge, then awesome slopy moves over it led to a rest at about 18m. A sustained thin section leads to jugs over a final bulge to belay at 30m. The second pitch is just awesome - about 6m of thin holds to first gear, then gear every 3-4m for the rest of the pitch (if you have duplicates in small cams!). Beautiful sustained climbing for all but the last few metres, with only one decent rest. This is really a brilliant pitch.
The final pitch steps L off the ledge, then about 8m of nice easy face climbing lead to a simple exit ramp. The route proper continues up the face, but the exit ramp is the more obvious choice. When topping out on the horrendously loose scree above, Rob knocked 6-8 rocks down - up to about brick sized. Fortunately the belay I was on is under a slight bulge so when I heard the call I could huddle under that, but the party of 3 following us up the pitch was totally exposed - and not wearing a single helmet. One rock smashed into the ledge about a metre from me, but thank god nothing hit the people behind us - it would have been really serious I think - the rocks had fallen about 50-60m by that point, and made a horrible whizzing as they went past.
Yet another lesson of "wear a bloody helmet!!".
Anyway, we rapped down and met Nic back at the car about 11.30am - another fairly slow ascent unfortunately.
Rob and I were pretty weary after another few hours in the hot sun (note, the season for Watchtowers routes has definitely now passed!), so after I led Nic up an excellent little 10 on the beautiful rock of the now shaded Plaque area, we'd all had enough. Nic and I shared a coffee with Rob, then wished him good luck and were on the road by 3.30pm. After icecreams in Horsham, a speeding ticket for Nicola in Stawell (82 in a 60 zone = $160 - ouch!!) and Hungries in Ballarat, we were home and giving the washing machine a belting by 8.30pm.
Anyone else get to belay off sinker microwires on the weekend? :-)
© 2000 Will
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