I must say I rather like climbing at (ahem!) Booroomba . .. .
Friday 8 October 1999: The drive was rather tedious . . After Rob picked me up at work at 4.20pm, we didn't get to to Honeysuckle Creek camping ground until 10:50pm . . . .
(We went to my place (After making the huge effort to lug all my climbing and camping gear to work, I'd forgotten my bloody sleeping bag) then via Damiens place then Pete Nolans (he had the only house key to Damiens parents place in Canberra - he wasn't there but left the key (well, *a* key) under his doormat. Then petrol stop halfway along Gardeners Rd and battle our way through peakhour traffic - Earlwood etc to the M5. Dinner at Hungries near the Bungonia turnoff. Went to Damien's parents place in Tuggeranong. PNolan gave him the wrong key. Couldn't get in, luckily the house minder was home so we woke her up. Waste of time anyway, because Damien couldn't find the keys to the car he wanted to borrow, and that car was parked in anyway . . )
Rather annoying - 4hrs driving time took us 6.5 hours.
Rob and I set up his tent, but Damien forgot one minor detail - HIS tent! Lucky boy got to sleep in the car. Lucky Rob got me elbowing and kicking him all night . . . .
Annnyway, next morning (Sat 9 Oct 1999) we were at Booroomba around 8.30, and did the horrendous uphill battle to the top (a month off climbing really drops your fitness!! Well thats my excuse for panting and puffing so much . . ). Damien called Adam on his mobile, Adam was going to be a while so we decided to do a 'quick' route while we waited. After a quick descent (I managed to find the 'hidden' good descent for the N slabs after only doing it once previously), we started up the 4 pitch grade 9 classic, Sunstroke. Rob nabbed first lead, and was not at all comfortable, taking well over an hour to lead the 60m (combined 1st and 2nd pitches). . . . . perhaps he should have warmed up on second!! (Damien and I are both more familiar with granite).
These pitches are both good, following a slanting groove/crack, with great pro and the odd nice smearing section. The final bit (the '2nd' pitch) has only one piece of pro for 20m, but is ridiculously easy - I walked (almost ran!) most of it on smears.
Damien and I simulclimbed on second, and he won 'rock-scissors-paper' for the final 2 pitches. Despite some drag (the route goes up a large R-facing corner for 8m at the start, then the rest of the pitch goes leftwards and drags the rope through the crack, and its a full 60m) he was up it in a flash, but took bloody ages to set the belay. After Rob and I seconded, we saw why - he'd run out of rope about 10m from where the gear was, untied, looped the rope round a bush, continued on to the belay, then ran some slings back down to where the rope was!! (It was pretty easy territory - hands free)
These were also nice pitches - the groove heads up thru some steepish bulges, making for some nice climbing, with plenty of gear, and needing the odd smearing technique.
A great route all up, 2 star classic - the perfect introduction to Booroomba.
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Adam had arrived about 40min previously, and met us at the top. After scarfing down lunch, Rob and Damien aimed for Possum (3 pitch 13), and Adam and I headed for Determinant (7 pitch 15), which heads up the massive North Buttress - the biggest chunk of rock in the ACT. I'd forgotten how impressive it really is - last time I was there we hadn't used the 'Middle Rocks' descent gully, so I hadn't seen it since my first trip to Booroomba, about 3 years ago. This time I was struck by its sheer enormity - its about 150m high, in a great location. The lines which really impressed were Hermes (16, but doesn't go the full height, starting up round the side and finishing off right), Incisor 19 (straight up the guts of the rounded arete!!), and Jett Arete 19 (the left hand arete of the buttress, starting above the Prow - about 70m of continuous arete, starting on a ledge about 60m off the deck.)
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The North Buttress
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Determinant (~150m 15) generally heads up the front of the massive buttress, but wanders around a bit. Adam had done this climb twice before (once solo!!), so maybe I should have thought harder before agreeing to solo the 'easy' first pitch. It's about 10 or 11, which is quite hard enough when you're 20m off the deck! To be fair though, the only bit of pro on the pitch is 15m up, so its a 'headpoint' regardless . . . .
The second pitch is one of the best pitches I've done at Booromba. Walking 10m L around the ledge to its end, the ground below drops away, so you start about 40m off the ground. The pitch heads up and left through the middle of a slab which is about 15m across, and 15m high to start, tapering up to a point at the upper left corner. 5m below where you climb it goes vertical (exposure!!) and its capped by a slightly oververtical wall. Where the slab meets the wall above is a rising diagonal crack for the first 6-8m, providing pro for the start of the pitch. I even chucked a wire in a flake on the wall above where the crack ran out. After that, you have to downclimb to the slab proper, then traverse out left over the void, into a 'pendulum' position. The crux moves are pure slab up and slightly left, to a point where I was at the same height as my wire, and about 7m left. Further hard moves for about 4m led up to the steep wall again, and another piece of gear, then an excellent smearing traverse further left for another 5m or so led to a piton. At this point, the vertical wall below comes up and meets the vertical wall above, so you're in an amazingly exposed position! A tricky pull left onto a block, then up an easy corner/groove to a big ledge and sinker wires for the belay.
The third 'pitch' is an unroped walk 20m left along a big ledge. Adam also let me lead the 4th pitch, which was another good-un. 10m laybacking up a steep flake (good gear) to stand on top of it - an awesome position (beneath the awesome looking Jett Arete, and with the enormous wide open spaces of the central slab headwalls 20m left). I think this is the top of what is called The Prow (about where the 3rd or 4th pitch of Jett Sett ends up). Anyway, from here there's an obvious traverse line of jugs, heading right across to a corner crack which quickly turns into an easy ramp to the belay. The only question is whether its a hand traverse or a foot traverse. With all my Blueys experiences (eg Traverse of the Gods!), I figured its better to have no feet than no hands, so smeared my way out across the steep slab. The only advantage of doing it this way is that its damn fun (and also makes a so-so wire placement available behind the jugs half way across). But Adam did it as a foot traverse and its a doddle - I really do have to learn to differentiate between slab climbing and wall climbing!! A nice shady belay was my reward (it was stinking hot in the sun on Saturday!!). Adam seconded then carried on thru on the 5th 'pitch' - an easy 5m traverse on rock to a really cool exposed step around a boulder, then dirt scrambling for a while.
He brought me up to the dirt then we wandered up the remainder of the dirt/scrub to the final headwall. After sitting in the lovely shade for a while slowy dehydrating (we didn't carry water . . .), he bagsed the final lead (fair enough considering we were 5 pitches down and he'd led none . . :-), choosing the direct finish of Terminant Corner (35m 15) (the final 2 pitches of Determinant head left and aren't sposed to be that great).
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This is a great pitch going up a 20m slightly closed corner (slightly tighter than a 90 degree corner), which is slightly slabby on the left wall, but vertical or just over on the right. The start is quite tricky as it's off-hands and undercut, but smearing on the L wall and laybacking gets you started. The climbing is amazingly continuous for the entire length of the corner. It's best to jam, as gear placement/retrieval would be too hard on a layback. It's beautiful hands for most of the way, but because of the slightly overhung R hand wall, its very tiring and strenuous, and worst of all goes to thin-hands/off-fingers and bulges a bit for the last 5m!! Luckily Adam didn't place gear here, so I wussed out and went the layback :-)) (He probably did too - thats why he didn't place gear!!)
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Adam cruising Terminant Finish
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After the difficulties, the pitch continued up the corner over some blocks, traversing around a steep slimy offwidth at the top.
A great day all up - almost 300m of climbing, 10 pitches, and no sunburn! (Although Damien got totally fried on Possum - the silly boy took his shirt off for a no-shade 3 pitch route.... then buried a cam and had to sit on belay for ages while Rob tried to clean it!)
Steaks and atrocious coffee at Tuggeranong RSL then home and crashed by 9pm.
After the losers in the campsite woke us up at 6am (A man and his wife, 2 teenage boys in full army camouflage gear, and an assortment of kids between 6 and 12 (must have been catholics . .. ). They were absolute morons though - the father was up in the trees ripping branches off to throw on the fire - despite the fact that (a) its a national park and (b) there's an enormous pile of wood provided about 20m from their tents - and the fire only seemed to be going so that they could implement their 'bash/burn/bury' technique of disposing of junk - more like "sound pollution/atmosphere pollution/catchment&soil pollution" if you ask me - f***ing environmental criminals. . . . Then they all drove off leaving a roaring fire unattended even though it had been stinking hot and sunny and bone dry the day before . . . . Damien and I rolled all the logs out, but still needed about 10litres of water to put it out - unbelievable . . . )
Annnyway, that gave us a generous 2.5 hrs to eat and break camp and wait for Adam to rock up at 8.30. After the sore legs gained from the Booroomba walk in, Honeysuckle crag (20min uphill bushbash) was canned, and the choice was for the Cloisters.Rob led Damien up a grade 9 flake/corner.
I considered Sasha Cracka, a beautiful grade 18 splitter handcrack with a crux overhung jam section, but the tenderness of my pads and hands from Determinant persuaded me to be gentle. I opted for a typical granite slab 'headpoint' - a 25m grade 14 with one gear placement. The route heads up a slab between two converging flakes to their apex, then the flakes turn into a diagonal groove/crack, but my route went straight up. The first 16m was really nice - a wavy sort of slab, providing tricky moves over consecutive bulges, then restful stances in between - though the old calves were burning from the smearing pretty quickly! Adam went on belay as I placed a #9 Hex, #1.5 friend and#6 wire in quick succession, then turned to the moves above. After some tricky moves to step onto the slab above the overlap, 5m led to the final bulge - essentially holdless, and almost getting to vertical - clearly the crux. Even though I was only about 6m out from my gear, my head was obviously softening up - after a few noncommittal attempts to about 7-8m from my gear, I started looking down, left, right - anywhere I could escape to!!
Finally I decided that the bulge was a bit more than I was up to, so downclimbed a few metres, then padded left to the diagonal crack. This is sposed to be grade 9 at most (The lefthand flake finishes up here and is graded 9), but the groove runs out at the same height as the bulge making for some committing moves, 3m after your gear runs out (I put in one more cam up here). The bulge is smaller and there are some good little edges and crystals, but even so, it felt hard for 9!! On second, Adam came straight up the 14, and called the final bulge (technically) at about grade 15 - I might get him to lead it one day and tell me the'headpoint' grade!! . Damien led the grade 10 flake (the righthand one), and also got a bit freaked about the final moves above the diagonal crack!! Finally, Adam led a 25m bolted grade 16/17 slab to the right (4 bolts - luxury!!), then dropped the rope and I sportclimbed it, Rob and Damien seconded. Amazing how grade 17 is easy when there's a bolt at you feet, but grade 15 totally insurmountable 8 metres out!
Looming clouds dissuaded us from any further climbing (and my trashed tips helped too) so after a squiz around the excellent cracks on offer at the crag (including a hilarious 'bum slide' down a big leafy ramp there (by me)), we headed home. Damien got a lift with Adam, so Rob and I drove straight to Sydney, home by 6pm.
Anyone else get to smear on the weekend? :-)
© 2000 Will
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