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General Climbing Discussion

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Big falls on granite slab routes 1-Jun-2004 At 11:39:39 AM deadpoint

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On 1/06/2004 ness wrote:
>
>yeah - probably - makes for shit scary climbing though. Mind you - I haven't
>actually been there yet - too scared at this point... not great on slabs
>anyway - tend to cry a lot and compain about sore tootsies..

At Booroomba most of the bolts before the early 80's were placed on lead and drilled by hand, that was the ethics back then. Anyone one drilling bolts holes by hand nowdays should give up climbing and stick to the rope and chain activities promoted by the Hellfire Club.

How to place a bolt on lead?

Find a nice stance, get the hammer and bit ready, tap away till you have got a bit of a hole going, you can then loop a sling over the drill bit and have a rest depending how dodgy the stance is. Keep banging away until you have a hole of variable depth. The hole depth depends on how hard the rock is, how sore your hands are and the tenuous nature of the stance.
Blow the hole out, try not to spit on the rock to much as this causes the rock to jam in the hole. Bang in dodgy mild steel carrot leaving a variable amount of shaft exposed. Whatever you do don't use cad plated or stainless steel as this costs more. If too much shaft is exposed, tough as you have no way of removing it at hand anyway.
Clip on a hanger and thank the creator you are still alive, have all 10 fingers, your loss of blood has not been to great when the hammer slides of the bit and clobbers your hand. Not that you have any feeling left at this point.

Don't be concerned just get one on the local 'hard men' like me, hahahahaha to show you the ropes so to speak. I had been climbing at Booroomba for 10 years and had never been up the steep Central Slabs, 140m 70 degree stuff - totaly shit scared. Two of the local hard men Dave MacGregor and Rick Carey conned me into leading the the 1st and 4th pitch of Closer In (23). I have never regretted it.

When your doing granite slabs, the technique falls into two classes. Obviously most climbs have a mixture of the two present.

1. Pure friction, using the balls of your feet including toes to get as much rubber on the rock as possible. Look down and find any slight dish, ripple or crystal. Small steps all the way, never commit to a reach or off balance move. Keep your butt and legs directly over your feet, bend at your waist or extend you hands. Leaning into the rock is the path to disaster !!!!!
Quite often you can drop a knee onto the rock and get a good no hands rest. Generally a huge amount of power is not required. When ever possible drop a heel onto the rock to rest you calves - most off all relax.

2. Edging, this tends to occur on the steeper slabs where small edges are present due to the loss of flakes. Here you use the edges of you shoes on the flakes and crimp on flakes or crystals. Can be very intense on the pointing finger when cranking off single crystals. Some edging routes require extreme power, dynos to edges and gut wrenching mantles.