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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Outback NSW - any climbing? 28-Jun-2010 At 7:30:57 PM gdawg

Message

On 21/06/2010 davidn wrote:
>I kid you not, Alice Springs to Glen Helen saw 40 kms of _continuous_ cliffs as well as a massive >amount of cliffs in the distance where no roads run. Single-pitch territory mostly out of Alice, but >there's multi-pitch opportunities around (Ormiston Gorge, others). Kings Canyon is almost >unexplored (since the main walls can't be climbed, no one seems to have climbed many lines in >the many, many cliffs splitting off the main canyon)...

Alice has heaps of potential (defo). There is no (legal) multipitch in Ormiston or Kings Canyon (or Ularu or Kata Tjuta for that matter). The NPS imposes harsh fines ($2000+) for unautharised climbing in these areas. There is, however, great multipitch climbing at the following:

Emily Gap (7 minutes drive + 2 mins walk - up to three pitches high)
Jessie Gap
North face of Mount Gillen (10 mins drive + 40 mins walk ~100m high vertical cliff)
Serpentine gorge
several others places.

> heck even at Honeymoon Gap (11kms outside Alice) there's some scary overhung river (slick as >crap) rock probly going V1-V10+.

Not sure what is so scary about a fall into soft river sand. Definately agree that the rock is polished (i.e. trains contact strength). Honeymoon Gap represents the (convenient) bottom of the pile as far as bouldering goes around Alice. There is heaps of amazing sandstone/quartzite bouldering within a 30 min to 1 hour drive.

>Only thing I'd say now that I know is forget northern Australia. Fires destroy all the rock but the >cliffs (tearing off holds like mad), and most of the cliffs are sacred sites. C'est la vie.

Devils Marbles is definitely worth a visit. This is a massive series of boulder fields that extend for 20 km + to the east of the Stuart Highway (~50 km south of Tennant Creek - the boulders can be easily seen from Google earth).