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Crag & Route Beta

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All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Screaming Tribesmen, Bungonia 15-May-2011 At 9:17:38 PM nmonteith

Message

On 20/04/2011 dclimber wrote:
>I also added a new route this summer - Asteroids

I repeated this route today with Vanessa Wills. Awesome big day out! 11 pitches squeezed into a winters day was a bit hard going. Lets just say we didn't exactly get the clean ascent. I've got a couple of questions and beta tips from the very vague write up you gave us here on Chockstone (we didn't get the promised topo in time!)

First thing - you mention that all the new climbing was bolted. This seems in-correct. I'll address each pitch.

> that avoids the 25 pitch of screaming
>tribesman and rather than going right you blast straight up on like 11
>Us through a totally sick pitch of pumpyness at grade 25 (makes going right
>look boring but is easier to me going straight up).

It should be noted that this pitch is actually the old direct project that was half bolted about 15 (?) years ago. It's an amazing pitch - a huge hanging tufa and pumpy headwall. Really great. It's not 11 u-bolts, half the bolts are still the old homemade hangers and dynabolts. Such a rad pitch and grade 25 felt right (even thought I sat on almost every bolt!

>The route then hikes
>left for a pitch of bush traversing

This is about 30m of traversing (passing a set of double FIXE hangers) then downclimbs a 5m section of vegetated wall then keep traversing left for another 20m. We made the mistake of just traversing left and ended up on a deadend ledge. You certainly want to be roped up for this pitch even though its just 4th class scrambling! Very loose blocks and dirt at one point. Look for the double U bolt belay. It should be noted that there are NO bolts above this anchor.

PITCH 2 - grade 19 (or 20)
We climbed the next pitch direct above this anchor on full trad for 15m to ledge with tree. This was crozzley (thats limestone speak for dirty!) and badly protected. Medium to big cams in poor horizontal which were very crumbly. This pitch was also pumpy and hard for 19. I'd go as far as saying its dangerous and certainly unpleasant. Whole footholds and handholds were literally crumbling underneath us. Once you get to the ledge with the tree at 15m suddenly lots of bolts appear (??). Weird thing is there is heaps better trad potential on this upper section (but its all bolted) and the rock quality is way better than the start death trad section. We followed some faint chalk on the start - but I thought it looked like it could have also started on some big heucos about 2m left of the anchor. Either way the first 15m of this pitch is trad. The rest is sport. We thought this pitch would be better graded at 20 not 19. Add a couple of bolts to the start of this pitch and it would be much better!

PITCH 2 - grade 24
The start of this pitch seems to be missing a bolt?? You clip a u-bolt straight above the belay then have to climb 6m or more to the next bolt with reasonably hard moves (19 or 20ish?). I got some marginal trad gear in this section (poxy cam half only half in and shitty wire in soft rock). The most alarmingly thing was right at this scary desperate section there is a bolt hole staring you in the face (but no bolt!!). Did you forget to place it - or run out of bolts? If you fell off at the most runout part you would smack your belayer to pieces and go past the belay a long way. The rest of the pitch is very well protected on phat stainless steel and really nice. Great pockets and wall climbing. Grade 24 felt about right.

PITCH 3 - grade 20
Straightforward bolted climbing - at the top of the hard stuff you need to traverse left for about 4m then over a bulge past last bolt to belay below large orange wall. All bolts (although a cam would be useful before you do the traverse).

PITCH 4 - grade 23
Well bolted sport climbing - mostly cruisy jug hauling then a tricky bulgy finish. Once you top out on the 'rock-climbing' part you scramble up ledges and vegetation for another 15m to top of the wall (still on belay). We couldn't find any top anchors - and just tied off two little crappy trees.

I reckon this new route by itself is two stars and combining it with Iron Curtain makes an awesome three star day of cranking! I can't think of many other sustained long routes in mainland Australia at that length? It's gotta be 350+ metres? Way longer than Evolution or Siblings.

Plenty of loose rock on all new pitches - bring a helmet and don't expect pristine Euro limestone...