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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC All	(General)	(General)	(General)	[ Victoria Guide \| Images ]

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Easy alpine climbing areas at Mt Buffalo 12-Aug-2015 At 10:15:56 AM snowsense

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Idshield, I think I saw your snow shoe tracks heading up the old ski run?

On Sunday morning we traipsed up to the top ski tower on the far LHS of the resort area, soloed up some 60 degree pitches of hard pack crust sitting on corny groupel with a hoar topping.

Useless for setting up any kind of snow anchor with regular snow gear. I used a ski as an anchor which was only just big enough to have any kind of lateral resistance in the unconsolidated snow. However what we did find of huge interest to most on here was a wall, roughly 10m high with vertical to slightly overhanging ice, in good condition.
This has to be the most accessable vertical ice anywhere in Victoria. The genius bit is that the slope above it is studded with car size boulders that you can effect super bomber belays off. Rare in ice climbing terrain.

We then soloed the RHS squeeze chimney to access the upper ramp below what is the back of ariel block. The squeeze is the most obvious feature on the LHS above the boulder choke. It's a 30min walk from a carpark that is free to park in and climbs well, as well as blue lake or the buller chutes.

Years ago when Kev and I were writing the buffalo guide I tooled around out the back of the horn as well, but they were drought years back then, prolly take a look out there next week. I have pics but uploading them here is seems like a ballache. I don't have pics of the actual ice features (too busy white knuckling may way around to stop for a shot) but you can make out where we went: https://instagram.com/snowsense_au