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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Buffalo	Gorge	North Side	Wilkinson's Lookout Environs	[ Gorge Guide ]

Topic Date User

Cam hooks and Ozy 23-Sep-2016 At 11:07:36 PM phillipivan

Message

G'Day Tim,

Good work on having a crack in suboptimal conditions.

Yep the rock is pretty scarred up; but I don't really see that as much of a reason to continue using pins. Especially when it is quite protectable without. Were it not scarred it would be both harder to protect and harder to freeclimb.

Whilst I've found certain pitches of Ozi quite awkward to aid, the great roof and the fang especially, I thought almost all my gear placements quite secure. In the pin scars a combination of offset small nuts, micro cams and cam hooks will cover all possibilites on Ozi.

With regards to the old fixed pins and bolts: All the belays are equipped with modern bolts, and even if a rusty old pin or bash in failed, you would still have had to either f---ed up pretty bad or been extremely aggressive in your back cleaning for the falls to be anything but clean, so I don't think there is a compelling reason to replace with modern equipment. Heck even if a bolt pulled you could likely hook the hole for progression. I would be annoyed to see it rebolted. To me the bigger disappointment was the number of fixed wires through the great roof. I would love to see those cleaned (if they haven't been). When I was last climbed it, there was most of a biner of nuts stuck in that pitch.

I suppose if you ripped every bolt on the ladder below the roof...

My suspicion is that on the whole climbers on the route now are likely to be considerably safer than during the FA and early years. A combination of modern gear, a wealth of beta and reliable communication easily offset the odd flexing piton.

Best,

PI.