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TR: Alive in a Bitter Sea (Katoomba Cliifs) 6-Dec-2016 At 6:50:05 PM PThomson

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Simey,

You are right, and it IS a spectacular bit of real estate. I was super-psyched to try Iron Lady ground-up (I went to the ends of the earth trying to find a belayer for it on the last day before I went back to work), but it never eventuated.

I guess "ground up" in this case is tricky to define. Since the route starts off the halfway ledge (unless you climb the bottom pitches of Echo Crack) you probably will rap over the line just to get to it. I doubt anyone has really tried it without a "bit of sussing" as you rap past it, but I can't say for sure.

Matt Brooks told me Garth did it clean (but it sounded like he was rather gripped, despite his ability), but I'm not sure whether it might've had "a bit of an inspection on rap".

Simon Carter told me that Dan Honeyman had pre-inspected it (but not necessarily PRACTICED it) when he tried it, but that he also didn't get it clean (the famous photo of him doing the dyno is actually off-route, and you can't get to it by CLIMBING from the bolt you see in the photo).

I don't doubt that there are plenty of climbers who COULD do it ground-up, but not if the grade is even vaguely close to their limit. For me, I'm probably a "solid 25 climber" (ticking 25's Onsight, Flash or 2nd shot -usually-) who can "stretch" as high as hard 28 for a true redpoint (sometimes). So, it was at the limit of what I can do solidly, and that was a part of the challenge.

-Paul T