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Hurricane Lamp Cracks - A Mountaineering Classic 12-Sep-2005 At 11:25:02 AM dr_fil_good

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Well, it was bound to happen one day ...

I thrive on multi-pitch climbs, I lust for them - I live in Adelaide so they are something of a novelty for me. I went up the Araps this weekend with the intention of doing Dunes and then whatever climbs came my way. We started out our rainy Saturday with a couple climbs at Bushranger's Bluff and were soon quite bored with the limited extent of the climbs, our group decided to move around to The Pharos, before heading around the Jes and I had lunch then casually hiked around to the Pharos stopping to onsight Punks on the way and add it to our ticklist. With Punks out of the way we headed around to The Pharos in the cold and in the rain and couldn't find our party so we just decided to head up Hurricane Lamp Cracks (105m 12) whilst we were in the area, totally oblivious to the time.

I lead up the first pitch, really enjoying the puzzle - especially on wet rock because some of the more glassy rock was near impossible to smear and bridge on - the squeezes were quite tough with a full rack and camera slung around my shoulder reaching around to get gear off my rack even harder so I did run out a lot more than I should have considering (without spoiling anything for anyone who wants to onsight it).

Finally ariving at the first belay station I took one look at it and thought that a semi-hanging belay would be unlikely on a 12 so assumed that the next ledge must have been the point - rather than following up the crack I went up the bulge to the left (off route, in the rain - I highly recommend sticking to the route 'cause pro is scarce there) I ended up doing the intire second pitch totally runout only stopping to place gear to redirect the rope at the second (my first) belay station. Rope drag was a drag by that point - I took a look accross the horizon and noticed the sun was on its way down (hiding behind the scenery) but thought I had a good hour and a half to finish the climb so I was expecting a nice twightlight finish with a dark decent so I yelled down to Jes to pack my headlamp into her backpack.

Jes seconded up in fine style only stopping to deal with some nice bomber nut placements one of which she seemed to have trouble with turning what should have been a cruisy 40m in 15min to 40m in 30min - plus I thought that we were at the top of the first pitch, so I thought she only had 25m to climb. By the time Jes arrived at the station the sun was on its way down - a hard decision was made and we opted to bail out and climb on Sunday.

Thinking I was at the top of the First Pitch I thought it would be a simple rap off - I built an anchor, broke down the station, set up the rap and began to rap in twighlight - the light very quickly diminshed, I left Jes with the headlamp as I am experienced in caving and am very familiar with working with rope in the dark. When I came to the end of the rope I was quite surprised to be dangling in midair - I took a look down and could see the vague outline of our packs and jackets at the bottom. I called up to Jes to let her know that we had to make a second rap, then prussiked (spl?) up to the nearest ledge - chucked in a #1 Camalot, clipped into that and belayed Jes down.

The ledge was very small and intimate, I clipped Jes into the cam, clipped one end of the rope into the cam, and then proceeded to tug on the rope to pull it through ... nothing, just dynamic stretch ... what was going on? I pulled on the other end... nothing again!!! It turned out that I'd forgotten to undo the knot I tied in the rope to prevent the rope travelling from the halflength as I threw it over the edge!!! So I had to prussik up a 9.8 dynamic rope mostly in free space, dangling off a cliff that I hadn't protected at the top with a jerry protector!!! I was scared that I'd be at the climbing shop the next day buying a new length, but was quite impressed that when I got to the top the rope hadn't suffered any fraying whatsoever over the friction point - Undid the knot, rapped down - then pulled the rope through (now we were very much in darkness), then completed the final rap of 10m leaving the #1 Camalot behind and a sling plus one locking bina and a nice wide gate bina ...

Returning the next day to complete the climb (properly in the correct order of pitches) and retrieve our gear it was raining, and raining hard .. the opening description for the climb quotes "Another mountaineering classic that is worth an extra star under snow" - well we didn't have snow but we had the next best thing, as I was half way up the first pitch it began to hail, and hard - there were little balls of ice rolling all the way down the rockface getting in under my feet and making climbing with traditional climbing shoes nearly impossible - I would have to rely on jugs to complete the climb ... Now I thrive on adventure - my sense of adventure told me that this just makes the climb even more fun however my sense of self preservation told me that this is how climbing accidents happen, my sense of responsibility told me that I should be very weary of what I'd be getting Jes into if I did carry on and complete the climb. Very very very very very reluctantly, ever so reluctantly, I thought better of it and decided that it was time to admit defeat to that beast of burdon.

Oh the shame!!! A grade 12 (and I was getting to the point where it's an 11 from thereon in) and I was backing out ... I was quite dissapointed ... extremely dissapointed.

The rain was relentless the whole day, every climb we did it got worse - eventually I had my second ever backout - I was half way up Piccollo when the rain came in thick and hard and bloody relentlessly and once again I was forced to back out - this time downclimbing and retrieving all my gear as I went.

I've never had to back out of a climb before and was just astounded that it happened to me on a Grade 12!!!! It was quite an epic, I've a nice cut right accross my forehead from a flaky rock that came flying down the cliffs on Sunday as the hail gave the rock a pummelling - my first ever bail from a climb - and many other firsts. I'm definately coming back to complete the climb!!!!

I'm off to the climbing shop to buy some gear - if anyone wants a couple of slings and a decent locking bina (probably about $50 worth of gear) go for a quick climb up the first two pitches of Hurricane Lamp Cracks!!!

Phil