Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Topic Date User

Leif Ericsson - Narrow Neck - Blueys 20-Oct-2009 At 9:06:14 AM f_ladou

Message

Last year, flipping through the then latest edition of Rock Magazine, I read Mike Law's article about his
new route at Narrow Neck and decided that one of these days, I should gave it a try. With a forecast of
'mainly fine' and 16°C, last Sunday had to be the day. Alex, Dominik and I hit the road, exited at
Katoomba, turned into Glenraphael Drive and parked at the faint trail marked by a cairn leading to the
Cave Climb where we abseiled down, leaving a fixed rope to be picked up later. A five minute walk
lead us to the bottom of Leif Ericsson (100m, 23, 23, 23, 23). Dominik geared up for the first pitch in
relatively cold weather at around 10:30. Friction was good and the anticipation even better.

Let's be frank here: the first pitch is hard. Dominik moaned and groaned, sitting on every second
ringbolt, slowly but inexorably making his way to the top. Good lead. My turn came and I soon
struggled with the same crimps and odd little pockets that Alex would also deal with. Not my best
moments... All in all, laborious 1st pitch for all of us. Given we had three more pitches to go, this was
not boding well for the rest of the day...

The second pitch was mine. It starts on good holds to reach a small roof (balancy move) and then
traverses to the right on relatively comfortable ground to reach the crux: a couple of meter of blank
wall with little to grab hold of. I was more than happy when I finally put my hand on the belay ledge:
this is my first on-sight 23, ever! Ok, Carter's guidebook says 22 but Mike was happy to revise it to
23. I'll take the latter. Both Dominik and Alex reached the belay without too much trouble - this pitch is
definitely easier than the preceding one. No questions.

Dominik turn came again for the 3rd pitch. Now, this one is very interesting. It's got face climbing, a
slab section, a roof section but the fun is this weird nose-like feature about 3 meters above the belay.
Dominik confronted the thing and in the process overlooked a hold: a slight flaring of a thin crack near
the top of the feature that makes that section a 23 rather than something much harder. Dominik kept
on saying "There nothing! No flaring! This crack is nothing!". Bla, bla, bla. So, from a lay-back
position, he had to dyno up and commit to a nightmarish slopey hold, swallow hard, and reach for the
unknown top of the weird feature with his right hand his feet level with the ringbolt to his right. It looked
good, with sounds effects and all. Later on, Alex, went up and did it with wit and elegance: from the
lay-back, he gently rocked over his right foot reaching into the flaring. It all looked easy and fluid
proving once more that Austrians are far superior climbers to Germans.

Ok, after those three demanding pitches came the fourth and last one. I was less than enthusiastic
about leading it. First, that's where Mike broke his ankle. Second, the beginning looked super-
committing. Third, the ledge we were on allowed us to simply walk out, which I thought was a good
idea. But the guys would have none of it. So, up I went, clipped the first ringbolt, hyperventilating,
came down, relaxed and went for it. The whole thing went surprisingly well. At some point, coming out
of the 'easy' bridging corner, I grabbed a thick juicy flake, laid back onto it and said to the guys
something like "I think this thing just moved, guys". Putting as little weight on it as I could, I moved
pass it and reached the crux of the pitch: just 3 or 4 meters before the final ledge. Later on, Alex,
seconding the pitch reached for the same flake, pulled and the whole thing, the size of a minibar,
came off and plunged down, graciously hitting the rock face 60 meters below and exploding in the
process. Impressive (and deadly). Funnily enough, you can see that flake just above Mike's right hand
on page 51 of the 2008 Autumn issue of Rock Magazine.

The crux of that last pitch resisted me for a little while until I found a well hidden crimp that saved the
day. My second on-sight 23 will have to wait some more.

Its was about 17:00 when we all finished the climb. The sun was out, the air was still, life was good. It
doesn't get any better than that.

Myself, just off the belay, seconding pitch 3 of Leif Ericsson