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Ruby of India 23-Jun-2010 At 9:34:59 AM f_ladou

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Man, I miss summer.

I keep dreaming about longer and warmer days to get onto some of those new multi-pitch climbs in the Blueys. Ain't gonna happen soon enough, though.

So, I suppose it'd be the time to hit the road to seek the heat and Queensland is the closest place. Although there are a few interesting sites in South-East Queensland, for a lot of people, this is synonym with Frog Buttress. Little known to most trad climbing lover, there is a hidden gem just around the corner from Frog by the name of "Ruby of India".

Ruby is a fabulous 210m grade 16 trad climb meandering along Mount Maroon's East Face in the Barney National Park. Did I say fabulous? I meant it. I climbed Ruby twice, the last time in Winter 2008 with both Alex and a Québécois friend, Martin. Shortly after, I wrote a long trip report that I never published but I thought you might enjoy.

So here is part of it with some nice pics. And there is even a video which I posted more than a year ago and that attracted the staggering number of 83 viewers over the months...

If you have been on Ruby, I'd love the hear what you have to say.

Cheers, François

Frog Buttress

Of course, if you go to South East Queensland and skip Frog Buttress, you might as well appear on Australia Biggest Loser. For me though, visiting Frog was a question of sanity: I had to convince myself that I could face the 210m of grade 16 trad-climbing that I had planned for the following day at Mount Maroon. Especially since I had convinced Martin and Alex that it should be a piece of cake...

So, we hit the road towards Boonah with the firm intention of nailing the best low grade routes at Frog. We started with Clockwork Orange Corner (18m 13), Devils Wart (24m, 15) and Smoked Banana (40m 17). By the end of the day, I felt reassured. In fact, the whole exercise washed away a disturbing memory: my last climb at Frog had been Infinity (40m, 19) which left me shaking and almost puking with exhaustion. So trad-climbing can indeed be fun – I just need to pick the grade right.

Mount Maroon

Mount Maroon is located in the Barney National Park, 90 minutes south of Brisbane, roughly halfway between Boonah and Beaudesert. If Boonah sounds familiar it is because it should be: all principled crack climbing devotees in Australia have driven through Boonah to reach the holy sanctuary: Frog Buttress. Most likely they also have enjoyed a beer at the Dugandan Hotel while atoning for their various sins, bragging being probably first on the list.

For those who are planning a stay at Frog Buttress, Mount Maroon can provide an ideal change of scenery for a couple of days. Although there is little information on the web about the climbing sites in and around Mount Maroon, you can contact Mark Gamble (wombby@hotmail.com) to obtains good quality guides of the region in PDF format.

This relatively small Barney National Park hosts essentially three climbing areas on Mount Maroon: the East Face, Paparazzi Cliffs and Viewpoint Buttress. Both the East Face and Viewpoint Buttress are essentially trad climbing sites offering both single and multipitch routes, while Paparazzi Cliffs proposes short, easy to medium grade sports routes (say, below 22). In any case, there is certainly a lot to discover and enjoy with the slight downside that the walk-ins can be demanding. But what else do you have to do on a bright Queensland winter day?

The pearl of Mount Maroon is a magical route meandering along the majestic East Face. Ruby of India (210m, 16) has the distinction of being the most travelled route on Mount Maroon and consist of 5 pitches on good, clean rock. The walk-in starts from the car park at the end of Cotswold Road, off Rathdowney Road, and follows the summit track. This can be in itself a delightful day out for the eventual non-climbing fellow-travellers. The track leads to the very summit of Mount Maroon in about 3:00 hours walking at a steady pace. It becomes increasingly steeper as one approaches the cliff face and, after about 2:00 hours, at a formation aptly name Egg Rock, is the (almost) invisible right turn-off leading to Ruby.

Our plan was to wake up at 5:00am in order to hit the trail at 6:00am. The two hour walk to the base of the climb takes you along the well trodden trail to the summit. At daybreak, the scenery was magical. The rising sun lazily dissipated the fog blanketing the forest and revealed slowly evolving views over the Barney National Park. By 8:30, after a little 15 minute hesitation-waltz, we were at the base of the climb located right below a gracious 80 meter arch. We carried a full set of nuts, 8 cams, 3 hexes, a dozen quickdraws, a few slings and enough carabiners – all in all, nothing special.

The first pitch is about 45 meters of grade 14. Martin eagerly attacked it. After our training day at Frog, we had little doubt that he would reach the comfortable first belay. This he did in 1:10 dissipating some of the fears we had: short days, abrupt sunset in winter have benighted more than one climbers on Ruby. Bringing a head torch is a sound precaution.

The second pitch was mine. The grade 14 must refer the first move off the belay ledge, the rest of this 45 meter pitch is more a scrambling that anything else. An obvious dog's leg that one can protect with 2 or 3 friends while trying to make the whole thing a challenging hands-free problem. This took less that 50 minutes.

Since Martin was the overseas guest, when he insisted to the the 3rd crux pitch (15), Alex and I obliged. That pitch required some time for Martin to complete and, according to him, the whole thing had its tense moments, but by 12:15, we were eating our lunch, taking pictures for posterity and filming interviews for distant relatives.

To quote from the guide "the next two pitches have no fixed routes", but route finding pause no real problems and their ascent barely lasted 2 hours. First, I lead pitch 4 (12) and Martin meandered through the last pitch (13), looking for the optimal top-out scenario. If you find a jammed friend on that pitch, well, think of it as a gift from us to you.

From the top of Mount Maroon, some scrambling over large whitish bolders brought us back to the summit trail, through the camping ground, down the very steep path that lead us back to the base of the climb and ultimately to the car around the 4:30 mark. The summit camp ground can also be used as base camp for an earlier start – bring water with you.

Mount Barney national park early in the morning taken during the walk-in.

The East-face of Mount Maroon hosting Ruby of India

Myself on top of Mount Maroon