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Aphelion - Mount Tribrogargan 6-Oct-2010 At 10:25:24 AM f_ladou

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"These are the moments in life where nothing else matters: no women, no break-ups; just you, your Elvis' leg, your pumped forearms and the rock face"

Those where the words of Alex just having passed the crux of pitch 2 of Aphelion. The commitment was real, the tension was palpable. Alex's right foot slipped twice as he was trying to clip the third draw well above his last protection. He was pumped out of his brains, tried to clip with the right hand but his foot slipped once. I brace myself ready to catch the fall. Dominik for once stopped giving obvious advice. Alex repositioned himself, tried the clip once more, his right foot betrayed him again. Come on man! In a last burst of effort, he shuffled his hands and this time clipped with the left hand, grabbed the draw and clipped the rope in. Yoohoo!

This trip had to be a great one. After all, we stayed at the Glass House Holiday Village, "Queensland Most Scenic Experience ****". Sounded like a good bargain for $110/night. It certainly was scenic and countless trucks visited the site if only briefly, driving past at great speed during the night.

The plan was to climb for two days at Mount Tibrogargan. The first day at Slider Wall and the second to jump onto Aphelion (90m, 16, 21, 22, 22) on Celestial Wall. So, one day on single pitches getting used to the rhyolite found here in the Glass House Mountains and another one multipitching our way to happiness.

Rhyolite. Not your usual Blueys bands on alternating ironstone and sandstone. Rhyolite is hard, edgy with angular features often lending itself to lay-backing, side-pulling and under-clinging. Curiously, it can also be round, bulgy and polished as if it boiled recently. This is the nature of volcanic rock, I presume.

Slider Wall probably got its name from one exceptional route located in the upper section of the Wall. To me "Slider" is the best 22 I've ever been on. Alex agrees while Dominik just answered my interview question with "You haven't climb enough, dude". Blow him, I say. Slider is an amazing puzzle to solve. Hardly a single face climbing move; all in lay backs, side pulls, lateral shifts, balancy moves. And then this committing finish where you have to beat the pump, climb above your last protection and pray that what looks like the life-saver hold really is one. Is it? Well, you find out.

But back to Aphelion and back to Alex. This time we intended to force the man to lead the first two pitches. He didn't like the description stating "Climb up until the first hanger becomes visible". Somehow, this challenged him mentally. Nevertheless, he put his helmet on and bravely faced the 35 meters or grade 16. No sweat. By the time we all got to the first belay, we were ready to psychologically torture him to lead the second pitch. A mere 12 meters of grade 21. To my surprise, he OFFERED to lead it. Wow. Cool. Weird even. He passed the first two hangers and then had to commit to the Great Unknown Beyond the Bulge (the GUBB). The rest is now history and the moment seared into Alex's memory.

The money pitch of Aphelion is the third. We're talking about 30 meters of intense grade 22: overhanging, committing, steep and relentless. Most of the action is in a sort of V-groove but curiously bridging is hard as the footholds seem to slope in the wrong direction. Dominik tackled this one (probably because Alex's brain was fried by then). Although he took a couple of breaks along the way due to a subtle mixture of pump and adrenaline, he kept saying stuff like "this is fantastic", "you'll love it, guys". We did love it although Alex, last to climb, seemed to be repeating "fcuk, this is hard" but was too far below us at the belay to hear properly.

As for the last pitch (10m, 22), it was mine. The guide describes it as "a bit awkward". That's probably because, in Queensland, a subtle shift of meaning occurred during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen's era whereby awkward now means bone-chilling terrifying. I mean, forget me and my dwindling hope of coming out of there in one piece: my belayers were as silent as carps, probably thinking that they would not survived the imminent swing I was about to take right into the belay ledge and having nowhere to hide. Ok, this is an exaggeration. Let's say it was indeed awkward and committing. A little more than I would have liked. Great pitch though but a little short.

From the end of Aphelion, we followed the fixed ropes to the Halfway House and ate our lunch looking down onto groves and forests. In the distance, we could see Caloundra as a small splash of colour on the green expanses of South-East Queensland and beyond its outline, the ever blue Pacific Ocean.

On a beautiful (NSW-sponsored labour) day, where else would you rather be?

Ciao, François

Aphelion [Astronomy] the point of an orbit, at which the planet is furthest away from the sun.

Mount Tribrogargan: Slider Wall and Celestial Wall on the left-hand-side.

Myself on Slider. Best 22 ever.