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bl@ke and Hargs. Ozymandias. TR 7-Oct-2010 At 7:10:05 PM hargs

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Well, back in Sydney, couldn't log in for a while. Very funny reading on the TR thread. Here are my various thoughts on the exercise, in no particular order:

-- "This is hardman country and I have no business here," was a recurring thought I had going up and down the gorge. ODH's post is basically on the money: harden up, princess. I'm putting this trip down to the recky I should have done first, and some bonus mental preparation.

-- Take less shit. Seriously, a lot less shit: No stove. One quarter the food or less. Somewhere between Neil's "3 bars per day" insanity and ODH's "it's not a camping holiday." And I considered lugging a boombox in there, fark me. Romantic Yosemite Climber images of paisley-clad Bridwell & co standing in a grassy meadow before a glowing El Cap have been erased. Buffalo is pointy and abrasive; it completely destroyed my daypack before we even started. It's a good thing the 'ledge building fiasco ended in disaster at 10 oclock the night before I left: Lugging that bastard in on top of everything else would have killed me.

-- More confidence at the grade. Led Cream Machine the day after really enjoyed climbing the pitch -- but I balked at the M4 where Trogster took that 8m groundfall last March. Ideally, a few M4 pitches before next attempt, but I'd settle for one or two. (Annoyingly, I thought of top-roping the M4 on the drive back to Wagga; I really wish we'd done that instead of Banana Blase, or at least as well as, but it'll keep for next time.)

-- More confidence in the environment. We met Fishboy after he soloed She and he suggested rapping into Bannisters Rush -- 50m grade 21 hand crack -- and aiding out, but not knowing the rap stations, the route, or where to find the anchors on the wall, I baulked (again). In retrospect, that was a missed opportunity: at worst, we'd have gone over the edge, buggered around on the end of a rope -- admittedly, over a somewhat intimidating void -- and jugged out. But that alone would have been worthwhile.

-- Learn to properly interpret local advice. There are tricky subtleties, and individual snippets must be taken in context to glean their full meaning. For example, "the access track isn't pig-friendly" together with "give some thought to a recky" translates, roughly, to "the bastard access track will seriously f*ck you up, especially if you haven't been down there before." Obvious after the fact, but not before. Now we know the way in, it'll go much easier next time. (But if you rapped in and bailed, and hadn't walked out before, you'd have a fun time locating the exit. The track may get more obvious with use over summer, but right now it's quite overgrown in places.)

-- There's a big, significant difference between taking yourself up there and figuring shit out on your own, and tagging along with someone who's done it before and knows what they're doing. Fishboy offered to go up with us -- thanks, FB -- but already a tiny, perverted part of my brain is telling me that would be a cop-out. Like Gordoste said, it's scary and intimidating when it's all new.

-- Per ODH's TR rewrite, spend the next few weeks punching walls. I sprained my ankle on the way in, and my back hurt for days from lugging around a bunch of crap we didn't need. I need to train some weakness out of me. I taped ODH's post to my computer. I've been running up and down hills with my revised Ozy kit, cranking scando metal -- man that's some messed up shit -- practicing screaming obscenities at the traffic on the way to my fucharse job and ripping heads off butterflies. I'm not sure it's helping: my wife wants me committed.

-- Get back to Buffalo in November for the aid weekend. M9, sign me up.