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Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Author
First trip to Mt. Buffalo

sbm
1-May-2011
6:00:00 PM
A sandstone sport climbing bumbly from Sydney, with a pair of way oversized 5.10s, a harness, and barely a couple of trad seconds to his name, tries old-school granite for the first time.

Ticklist (grades omitted to prevent the firestorm of the last TR I posted):

Nobliesse Oblige
Some single pitches at the Horn, including Cobwebs (I think?)
Big Fun/The Pintle link up, The Horn
Fantasies Of Gail, The Gorge South Side
The Initiation, The Hump
Ariel, The Hump
Footbinder's Revenge, The Hump
Maharajah, The Cathedral

Highlights: the impossible smears, the bomber jams, the amazing rock, the great weather, the exposure, the position, the constant flow of tourists taking photos of us. The excellent campfire cooking and company. The sheer audacity of the hard classic routes.

Lowlights: the terrifying smears, the bloody jams, overgrown routes with slippery moss and grass-filled cracks, cleaning gear, the drive from Sydney, cold damp mornings, the sadly abandonded ski lifts and burnt trees, the creepy howls of wild dogs at night.

I'll add photos as I get them.




The Gorge

We pull up at a cute little oval, complete with cricket pitch, and straight away Pez starts pulling on his harness. We've already had a good day up at the Horn, and I thought we were just filling up on water, but obviously he has a route in mind - Fantasies Of Gail. I'm keen, but for some reason no-one else is moving. Thinking it would be an safe easy non-exposed slab thing, I tramp up behind the oval to have a look and...wow, there is the Gorge, huge and dank and dark in the setting sun, seemingly bottomless as my eyes move down and down and down the lines of buttresses and out to the valley.

It's my first view of it from above, and we're about to rap in from a big dead tree.

"Uh...could we pick one that's alive?"

Pez throws the rope and sets up to rap. "I'll pull the rope three times when I'm off rope, left then right then left"

Heart beating I listen to the roaring waterfall, and soon enough the rope is being pulled back and forth, the noise horrible and ominous. Shaking I clip in (autoblock backup? ...YES) and jerk slowly back down the slab over the lip. Free-hanging dizzingly over the gorge, I spin slowly as I jerk down to Pez leaning casually on a couple of bolts on a little ledge jutting out.

"Safe"

We flake the rope, work out the rope-tugging for signals, and Pez gets ready to lead off. He places a hex behind a block just off the belay, then steps across right onto a hanging slab and starts traversing right and up, clipping a couple of carrots on the way. The rope is re-directed through a quickdraw on one of the belay bolts, and I can only pay out short amounts of slack as I'm hugging the rock. The obvious solution is to lean back out on the anchor so I have more space, but f&ck everything about that!

There's an attentive audience (with cameras going steadily) on a lookout up near the waterfall. I try a small wave and it's returned very enthusiastically. I concentrate on not pulling Pez off the wall. He's now passed the worst of the slab and reached a small ledge, where he digs for a bit and places a cam. Then he's off straight up the moss and out of sight.

To keep things simple I keep paying out the rope through the belay device until it's all gone. I tug three times, clean the anchor, and tug three times again, but the timing's not quite right and Pez is already pulling as I unclip the last biner and loop the sling over my shoulder.

I hug a block (is it loose? I don't care!) and step from the ledge out to the slab, straddling the gap, and start tugging at the hex. The rope is pulling me one way as I yank the hex in the other and stare down into the air below. I whimper, attempt to persuade myself I am a gecko, and launch onto the slab, poised on fingertips and padding towards the first quickdraw...

And that was just the first day.




Me coming on this trip was very much a last minute thing. Simon put out the idea when we were bouldering at an empty Fear Factory on Easter Friday. (The slabs and aretes of the Courtyard and an ascent of the Nancy roof would turn out to be excellent technical and mental training). Buffalo ay. Well, I'd ticked most of Narrabeen Slabs and onsighted that V3 fist crack at the Balkans, I just could't pass up a chance to test myself on some epic granite...

After crashing at Simon's on Monday night we smashed the drive from Sydney on Tuesday, driving the back roads between Wodonga and Myrtleford. Driving up the Mount Buffalo road, Simon made sure that, as the saying goes, driving to the crag would be more dangerous than the actual climbing. "Whoa whoa it's a hairpin WHOA WHOAAA" screeeeeeech

At Lake Catani we met up with Pez, Pip, Aaron, and Yi, who had climbed Nobliesse Oblige that day, apparently a great long easy slab with a horrendous bush-bash approach and adventurous minimal bolting. (It was Yi's first outdoor climb! A 500m granite slab trad multipitch, how about it!)




Day 1: The Horn

On Wednesday morning we headed out to the Horn, and after scrambing on a faint path around the base and hopping up some boulders, we set up in a pleasant ampitheatre. The first climb was an arete with a few thin moves off the ground, that Pez led. It felt pretty good, this smearing stuff isn't so hard ay! Ego: intact. Next was a short climb on the block to the left, up a ramp on fixed hangers. Simon led it with a scary moment or two over some bulges, and slung a boulder for the toprope anchor. I seconded with a little bit of trouble. Ego: still mostly intact.

The third climb was a little double-crack chimney thing to the right that Pez led cooly on trad. I started confidently, but soon degenerated into horrible chimney thrashing, laybacking, sliding feet on tufts of grass, jamming and general thrutching. Each juggy horizontal break was a godsend. Resting with a foot and arm jammed in each crack, a footjam adjusted itself several inches downwards and first blood was drawn. After me and Simon battled to the top, we discovered it was grade 10. Ego: in tatters.

Pez then led a scary arete which I think was called Cobwebs. It was damn precarious on top-rope, let alone on the well-bolted lead, let alone on 3 bolts in Dunlop volleys like the FA.

The finale was a route called Big Fun, which was harrowing on second and utterly terrifying on lead (You could hardly call it runout though, there were lots of carrots). The plan was we would climb to the top of the Horn and Aaron and Yi would greet us at the lookout with hot tea. Pez and Pip went first, then I belayed Simon as he slithers up the ramp, legs shaking and pausing for long periods to contemplate life. Finally I hear "On belay!"

The first move onto a slab is always commiting. I do it, move up, right and step around the big chockstone in the gap to the ramp. The ramp isn't too bad, but the round arete above feels desperate! With a loud cry I shove my foot up high, close my eyes, try to keep my bum out and start walking up. It works!

We then link into the last pitch of The Pintle, a fun corner. I successfully clean all the gear and muscle up, then right and up the final wide crack to the top as Simon chats with a tourist at the lookout.

On the way back to the campsite, we stop at the Chalet Oval "for water" as I described at the start...




Day Two: The Hump

In the morning we said goodbye to Aaron and Yi, and drive to the Cathedral/Hump car park to have a grand day out on The Initiation.

Doesn't rounding the corner to the saddle and catching sight of the Cathedral just t

shortman
1-May-2011
6:29:54 PM
Awesome TR. Great read. Running up slabs seems to be highly efficient! The sort of techniques my partner and I employed on some of the climbs u mentioned.

Miguel75
1-May-2011
7:09:42 PM
Excellent TR sbm. Sounds like an awesome trip all round. I'm keen to see some pics when they arrive...

IdratherbeclimbingM9
1-May-2011
8:37:47 PM
A good reading trip report sbm.
I am sure there are many Chockstoners who will regain fond memories of those climbs again, after reading of your more recent experience on them, ... I know I did!
scooby
16-May-2011
12:52:20 PM
So your wires are still there, did Initiation yesterday and spend a bit of time on them but they weren't coming out in our time frame.
We did pick up a quickdraw off the second wire?
If its yours let me know the brand and you can have it back, seemed weird it was hanging there?

Always good to hear people getting out up there, looking forward to some photos!

sbm
16-May-2011
3:13:45 PM
On 16/05/2011 scooby wrote:
>We did pick up a quickdraw off the second wire?
>If its yours let me know the brand and you can have it back, seemed weird
>it was hanging there?

Nope, that's odd, pretty sure we came back with all the draws? Someone must be really bad at recovering booty?

gordoste
16-May-2011
4:24:58 PM
Did you like Initiation scooby?
scooby
16-May-2011
4:32:27 PM
Love it! That's my third time, managed to slip out the crack at the start when my fingers went numb but had a awesome day up there, there's something cool about climbing when there's snow on the ground!

Yea the draw seemed strange to us, guess someone just forgot to unclip it!

sbm
16-May-2011
10:51:41 PM
Since this trip got brought up again I might add a few pics. (It's all hotlinked to my website, no need to freak about bandwidth Chocky mods)



































All credit to the images to Pip Beale and Di Lam.

There are 9 messages in this topic.

 

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