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TR Castleton tower Kor chimney

mikllaw

31-Mar-2012
12:43:11 PM

Sitting at Greg Child's house in castle Vally allowed me to demonstate mathematically that castleton tower was not that big.

We pulled into carpark and Greg's jaw sagged as he saw how many cars were parked. And set off up the hill. Greg, Ness, Shannon, and I

The climb follows wide cracks up the right side of the tower. Hmm. And all the cracks are lined with slick calcite.

There were about 15 people having epics above us,including one girl who thrutched so hard she got a nosebleed. We sat around for a few hours on the first belay. then the slow party stopped clogging up the route and everything speed up. Wisely, the slow parties always start earliest. Damn.

hanging out with the fun gang

The next 2 pitches were mostly wide cracks with airy climbing, just enuff gear, and the calcite formed the craziest gym hold just where you needed it. Character building, bridging wide on glassy holds, I was nervous about the crux chimneys, but Greg said he'd made a blind guy and a one-armed guy lead it on different occasions.

5.9+ classic, 1 hour walk up

wallwombat

31-Mar-2012
8:31:22 PM

Greg looks old and you look scared.

wallwombat

31-Mar-2012
8:32:03 PM

......and old.

White Trash

4-Apr-2012
4:49:12 PM

>Character building, bridging wide on glassy holds

sounds great, and looks like you had a good time despite the crowds.

Neil

4-Apr-2012
6:43:30 PM

North face or whatever it is that you rap down on the other side looked like a much better route to me.

I found Kor to be like wriggling up a scratchy old vertical bathtub. The wide patina bit was indeed character building... especially when it hailed on us. Looking down on one of the scratchy patina bits:

did you try fine jade nearbye ?

did you take your bolt test rig for all those drilled baby angles?

mikllaw

4-Apr-2012
11:10:30 PM

north face is indeed a much better line /climb but I don't jamb mangled hands won't fit any known hand jjamb) and it was very cold there. Fine Jade looked good but crowded also.
The angles looked ok, much better than a rawl bolt I pulled out by hand yesterday on another route.

mikllaw

4-Apr-2012
11:20:03 PM

On this thing the Rawl bolts got increasingly wobbly, till I hung on my chalkbag line and pulled 8 slings up and finished the route on much better threads. They really don' understand that major changes in rock strength MIGHT change what you want to place. By comparison, Castleton Tower is extremely solid rock

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