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Mild Peril, Rutger Hauer and Debris in a day 15-May-2012 At 10:57:51 AM PThomson

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For whatever crazy reason, BJenga (Ben) and I decided to get in one last epic day of multipitching before it gets too cold on the Pierces Pass side of the Grose. The plan was ambitious: Mild Peril, Rutger Hauer and Debris in a day, and with predictably optomistic ignorance, neither of us had a REAL grasp of just how windy the day was going to be... Or how bloody cold.

Up at 0445. Get to Ben's at 0530. Get to Blackheath and drop off a hitch-hiker at 0700. Get to the Hotel C exit track/50 Year Itch entrance track parking area at about 0730. Kit up and go. We somehow found the way to the rap point with remarkable ease (the walk in is surprisingly well-worn and pretty cruisy), and rapped down two pitches to the main ledge. A long chain has been installed at the rap anchors to avoid any further instances of knots getting stuck on ironstone edges when pulling to rethread for the second abseil, and though this is great and makes retrieving the rope easy, it's damned scary trying to get low enough on the side of the cliff to have the rap rope tight on the belay device.

A flip of a "rock of fate" determined which climb we'd start with. Dirty side up: Mild Peril, Clean side up: Rutger Hauer. The Rock Gods ordained us to climb...

MILD PERIL
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We found the start of the climb pretty easily -from the bottom it looked okay, but nothing spectacular- and at about 0830 we started climbing. I had the first pitch, a pretty short grade 20 that starts off with a bit of stemming, smearing and laybacking for the first few metres before easing off considerably. It was hard to give the pitch a grade (as it was essentially my warm up, and so cold I couldn't feel my fingers) but it might be soft at 20. Nevertheless, for the first few metres it was an awkward warm-up.

Ben had the second pitch, the money-maker of the climb, an epic 45m Grade 22 jug haul on a slightly overhanging wall. The rock was pretty good for the most part, with only a few hard-ish (21?) moves spread out throughout it, but the length of the route and the overhang meant that a wicked pump was inevitable. Ben cruised it at a consistant pace, loving every metre of the marathon pitch, and naturally got to the top clean. I followed him cleanly on second, finally understanding what all the "it's so pumpy" comments from Ben were all about. By the time I reached the belay Ben had been standing on an exposed ledge being blasted by the icy wind for quite a while, while I was nice and warm (and pumped) in time for the crux pitch to follow.

The 20m 23-pitch starts rather inauspiciously with a cruisy traverse and some fun jug hauling with nice exposure. Then all of a sudden someone sets the amp to 11, with a funky throw (dyno for anyone shorter than me) off a high right foot and low left hand crimp to a good -but slopey- break. After that it thins out into non-non existance. The crux move was a high foot, balancy rock-over to really bad edge a long way-away. I had one go at it, but overbalanced and grabbed the draw before I could fall. A minutes rest and I spotted the crucial hold... An invisible side pull in a place you least expect it. Second shot the move went airily but cleanly, and I grabbed the most hideous hold of the day desperately, working my feet higher before lunging desperately for a tolerable crimp. My Sharma-esque scream of desperation empowered me to hold the crimp, and desperately clip that next bolt before finishing the pitch clean. Ben followed, using the super-secret side-pull to do the first part of the crux stylishly, before overbalancing trying to walk his feet higher to get the height to go to the tolerable crimp. In his defence... He HAD been on that belay ledge at negative one-million degrees celsius temperatures (I don't care what the BOM says, it was negative a million) for a bloody long time. Once he regained feeling in his feet, Ben cruised the crux and reached my awesome semi-hanging belay stance.

The final pitch of about 30m goes at grade 20, with -once again- the hardest moves just off the belay stance. Ben made them look as hideously difficult as possible, then cruised his way to the top once the climbing eased off. Utilising Ben's beta of "this hold is key", the moves weren't TOO bad, and once up to a funky little cave the final headwall/arete is gentle cooldown of "death by ironstone" jug and edge hauling to the top.

All in all, it took us about 3.5 hours to do the climb. After which we made our way back to where we'd stashed our gear, had some lunch, and rapped back down to the ledge.

RUTGER HAUER
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From the bottom the climb looks amazing, with some beautiful sunset orange rock streaking up to the top of the cliff. The reality, unfortunately, is that for the first two pitches the rock just isn't that great.

We started climbing about 1300hrs. Ben motored through the first pitch (30m, 19), a pretty gentle jug-haul on some dubious rock. I took the second pitch (30m 20/21 -I've seen both grades listed in different places-), which was also pretty tame except for one move about 5m from the end of the pitch, and continued the theme of questionable rock. At the end of the pitch you traverse right about 15m to a rebelay before the moneymaking pitch begins.

Pitch 3 is F#$king awesome. Seriously: AWESOME. It inspires awe. The rock sorts itself out and hardens up, the position at the end of that particular wall (as per the photo in Simon Carter's guide book) is breathtaking, and the moves are what climbing should be about. It consists of perhaps 5 22-ish moves spread throughout the climb, broken up by easy moves on jugs and breaks where you can get okay rest stances. But the slightly steep nature of it means that you can never truly rest, so you have to just keep moving. The thing is: for all of the cruxy sections, I don't think I ever repeated a movement, each hard section felt totally unique. The last hard section comes in a series of moves as you work your way up a thin flake trying to keep your balance while making some powerful moves towards the "thank god" jugs above. It is also the only sequence where you can't get an okay rest after doing the moves, you have to just keep motoring on through the hard moves.

Ben made most of the pitch look easy, until the final hard move where it became apparent that he was getting a bit tired. But in typical Ben style, he utilised the classic "climb up, feel around for some holds, climb down" onsight technique a few times, before committing to a right hand gaston on a thin flake, high left foot, throw to "thank god" jug sequence, to finish the 23 pitch in high style. Because we were running the two pitches together, he continued up the short 19 pitch to the top and promptly finished the climb. His comments on the final Grade 19 pitch were "it's got some weird moves on it".

I was feeling a bit thrashed by this point in time, but followed Ben up the 23 pitch, loving every moment of it, trying not to get too gassed. By the time I got to the final crux moves I didn't have the strength to use the the thin flake as a gaston for the throw, so I decided to throw off a fingerlock instead. The result was that I left most of the skin on my fingers behind, and came within a millimetre of falling, but thankfully the Sharma-scream got me to the jug, and I made it to the top. Ben's description of the 19 pitch were accurate, it IS weird... In a good way! It's steeper than any other part of the climb, extremely short, and with weird side pulls and pockets in bombproof rock. The good holds are all where you DON'T want them to be, so the body positions are quite bizarre, though the climbing is easy enough.

We topped out at about 1500hrs (having taken about 2 hours to climb the route), and both agreed that except for using the first two pitches of Rutger Hauer as a warmup for the 23 pitch (if you hadn't done any other climbing for the day) it might be better to rap in and just do the top two pitches in fut