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TR - Tom Thumb and the Great Rum Beer Chimney 10-Jun-2013 At 3:51:01 PM technogeekery

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The plan was to have a lazy day climbing Tom Thumb, a 6 pitch easy ramble (grade 13 but mostly easier) up the huge face under The Fortress at Mt Hay. There were 3 of us on the walk in, a lovely stroll through open bushland, and Adrian had been on the route before, so finding the rap station at the top of the climb was easy. The walk in is great, mostly pretty flat, and giving great views over the awesome walls towering over the Grose Valley.

First glimpse of the stupendous yellow cliffs of the Grose

The walk in was great

The boys unpacking at the top of the diving board

In about an hour we were carefully picking our way down the path to the “diving board” block at the top of the route, and peering over at the stomach turning drop to the forest below.

We set up for the first of 3 double-rope raps, and sent Adrian down first as he knew where the rap anchors were – also as youngest, he was guinea-pig for rapping on my new skinny rope.

Quentin goes over the edge - its a big drop...

We’d been talking about how lucky we are in Sydney to never have to queue for climbs – but as we got down the second rap, we heard voices, and on the third rap we realized that we’d been too complacent – not only was there someone on the route, but it was a party of 4 with one leader and three beginners. The other party told us they were doing a route adjacent to ours – “Landing Gear Down”, 16 – so while we wouldn’t be climbing the first pitches behind them, the routes converge and share the last 2 pitches. As we coiled the ropes at the base of the raps, showers of rock pummeled the ledge around us, and we hastily moved off to the start of Tom Thumb, and racked up fast, hoping to overtake them or at least stay out of the line of fire.

Looking back up at the last rap

As it turned out, it was no issue for a few hours. Quentin and I switched leads, with him taking P1 & 3, and me on P2 & 4. The climbing was generally easy and fun, a mix of face and arête, mostly on huge jugs and ironstone edges, with excellent spacious ledges at each belay to kick back on and enjoy the incredible view. The day had started clear, and we could see right down to the river, and waterfalls cascading off the cliffs on the far side of the valley. Gradually the day got hazier, as smoke rose up through the valley from distant fires.

Great views across the Grose valley - this is a waterfall on distant Mt Banks, I think.

Quentin brings up Adrian on top of P1

The first move out of the cave onto the face on P2 was a little thought-provoking, the undercut start necessitating a high step and tricky move before establishing yourself on the face and getting in a piece. One more tricky move, and then cruising again on massive ironstone edges. I’d chosen to climb on one rope and have the second climber trail the half-rope for the 3rd, but if I do the climb again I’ll probably lead on 2 ropes – the ironstone edges kept catching the ropes and rope drag quickly became a real issue. Also, looking down at my suddenly very skinny looking 9.2mm lead rope going over those very sharp edges, I was rather less confident in its ability to withstand a fall, and would much rather have had two ropes than one. But the climbing was easy, and between a light rack and carrots that kept appearing when I really wanted them, it was pretty relaxed climbing.

Lots of nice big ledges - an ideal route for 3 climbers to cruise on

Getting a little higher now - Adrian enjoying the jugs

We weren’t moving fast, however – we hadn’t really committed ourselves to moving fast, and in hindsight I should have led on two ropes and brought both the others up simultaneously. As it was, I arrived at the top of P4 in time to share the belay with the other party, and as they had arrived first, we’d have to wait for them. I brought the others up (luckily the ledge was huge, with plenty of space for all of us) but by the time we were all up, it was 3:15 and the others had just started up the 5th of 6 pitches. A quick mental calculation put us finishing up well after dark if we were to wait for them, so escape was in order. I knew the huge corner / gulley off to the right was an easy-grade chimney, around gr11 I thought, so we quickly decided to take our chances with that, and moved the belay 15m or so into the base of the chimney.

My lead again, as I knew this was likely to be a bit interesting – an old-school grade 11 chimney has plenty of potential for epics – and it looked dark and uninviting in the extreme. I lashed Twiggsy to a twig, and foraged up into the slime.

It was every bit as “interesting” as I’d anticipated. There may have been troops of Boy Scouts romping up this thing in the ‘60s, but I don’t think anyone apart from Hayden Brochtie has done the climb in 30 years – and for good reason. It is a very steep groove/gully forming several huge chimney sections, interspersed with “ledges” made out of mud and generations of dead leaves, spiders webs and dead livestock that have plummeted off the top. The chimneys were dank, muddy, slimy and hideous, with the occasional hold either buried in bat poo or cunningly concealed under layers of moss or behind luxuriant ferns. I whimpered and muttered and cursed, but once I was a certain height up, there was no way but forward. Every potential crack was blind, every cam pocket was crumbling, even the chockstone I slung was only wedged in place with mud and fell out under the weight of the sling I put around it. I delved into the deepest recesses of the chimney seeking a crack for pro, but found only squeeze chimney horror, and weeping curtains of slime. I pulled on an enormous chockstone that would certainly kill me, and then roll down this dank slot, gathering companions en route to smearing my helpless partners into a red paste. It stayed put, and with a wriggle I could grab a slender root issuing from the roof above, and (employing very traditional techniques) hand over hand up it to stand on a fair size tree. How I love trees. A quick sling later and my faith was restored sufficient to tackle another chimney, another seeping crack, more tottering mudslopes – even very occasionally some solid protection. 55m out and one more wobbly chockstone circumvented, and I was onto the unstable scree slope at the top – hooray! Quick sling around a giant tree fern, and relax into the guilty pleasure of schadenfruede, listening to Quentin & Adrian cursing and panting and dropping rocks on each other as they climbed.

No pics of the hideous chimney, too busy excavating - here we are happy to be up in daylight - just

We probably saved ourselves an hour by doing that, and just as well – Adrian topped out on his bleeding knees (literally) as the sun set, the smoke contributing a violent purple glow to a magnificent sunset. I bolted my sandwiches (g