Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Topic Date User

TR - Wolgan - the Magic Line 11-Jun-2013 At 10:09:43 PM technogeekery

Message

I recently had a month with my family overseas – I used to use these occasions for clubbing, drinking too much and generally misbehaving, but I think I’m getting old – certainly clubbing has lost its appeal and I booked in 4 weekends of climbing this year. One of them was lost to being sick, but I got away to the Blue Mountains (Tom Thumb / Great Rum Beer Chimney), ACT (Orroral Ridge & Booroomba) and for the culmination, a long weekend at what is becoming my favourite camping / climbing destination, the Wolgan. There is something very special about the Wolgan – the great campsites, waking up to views of towering walls drifting in mist, even the inevitable tough approaches are brilliant. I enjoy exploring new areas almost as much as the climbing, and if scrambling along the base of a huge new cliff, soaring lines everywhere you look, appeals to you, the Wolgan will be right up your street.

One drawback with the Wolgan is that there isn’t a lot of easy climbing, and most of the easy stuff is pretty old school – blocky, ledgey, vegetated and insecure. But I’m an old school climber, this is the type of stuff I learned on, and truth be told, never really moved much beyond. There are plenty of clean lines in the Wolgan, including some of the most spectacular and awe-inspiring routes in NSW – the towering routes on Upper Old Baldy hook my gaze every time, and I dream of getting up on Excalibur and Scimitar every time I visit. But these are serious undertakings – you best be solid on trad 18/19 before getting up on them, and even then, they are full day, quite serious undertakings. I’m not ready for them now, particularly as I’m generally the leader of our little crew – but maybe one day.

This trip there were 3 of us – Steve, my oldest friend and long term partner – and Quentin, my regular partner now. Steve is a casual climber, for 25 years he has been joining me on adventures around the world – never training, never leading, but always capable of getting up anything I’ll lead, which probably says more about my leading than his climbing. Quentin and I have been climbing together for just over a year – we lead sport at about the same level (17/18 comfortably enough) but he is just learning trad & multipitch leading. I’m slowly getting back into trad leading, after many years of not climbing, then a few years getting back into the sport on mostly bolted routes. I love trad climbing, there is something so pure and satisfying in rolling up to the base of the rock, going ground up and doing everything necessary to keep your team alive on the way up, then leaving the rock looking exactly like it always was afterwards. Except when I’m actually trad leading, of course, when I cry and whimper and wish for bolts every two metres. Somehow, in a triumph of imagination over experience, I keep doing it, and quite often enjoy myself, mostly ex post facto.

Our goal this long weekend was to get in as much easy climbing as possible, introduce Steve & Quentin to the joys of the Wolgan, and generally just have a great boys climbing weekend away – but I did have one specific goal. When you wake up in the smaller of the campsites, just over the river, the winter sun rises and illuminates the most amazing line high up on Magic Mountain, the peak you can walk up just south of the campsite, facing Old Baldy. It is on the left of the obvious clean orange face above the giant landslide, and starts as a corner crack, going straight up a pitch or so, curving over to the left and into a spectacular open book. The crack continues up this to a huge capping overhang – and looks like the crack turns into a roof crack, which you could use to circumvent the overhang, very excitingly. The crack then continues up the grey slab/headwall, curving right until it reaches a wooded ledge near the top. 3 pitches, spectacular setting, winter sun, visible from the campsite – must be a classic, right? But I can’t find it described anywhere…. Some research turned up The Point / Landslide area, which is the right area, and there were two possible candidates where the RDs (from 1968 and 1970) could conceivably fit – both grade 15, which is within my ambit – so my goal was to get up there and give it a crack.

The view from the lower campsite - inset shows the line

We left Sydney Friday early, driving up the Bell Line in the fog. Campsite entirely to ourselves – hooray! Quickly setup camp, and then off to the Coke Ovens for first day of orientation. What a great crag – something for everyone. We warmed up on Deathbed Confessions, an easy bolted climb right up the middle of the SOD wall, with just enough run out between bolts to make you concentrate. Quentin led the first pitch easily, we practised our semi-hanging belay techniques at the chains, and then I led the second pitch to the top. A 58m rap to the ground, and we were warmed up. Nice.

View of the Coke Ovens crag from the old coke ovens at the base.

Quentin leads off on Deathbed Confessions

Nice pano of the route - credit Steve Phillpott

I led the second pitch. Note optimistically slung chickenhead.

Long rap off DC

Then on to Organ Grinder. I’d led this before, so Quentin got the sharp end. It is only a grade 14, but nothing remotely like a sport climb – you need a wide variety of skills to get up this in style, chimneying, jamming, heel & toe, a bit of face climbing, all in quite a spectacular position. Quentin quickly understood why it was called Organ Grinder (have a look at the photos, and you’ll understand the particular hazard to the leader) but led it well, I loved it on second (so much easier when you don’t fear death) and Steve nearly blew a valve but as always, managed to get up it.

Quentin on Organ Grinder (the name refers to the arete he is straddling...)

Steve running out of finger strength near the top

the views from the ledge - tourists dont get to see this. Credit Steve Phillpott

Then it was my turn – the second pitch of Organ Grinder is pretty poor, but next to it is the top pitch of Monkey Business (15), which leads you around a little roof and then straight up a very appealing corner crack. It took me a while, mostly because I’m scared, and wanted to lace it up every couple of metres. It protects well, though, and makes a much nicer finish – the combination of the two routes is excellent. Both Steve and Quentin found Monkey Business much easier than Organ Grinder – whereas I found it about the same, perhaps because I was leading. Again, a long double rope rap (58m) led to the ground.

Alex on Monkey Business

Multipitch with 3 is pretty slow – we’d hoped to get in another climb, but the days are short, and already the sun was dipping below Old Baldy, so we called it