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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

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Outback NSW - any climbing?


nmonteith

21-Jun-2010
2:23:17 PM

On 1/06/2010 maxdacat wrote:
>What about White Cliffs?

P.s. - there are no cliffs in White Cliffs apart from the entrances of mine shafts.


nmonteith

21-Jun-2010
3:28:32 PM

Next up was Mutawintji National Park (about 150km north east of Broken Hill). This place was great - a total oasis of rock (and water) hidden away behind some insignificant hills. The whole area is an important aboriginal area - with quite a few art sites dotted amongst all the rocks and caves. For tourists its pretty unregulated though, not many signs, fences or anything like that to inform you on what is potentially off-limits. I was pretty cautious - I choose not to rope up at all and to left my chalk-bag in the car. I also kept away from major caves protected from the weather and kept an eye out for paintings or engravings. Anyway - its sandstone very similar to Moonarie, with bits of quartzite conglomerate as well. The rock quality is not as good as the Grampians but better than the Bluies. Lots of boulders and juggy easy walls abound. I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Typical hillside of boulders and short walls in the Homestead Canyon.

Grampians style problem on slopes and jugs. Very nice! Quite a few variants to do here. Homestead Canyon left side.

This 'boulder' is actually 15m high. The overhung side had aboriginal hand stencils though...

Another fun steep thing in Homestead Canyon.

Polished black slab with little pockets right on the creek in Homestead Canyon.

Conglomerate wall - the whole wall went for about 50m wide and got higher the further left you went. This was the short end.

Detail of conglomerate. Very slippery without chalk in the sun!

Mutawinji Canyon - really smooth walls with cool pockets. You could rig up top-ropes on this pretty easily. Sadly the water wasn't deep enough for safe DWS.

Easy but good trad leading possible here. Mutawinji Canyon.


nmonteith

21-Jun-2010
5:59:37 PM

On 21/06/2010 davidn wrote:
>Are you still planning to go out to central Australia?

It won't be this year - but maybe next year? The trip really got my pyched about how NICE the weather is in winter away from the coast. Perfect crisp blue skies and low teen temps make for brilliant climbing weather. No flies either which is about all I remember of central oz trips i did with my parents in summer.

>Only thing I'd say now that I know is forget northern Australia. Fires
>destroy all the rock but the cliffs (tearing off holds like mad), and most
>of the cliffs are sacred sites. C'est la vie.

It's also 30'C all year round. I'd hate it.


vwills

21-Jun-2010
7:05:18 PM

>The trip really got my pyched about how NICE the weather is in winter away from the coast. Perfect crisp blue skies and low teen temps make for brilliant climbing weather.

Its called Wingello where it never rains- a bit closer than Mootawingee/Mutawinji

gdawg

28-Jun-2010
7:30:57 PM

On 21/06/2010 davidn wrote:
>I kid you not, Alice Springs to Glen Helen saw 40 kms of _continuous_ cliffs as well as a massive >amount of cliffs in the distance where no roads run. Single-pitch territory mostly out of Alice, but >there's multi-pitch opportunities around (Ormiston Gorge, others). Kings Canyon is almost >unexplored (since the main walls can't be climbed, no one seems to have climbed many lines in >the many, many cliffs splitting off the main canyon)...

Alice has heaps of potential (defo). There is no (legal) multipitch in Ormiston or Kings Canyon (or Ularu or Kata Tjuta for that matter). The NPS imposes harsh fines ($2000+) for unautharised climbing in these areas. There is, however, great multipitch climbing at the following:

Emily Gap (7 minutes drive + 2 mins walk - up to three pitches high)
Jessie Gap
North face of Mount Gillen (10 mins drive + 40 mins walk ~100m high vertical cliff)
Serpentine gorge
several others places.

> heck even at Honeymoon Gap (11kms outside Alice) there's some scary overhung river (slick as >crap) rock probly going V1-V10+.

Not sure what is so scary about a fall into soft river sand. Definately agree that the rock is polished (i.e. trains contact strength). Honeymoon Gap represents the (convenient) bottom of the pile as far as bouldering goes around Alice. There is heaps of amazing sandstone/quartzite bouldering within a 30 min to 1 hour drive.

>Only thing I'd say now that I know is forget northern Australia. Fires destroy all the rock but the >cliffs (tearing off holds like mad), and most of the cliffs are sacred sites. C'est la vie.

Devils Marbles is definitely worth a visit. This is a massive series of boulder fields that extend for 20 km + to the east of the Stuart Highway (~50 km south of Tennant Creek - the boulders can be easily seen from Google earth).

gdawg

29-Jun-2010
11:27:36 AM

>On 28/06/2010 davidn wrote:
>The side canyons of Kings Canyon can be climbed with ranger permission though??

The Kings Canyon rangers told us that they are not going to let any climbing be done in the park (let alone walking off the marked trails - all three of them). Luckily the same sandstone continues for 100's of kms through the nearby Aboriginal lands and pastoral leases. Boggy Hole is a good place to get a sample (its in the 2005 guide).

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