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Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Author
Sydney's Hardest Roof Crack (Bogan Aid Climbing)

Superstu
4-Aug-2014
9:54:25 AM
A bit of a silly adventure this one, but since there has been some hub-bub from people interested in dabbling in the dark arts on the forums here I thought I'd post this mini trip report. Plus for all hard people out there, Sydney's Last Great Roof Crack Problem awaits your amazing talents.

En and I checked out the Lomandra Place crag in The Shire a while ago. All rather disappointing with one reasonable sport route and one super hard mini route, plus a few steep bolted things with rusty rings and frayed red undie tags. None-the-less if you can avert your eyes from the dumped rubbish and pile-o-bongs its actually a pretty place to explore with lots of wildlife and expansive views over the Woronora River.

We returned to clean and attempt the infamous Lomandra Off-width Roof. A quick scrub revealed it's not really an off-width, more a deceptive hand-rack roof with a super steep fist-crack second section.





Major pfafforama during Saturday morning didn't get us to the crag until 2pm. I removed the worst of the choss from inside the crack and En set off to aid climb it first to see its potential.





Things kinda got slow from here. We'd forgotten just how much frigging-in-the-rigging goes on with this aid silliness, which was made worse by bringing along just a regular rack with doubles in the usual sizes, necessitating a lot of back cleaning. The ground is never far away and we wondered whether we should have brought a bouldering pad instead of a rope. Aid Bouldering could be the next big thing!



Belaying got tedious so I amused myself with text messages and admiring the aboriginal midden.



And it started to get cold and dark..



Getting hungry now...



Highlights of the ascent included Enmoore copping a black eye with a flying hex, and the absurdity as I took a break from belaying to stand on tippy-toes and pull out the initial pieces to hurl back up at En so she could use them again higher up.

A feint "safe" from above around 8pm and finally I got to dangle and thrash my way up on second, appreciating a long arm span to bridge the gaps resulting from all the back cleaning.

For the record, Suburban Reality (A2) takes triples in hand to fist sizes,plus #5 and #6 friends, medium hexes and a large nut. If back cleaning, just watch out for deck potential. For the first free ascent, the 5m roof hand crack is now clean and ready to go, and there are plenty of features and hidden holds to help you along the way. The super steep fist crack above could do with a second brush, and there is even a rest stance half way up. The top-out is super dirty, consider installing loweroffs or take a broom. Enjoy.

Access by parking at the bend in Lomandra Place, Alford's Point, and walking west downhill following your nose.

BundyBear
4-Aug-2014
10:51:26 AM
Awesome Stu !!!

P.S. I tried to get Macca on this line ages ago, but because there were no bolts - he declined the invitation..

Snacks
4-Aug-2014
10:51:34 AM
Haha. Well done Enmore! Top effort...

I guess you did ok too Stu. :P
Mr Poopypants
4-Aug-2014
12:40:25 PM
C'mon Stu, you know you want the free send ...

A big enough rack and it becomes a sport route, anyway ... :-)

G.
jrc
5-Aug-2014
1:19:32 PM
Great adventure Stu didnt know anyone went bonging without old drink bottles any more.

BTW those just look like random shells to me no m..... (or do we want the cliff wrapped in some con order?)

IdratherbeclimbingM9
5-Aug-2014
3:59:53 PM
Good one Superstu and En, and thanks for posting the TR up.

>We'd forgotten just how much frigging-in-the-rigging goes on with this aid silliness

:-(
Does this mean you two are not interested in a possible Buffalo wallathon party, now that you have dusted off the etts?

Aid-bouldering...
Now that is a novel idea. Probably not dis-similar to aid deep water soloing as discussed recently!

Superstu
5-Aug-2014
4:25:36 PM
On 5/08/2014 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:

>Does this mean you two are not interested in a possible Buffalo wallathon
>party, now that you have dusted off the etts?

The biggest aid-fest I've been to is a weekend amongst the crowds at Nowra, but that's for another thread...

superstu
19-Sep-2014
7:19:00 PM
I do believe this sucker has just gone free thanks to one Monty-mental effort.

nmonteith
20-Sep-2014
7:46:07 PM
On 19/09/2014 superstu wrote:
>I do believe this sucker has just gone free thanks to one Monty-mental
>effort.

Yes it has! Took me a few days of effort, and many weeks of waiting when the crack turned into a waterfall after the Sydney floods of a few weeks back. It's all dry now. I've never really climbed anything like it before - so a rough guesstimate is grade 24. The first few moves are solid handjams, then a short bouldery section using holds on the outside of a wide slot, then shoulder thrutching/jamming/chimney/squirm/legbar for a few moves until a wide bridge appears. Then easier climbing up the steep offwidth to the rounded mantle top. My arms are now quite denuded of skin.

There are 9 messages in this topic.

 

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