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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Author
Dogface falling (history, not current!)
citationx
11-Jun-2015
11:49:22 PM
Somewhat randomly found these pictures, while the cliff isn't named these appear to be dogface as it fell away. (certainly in the second link you can see the shape of the top of current dogface)
Something about a guy who used to take people to lookouts turned up one day to find a 6ft gap. Then another day it was wider. Then it was gone a few days later? (I think there was a recording of the sound of it falling away but no pictures because the cameras set up to film it didn't have any light to work with)
Am I just making all this up or splicing different history? either way, cool photos.

http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-vn6192005
http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-vn6192006
http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-vn6192007

E. Wells
12-Jun-2015
9:14:14 AM
Sounds about right! It fell in the early hours of the morning. With the amount of mine shafts nearby (7klms of them?!?) It must have resonated through town like crazy!

Macciza
12-Jun-2015
10:43:54 AM
Close but not quite...
When first noticed it was only a few inches, if that, but rather rapidly widened to 6 ft and further ...
It became something of a tourist destination, with refreshment stalls, marshals to control crowds and even lights setup for night viewing during it all. People would attend in their best Sunday clothes via bush tracks, as Cliff drive didn't exist then, and either view from above or from along Narrowneck.
There were several smaller falls, over a period of 4 months or so, before it finally collapsed in the middle of the night, and despite some claims of witness's none have actually been documented.

Despite being integrally linked with Ewbank he wasn't the first person to climb there, being beaten by bob Ryan and co who tried a bolt laddering the middle of the wall but stopped after 60 ft, and chopped the bolts. I repeated this as The Pecker Route. Then they completed a bolt ladder on the left near what is now Titan. Ewbank and co chopped those bolts before? climbing Titan and the cliff became known as Ewbanks Sandpit after numerous first ascents with a variety of partners.
Gigantor, the current trade line of the face, we led by John as a single pitch of almost 100m, with literally 100 pitons, biners etc. After the second was unable to follow I bilieve John ended up going back the next day to clean it...
In the 60s barely 30 years after the cliff had formed the scenery at the bottom was apparently more like a lunar surface, very barren and bare... He was quite surprised at how green and softened it all looked when we went back there on his last visit to Aus. when we re climbed the top half of Jormangund -21, on the left wall. Well worth a look, as is Fingal -23, both are free routes .....

Macciza
12-Jun-2015
10:51:43 AM
Further little historical note . . .
Apparently there is film of the second bolt ladder ascent . . .

And more amazingly Johns ascent of the main line Collossus was apparently filmed by the ABC Sports department for some early extreme sports show. I half suspect that one day during my youth, when rain stopped play on the third day of some test match, they played it to fill in the time and my fragile eggshell of a youthful brain was exposed to the delights of the Dog, leaving me indelibly stamped with a love for the place that would linger in the dark recesses of my mind until being rediscovered in my later climbing life . . .
PDRM
15-Jun-2015
11:02:36 AM
On 12/06/2015 Macciza wrote:
>Further little historical note . . .
>Apparently there is film of the second bolt ladder ascent . . .
>
>And more amazingly Johns ascent of the main line Collossus was apparently
>filmed by the ABC Sports department for some early extreme sports show.
>I half suspect that one day during my youth, when rain stopped play on
>the third day of some test match, they played it to fill in the time and
>my fragile eggshell of a youthful brain was exposed to the delights of
>the Dog, leaving me indelibly stamped with a love for the place that would
>linger in the dark recesses of my mind until being rediscovered in my later
>climbing life . . .

Nice history. Any links to the clip Macca?

I was relating to someone the other day the feeling of being on Gigantor on a freezing cold Blueys day with sweat running off me all over as I re-lead a pitch after taking a factor 1.9 fall three placements from the top, ripping everything out on the way down bar a lone cam. Interesting I never had a repeat taker from anyone I enticed on those climbs.

Macciza
15-Jun-2015
11:37:44 AM
No links sorry
But i have heard that various people have got copies stashed away somewhere . . ?
Could prob chase up a few more historical links later . . .

Yep sounds par for the course on the Dog . . . I sent some visiting climbers on it with a nice recommendation and they bailed after blowing a #3 cam whilst bounce testing, reckoning that shouldn't happen, where as I reckoned they shouldn't be bounce testing that hard . ..



Macciza
16-Jun-2015
12:40:47 PM
Bit more correction
Earliest notice of initial crack was as early as June 1929, and yes for quite some time people simply walked over it, even when it became a bit of a jump . . .
This site has lots of embedded links to further stuff to check out that is well worth it ...
http://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/the-katoomba-landslides-of-1931.html
I particularly like the shot from 60's that clearly show just how hostile an environment it was back then, compared to the greatly softened and vegetated area it is now ... Something John commented on during our last climb there a few years ago and which I had never really considered ....

Macciza
18-Jun-2015
9:01:52 AM
See also
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/159789916?searchTerm=katoomba%20landslide&searchLimits=l-category=Article%7C%7C%7Cl-state=New+South+Wales%7C%7C%7Cl-title=703
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/16774630?searchTerm=landslide%20katoomba&searchLimits

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