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Stupid Projects 8-Nov-2007 At 11:27:39 PM prb

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I think I (almost) did the Moonarie version of The Gates of Moria last Easter. I was there with a new climber and was looking for an "easy" multipitch that I hadn't been on. There's not a great number of these anyway at Moonarie. Glancing at the guidebook, I noticed The Black Hole of Calcutta, a 5-pitch grade 8 on Checker's Wall, put up in 1969. Sounds perfect, I thought. Well...

The first pitch went OK, weaving up between a little vegetation to a good ledge. The second pitch put value back into the grade, bridging up a steep incut wall. It felt about 14 in today's numbers. The description for pitch 3 was "Traverse 13m L. Move around the arete and stomach traverse down R to belay in chimney." About then I was wishing I'd read the route more carefully at Top Camp because expecting my partner to squirm along these poorly-protected horizontals high on Checker's was asking a lot. Nevertheless, she did well but began to question whether we were having fun. I assured her we were.

Pitch 4 up a chimney/corner was reasonable, although at the top you kinda had to jump across and grab a bush then "belay in an awkward position under a pile of tottering rocks." I didn't spot the tottering rocks but belayed in a small cave. My partner was starting to get to the end of her tether, it'd been a big day, and The Black Hole lurked at the back of the cave. This was about 20m of vertical squeeze caving. It looked frightening, and no way I was going in there without a torch. It was pitch black and I hate to think what creatures were waiting inside. So I bridged out the roof of the cave, not too hard but quite exposed, and climbed the wall to the top of the cliff via one hardish move. My partner took a couple of swings at the lip of the cave and went back in, spat the dummy and announced that she was going to stay there. The sun was getting low.

So it was one of those situations. Descent would have been long, difficult and dangerous in the gloom. I abseiled back to the cave and managed to get her thinking some positive thoughts again. Fortunately we found a third option for the ascent which was a gap in the roof leading out to the wall but avoiding the worst of the exposure. I fed the rope down. It was tight, I couldn't have got through, but CH made it. She was pretty happy again, it'd been the exposure that was her main problem. We topped out and made it back to Bottom Camp thanks to a torch stashed at Top Camp.

So going back properly equipped and getting into The Black Hole itself could be my stupid project, but I'm not in any hurry. Could someone get in there and check it out first please? stugang? beefy?!