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Climbing Broccoli

One Day Hero

19-Dec-2017
12:43:38 PM

I never thought I was one of those crag developer kind of guys. You know the type, always frothing about some new cliff of theirs which is “gonna be the next Thomson’s Point”, but in reality turns out to be a moss covered pile of disintegrating grunder, decorated with burnt out shopping trolleys and a homeless dude camping down the lefthand end (maybe that’s the bloke who put up the routes?)

Anyways, long story short, some friends and I found this new cliff called Billy Billy Rocks and it’s freaking awesome, you have to check it out. Well ok, we didn’t exactly find it, turns out that bushwalkers have known about the place for years…..and some other people knew about it for a few tens of thousands of years before that. Also, the level of awesomeness will kind of depend on your willingness to suffer up a hill with a big pack then bleed on sharp cracks. But don’t be put off yet, let me sell it a bit first.

Firstly, what’s there?
30ish granite cracks, ranging in height from seven to twenty meters, and in difficulty from quite easy to rather tricky. Throw in a handful of searing bolted arêtes, beautiful views, a 45 minute slog, and you have a…….”wait a second. Did he just…?” Yeah, ok, so there’s a 2km walk up a hill to get there, but bushwalkers (including my girlfriend) think that shit is fun (I have no idea why), and your sport climber noodle-legs could probably use a bit of muscle anyway.

Secondly, what do you need?
A short rope and a long rack. Although many of the routes are only ten or fifteen meters high they can suck up triples of the same sized cam. Definitely long pants and tape, lots of tape.

Thirdly, why go?
Simple, because Shipley and Nowra are the climbing equivalent of lollies while Billy Billy is Broccoli. Your parents didn’t make you eat Broccoli through meanness (or maybe they did, because you ruined their lives just by being born…..but your family problems aren’t the point of this analogy). The point is that even though lollies taste so wonderful and sweet, you need to eat your broccoli if you want to grow up big and strong.
The coolest summits in the world aren’t reached by dynoing up sandstone slopers with a line of ringbolts to show the way. Yosemite, Squamish, Valle di Mello, Chamonix, Patagonia, Baffin Island. These legendary climbing destinations should be on the wish list of every climber, and they all require skills on granite cracks. If you’re just dipping a toe in the genre, it’ll probably seem weird and hard and horrible. But persevere and broccoli will morph from unpleasant to intriguing, to satisfying, to delicious (especially with just a splash of sesame oil and oyster sauce).

Billy Billy is Canberra’s new best training gym for global granite adventures, go and tuck in.

olbert

19-Dec-2017
5:18:39 PM

You're gonna need a few well photoshopped photos to sell that shit. Do you have a nice shiny guide to draw the Blochaus-ians out of the gym? You'll probably also need to hire gear at the door.

olbert

19-Dec-2017
5:33:13 PM

https://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/gibraltar-peak-and-corin-road-crags/route/510818610

I need to know if I need steel fingers to climb that..


Vwills

19-Dec-2017
6:10:08 PM

Shade? Season to visit?

19-Dec-2017
7:08:33 PM

Chockstone has officially jumped the shark!

dalai

19-Dec-2017
7:18:27 PM

Nice work ODH. Definitely need pictures!

Jayford4321

20-Dec-2017
12:21:32 AM

>just like that

So where’s the meat?
U going soft on us Odius?
When did U go vegetarian? 1st was M9 with cabbage an now U wiff brocolli, no wonder peeps are turniping to facelook.


rodw

20-Dec-2017
4:13:10 AM

On 19-Dec-2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>Should put some photos up, but I don't have a web host thingy. Just picture
>10 to 15m high vertical to gently overhanging parallel cracks on sharp
>granite in aussie bush......it looks like that.

Just use https://imgur.com/ ie new post, and link.

widewetandslippery

20-Dec-2017
6:24:16 AM

Is there an in situ bbq plate? Bugger broc, sausage sambos.


Superstu

20-Dec-2017
7:27:45 AM

I'm sold!


Eduardo Slabofvic

20-Dec-2017
8:31:05 AM

The route description spells "sawing" incorrectly. Can we get that changed?


ChuckNorris

20-Dec-2017
6:08:37 PM

Nice pic. Reminds me of an old pic Eddie showed me of a gerbil trying to escape his butt.

Just go for the light little buddy.

Dmcg

26-Dec-2017
11:50:53 AM

On 20-Dec-2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>but then Bjorn and Dave showed up and climbed the thing.

Just to clarify "Bjorn climbed the thing, Dave was dragged through it"

As the pic above shows most of the time on this climb is spent trying not to get your head stuck in it. Every time my helmet got stuck I prayed the buckle would break before my neck when flailing limbs finally lost traction and I was left dangling by the chin strap.

PS Billy Billy has some really good climbs. If they weren't so scattered and the place was half the distance from the car climbers would be all over these gems every weekend.

Wendy

27-Dec-2017
4:48:51 AM

Now, I like broccoli. I even like granite cracks. But despite Damo's frothing about Billy Billy for several years now, I haven't been there because:

(a) You have to be in Canberra, something I have managed only once in the 30 odd years since I lived there.

(b) A handful of spreadout microroutes doesn't inspire me to slog up a bloody great big hill. I could just turn up at squamish and head for the smoke bluffs for a much better version of climbing broccoli with 2 second access and a lot more routes. Or the valley bottom crags in Yosemite.

(c) Buffalo is between me and Billy Billy.

Incidently, Valle di Mello is massively over rated. Don't bother climbing your broccoli just to go there. Just take your bouldering pad. There must be something really uninspiring about the climbing in a place when even I think the bouldering is the best thing there.

To paraphrase an immortal line, Billy Billy is a worthless crag and if I ever go there I'll say it again. :) Ok, so i'll probably go there at some point and I'll probably like the climbs, but I'm still going to say Damo is frothing about remote microroutes. Did he say 7m???? Maybe I should just take my bouldering pad!

Jayford4321

27-Dec-2017
1:15:36 PM

On 20-Dec-2017 widewetandslippery wrote:
>Is there an in situ bbq plate? Bugger broc, sausage sambos.
>
or if U climb with a gerbil transporter then those little buddies ought 2 B fresh enough 4 Ur bbq.


ajfclark

31-Dec-2017
4:11:01 PM

On 31-Dec-2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>Billy usually has 5m of sustained climbing (the other 2m is the bit below your hands when you pull on).....

So there's an extra .5m of climbing for Wendy. ;-P

widewetandslippery

31-Dec-2017
5:35:29 PM

On 31-Dec-2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 27-Dec-2017 Wendy wrote:
>>Blah blah, Victoriacentric crap.
>
>I don't even know if I tried to get you to come up to Billy Billy, could
>barely get you to go to Booroomba. Obviously it isn't something you'd drive
>from Nati for. I thought the tongue in cheekiness would be apparent to
>everyone.
>
>>I could just turn up at squamish and head for the
>>smoke bluffs for a much better version of climbing broccoli with 2 second
>>access and a lot more routes. Or the valley bottom crags in Yosemite.
>
>Yes, you've got me there.......Billy Billy is actually not as good as
>Squamish or Yosemite. Maybe I should have explicitly mentioned that.
>>
>>(c) Buffalo is between me and Billy Billy.
>
>And? How many good, clean crack pitches are there at Buffalo? 20? 30?
>It's a giant blob of disconnected mossy shit with a couple of good things
>sprinkled around. Canberra has more good granite pitches than Buffalo,
>no contest.
>
>>Incidently, Valle di Mello is massively over rated. Don't bother climbing
>>your broccoli just to go there. Just take your bouldering pad.
>
>What long routes did you climb? The ten pitch stuff up high is mega. Of
>course you wouldn't fly over there for the single pitch stuff next to the
>road.
>>
>>Damo is frothing about remote microroutes. Did he say 7m???? Maybe I
>should
>>just take my bouldering pad!
>
>Yeah, there's a few silly short things, but they're cracks so there was
>no reason not to climb them. With that said though, a 7m route at Billy
>Billy usually has 5m of sustained climbing (the other 2m is the bit below
>your hands when you pull on).....which is more real climbing than half
>the routes at Araps, right?
>
>I only posted this up because I felt like a total hypocrite bitching about
>lack of content on Chocky while not providing anything constructive. The
>only Chocky people I expect to see up there are Vanessa and Dave, because
>they actually make the effort to travel down to Booroomba (Hi Vanessa,
>hit me up if you want a guided tour when it cools down)

ACT granite is great, I spent a spell climbing down there getting the bus from Sydney and well worth it. Only boulder local now really but the dividing range granite belt has gems, Eugowra, Wyangla etc, don't need to worry about these as secret crags, no one will try to go there.


Vwills

3-Jan-2018
4:30:54 AM

The thing I didn't like about smoke bluffs was the crowds, although June turned out to be a lot more favourable than August for getting on routes. Sounds like that won't be a problem here :) may be worth a stop over on our next trip to Vic.
Since I got my Ocun crack gloves my enjoyment of cracks has increased substantially.


IdratherbeclimbingM9

3-Jan-2018
1:44:30 PM

On 20-Dec-2017 Stugang wrote:
>Nice pic. Reminds me of an old pic Eddie showed me of a gerbil trying to
>escape his butt.
>
>Just go for the light little buddy.

Been thinking about this for a bit... and have decided to satisfy my curiosity...
What’s so special about Ed’s ‘gerbils’ compared to your own?

_{PS: mine are well trained and don’t try to escape!}

Wendy

4-Jan-2018
6:09:02 AM

On 31-Dec-2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 27-Dec-2017 Wendy wrote:
>>Blah blah, Victoriacentric crap.
>
>I don't even know if I tried to get you to come up to Billy Billy, could
>barely get you to go to Booroomba. Obviously it isn't something you'd drive
>from Nati for. I thought the tongue in cheekiness would be apparent to
>everyone.

Of course you have! Everytime I'm on my way to or from qld for the past 3 years.
>
>>I could just turn up at squamish and head for the
>>smoke bluffs for a much better version of climbing broccoli with 2 second
>>access and a lot more routes. Or the valley bottom crags in Yosemite.
>
>Yes, you've got me there.......Billy Billy is actually not as good as
>Squamish or Yosemite. Maybe I should have explicitly mentioned that.
>>
>>(c) Buffalo is between me and Billy Billy.
>
>And? How many good, clean crack pitches are there at Buffalo? 20? 30?
>It's a giant blob of disconnected mossy shit with a couple of good things
>sprinkled around. Canberra has more good granite pitches than Buffalo,
>no contest.

Hmm, I enjoyed the stuff we did around canberra, but i'd still go back to Buffalo over it. Given that Buffalo is much higher on the international and national climbing ticklist than Canberra, I'm guessing most people agree. Of course, if some lazy wannabe Canberracentric guidebook author actually got around to finishing the new guide, there might be something to start promoting Canberra with.

>>Incidently, Valle di Mello is massively over rated. Don't bother climbing
>>your broccoli just to go there. Just take your bouldering pad.
>
>What long routes did you climb? The ten pitch stuff up high is mega. Of
>course you wouldn't fly over there for the single pitch stuff next to the
>road.

Something like Kundalini? Some mystical serpenty, hippyish name. It was ok. But it had a lot of wandering between the good pitches. The long stuff around Chamonix shits all over it. No contest.

>>
>>Damo is frothing about remote microroutes. Did he say 7m???? Maybe I
>should
>>just take my bouldering pad!
>
>Yeah, there's a few silly short things, but they're cracks so there was
>no reason not to climb them. With that said though, a 7m route at Billy
>Billy usually has 5m of sustained climbing (the other 2m is the bit below
>your hands when you pull on).....which is more real climbing than half
>the routes at Araps, right?

Simey recently wanted me to call the new route we did Wendy's Mega Route. Because it was a 7m pitch. It was a crack though, so no reason not to climb it? I'm sure he can come up with some suitable names for your 7m megaroutes as well.
>
>I only posted this up because I felt like a total hypocrite bitching about
>lack of content on Chocky while not providing anything constructive. The
>only Chocky people I expect to see up there are Vanessa and Dave, because
>they actually make the effort to travel down to Booroomba (Hi Vanessa,
>hit me up if you want a guided tour when it cools down)

Posting something constructive? Are you feeling ok?

There are 35 messages in this topic.