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Topic Date User

Not Leif Ericsson 2-Nov-2009 At 1:02:06 PM wombly

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Ant dropped by the house in McMansion Hills, and a short time later we were on our way up the big hill
to the blueys. He’d instigated the weekday adventure with the idea of repeating the well bolted Lief
Ericsson, but I’ve recently returned from a few months off the rock, and wasn’t feeling super confident
in my ability to pull down that hard for that long. So, somehow my powers of persuasion were enough
to convince him that a day out at Pierce’s Pass wandering up a traddy corner system were the order of
the day. After a couple of stops to garner coffee and a large apple pie from Bilpin we made it to the
carpark and saddled up in anticipation of wandering up My Kind of Bliss.

The wander out to the start, and the rap was as uneventful as anticipated, having been out to the area
a number of times in the past, and I was soon tying in below the start of the first pitch. It began
reasonably benignly, with fairly solid rock, easy moves and good gear up the initial corner, but had the
added spice of a small brown snake about halfway up the pitch. I was still feeling pretty confident at
this stage though so after watching each other for a minute or so, we each decided it would be best to
head in opposite directions – the snake slowly back into the crack and me out quickly onto the face to
the right for a few metres.

The next pitch and a half went without too many dramas, but just as I was about to get c--ky Ant
pointed out from the belay that dark clouds were a-gathering and heading in our general direction. So I
did a fairly shoddy impression of a speed climber and weaseled my way up under the big roof at the
top of the third pitch, set a belay and brought Ant up just in time for the first raindrops to begin, and the
thunder to start. No worries we said. We’ve been caught in Blue Mountains storms before, and will just
wait it out under our nice cosy roof, hoping not to get struck by lightning. Great in theory, but the storm
lasted two hours and completely soaked the rock, making the last 30 m to the walk off ledge a trifle
difficult, especially as the version of the guide we had with us was suitably vauge about where one
might go.

Just as we were about to give up on the idea of completing the route, three figures that appeared over
near the base jumpers launch, asking if we were OK. At this stage all seemed fine – we were dry & in
good spirits, and while not looking forward to the walk out weren’t too fazed by the idea. Turns out that
was a decision we’d later regret, as it was actually the police rescue group who’d been called out by a
concerned local who saw Ant’s car in the carpark, and probably could have thrown us down a line.

So, we bit the bullet and threw the lines down, and rapped back down into the valley to begin the walk
out. I’d previously walked in along the base of the cliffs, and wasn’t too impressed by that option given
how steep it is, and how damp everything had now become. Hence we started the walk down the hill to
the tourist track at the bottom of the Grose. It started slowly, given our shoes were with our lunch,
torch and car keys on the big ledge at the top of the route. It continued even more slowly
when we discovered the lawyer vine and other assorted spiky bushes lower down in the valley, and
drew to a snail’s pace as it got dark. We eventually managed to locate the right track back up to the
pass, but only after couple of hours frigging around heading in the wrong direction a few times, and
began to trudge back up to hill. The going continued to be slow, especially when we got to the
extremely dark, narrow section of the pass and had our night vision blinded by the glow worms, and
had to resort to direction finding by braile. We reached the car at about midnight, and I for one was
seriously tempted to break a window to access the spare shoes, torches and the apple pie inside.
Alas, it was more stumbling along barefoot on the stony path back to the big ledge, where we (re?
)discovered the new extreme sport of roped night-ledge-simulwalking in order to avoid plunging back to
where we had started our little trek. From there things improved, and Ant even managed to avoid
falling asleep on the drive home, which was reasonably impressive given the 4 am finish. I guess it’ll
be Ant’s turn to choose the next adventure.