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Topic Date User

Booty call: Arachnus, watchtower, araps 12-Feb-2014 At 2:00:17 PM Roast_chook

Message

It was an "Interesting" day!

Most of the multi-pitch I've done around around the traps has been as a three, with hanging belays and busy stances relatively normal. So though there were four of us there were only going to be three at a time on any belay but the top so it wasn't a concern.

The main problem I had with this way of climbing was that I had forgotten to remind Marijana (climbing last) to ensure she passed the gear she'd got stripping belays and collected from a few safety pieces clipped by Matt (trailing her rope) back to Matt or Craig to pass on to me on the next pitch (As I wouldn't see her until the top). This meant that at the top of pitch Three I was getting short of draws and gear (it all still sitting on her harness). On a 9 this wasn't an issue but it would have been a problem if we'd been on a 16.

The route felt wrong at the top of Pitch one with the grade 9 climbing well noticed. But we were all confident at 16 so it was more a sense of disappointment than concern.

The top of that pitch had came when I ran short of rope so I belayed there then moved up to the nice big shady block to scratch our heads. At that point I felt I'd somehow missed the crack part of the Watchtower crack on the last two pitches and drifted out onto easy face climbing. I was sure we were at the top of the second pitch of that route so if I climbed on all would work out and we'd complete pitch three properly then walk across to the chains at the top and be down before we fried.

Once I hit scrubby nonsense towards the top of pitch three without a jam or layback in sight it was clear that Mr F&^kup had paid an unwelcome visit and it was now a case of GTFOH.

Ironically at the time I think being a four was a good thing as we were all so rooted with heat-exhaustion by the end of all this nonsense that, though it did further slow down the rap-off, it meant there was enough part-functioning brains to do a decent check that no one was doing anything stupid (any more) and the heavy hauling could be shared out.

Thanks for the nod M9 - it was a f^&kup (on my part!) but Matt, Craig and Marijana worked really well together to make it an epic not a disaster.