The trip was mostly about photos and hiking into Frenchmans which was very tiring but well worth it. However Owen did lead me up a new route of his at Stacks Bluff, Ben Lomond. Only grade 19 and I was seconding, but it was one of the scariest times of my life.
About half-way up I was crying "take me back to Arapiles!" and otherwise whimpering over the large chunks of rock peeling off, the mossy holds, the hanging belays off a single crack, the exposure provided by 80m of unbroken vertical columns dropping away beneath my feet, having to dog the 2nd, the way steep 1.5 hr approch over house sized scree fields..... basically I didn't stop feeling uneasy, until we'd rapped off a chockstone and touched ground again. One climb in Tassie and it was enough. Back to taking photos for me I think :-)
PS: When looking at the photos, if you switch the "style" to slideshow, the image size to "large" and go "full screen" it looks pretty cool. |