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HELP: places near melbourne to climb |
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15-Jun-2012 3:09:35 AM
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hi, i am wondering if anyone could help me with locations for sport and bouldering near melbourne as i am thinking about moving to australia in a few years to go to uni at melbourne university. but dont know much about climbing around here, i know the arpperlies and grampians are near but thats about it.
thanks for any replies,
max
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15-Jun-2012 8:25:38 AM
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The guide page has a few options to give you an idea of what's around: Guide page
In there there's a Clicky map of western Victoria and a Clicky map of eastern Victoria
The closest bolted routes I can think of are at Camels Hump and Werribee Gorge.
What grades are you climbing (roughly)?
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15-Jun-2012 9:12:13 AM
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Gramps and raps is the only good stuff. It's 4 hrs away, but worth it
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15-Jun-2012 9:28:22 AM
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On 15/06/2012 BoulderBaby wrote:
>Gramps and raps is the only good stuff. It's 4 hrs away, but worth it
Nonsense - Melton creek has a multitude of quality routes and boulder problems less than an hour from the city...
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15-Jun-2012 9:43:56 AM
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You'ld be better off working on getting your GPA up to a level where you can get into a real university, instead of wasting your time at the third rate unis Australia has.
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15-Jun-2012 10:07:32 AM
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On 15/06/2012 BoulderBaby wrote:
>Gramps and raps is the only good stuff.... Snipperoo.
Really? Sure they're rad, world class areas but does climbing have to be world class to be rad?
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15-Jun-2012 10:12:56 AM
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On 15/06/2012 BoulderBaby wrote:
>Gramps and raps is the only good stuff. It's 4 hrs away, but worth it
There's some good stuff at Buffalo too if you're up for the drive. Especially good in summer when it tends to be uncomfortably warm at Arapiles and the Grampians.
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15-Jun-2012 5:01:23 PM
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On 15/06/2012 Miguel75 wrote:
>Really? Sure they're rad, world class areas but does climbing have to
>be world class to be rad?
Yes, if you're flying round the world for it, I reckon it needs to be at least world B grade.
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15-Jun-2012 5:07:58 PM
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On 15/06/2012 ajfclark wrote:
>There's some good stuff at Buffalo too if you're up for the drive. Especially
>good in summer when it tends to be uncomfortably warm at Arapiles and the
>Grampians.
This dude is thinking of coming out from the u.k. to climb/study.......and you're suggesting that Buffalo 3hrs away is a reason to relocate to melbs? Perhaps he could go study in Vancouver and have Squamish instead of Werribee as his summer afternoon venue, or study in San Fran and weekend to Yosemite?
Is Buffalo a good crag? Yeh, it's ok. Does it make Melbs a sensible global destination as a climber's city? Fuch no!
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15-Jun-2012 6:07:49 PM
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Should go to wollongong uni, mt kiera is awesome!
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15-Jun-2012 6:09:03 PM
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Of course, if he chose Vancouver or San Fran, he'd have to write off half the year that the crags were under snow .... at least Gramps/Araps has year round climbing. Unless you were equally into skiing. In which case, you could easily find a dozen places in Europe with more convenient, classy climbing then Melbourne. In fact, a tiny bit of recollection brings to mind it's basically 3 hours to the valley from SF - and 1 1/2 hours Vancouver-squamish. Advantage minimal???
Having said that, Araps and the Gramps are fantastic. You won't regret spending a year leaving down the road from them even if it does take a few hours to get there. Australia is big. It takes ages to get anywhere. All the stuff close to Melbourne, yeah, if you're desperate .... otherwise, just get out to the Gramps (a smidgeon closer some northern and central crags than Araps).
And ODH has a strange thing against Buffalo. Don't listen to him. Buffalo is beautiful. The climbing is lovely. Camping great. Views stunning. Hot weather relief and swimming. The rock is perfectly fine. Just get some good beta on what to do and how to get to the route (and off it) before you go. You get to see snow gums. Classic Aussie gum trees sticking out of snow. Fabulous stuff. And alpine tree penguins. Well worth at least one trip out there, although you'd not devote anywhere near the time that you would to Araps/Gramps.
He's coming from the UK, Damo. Climbing in the UK isn't that flash (putting helmet on now), really, Buffalo is mindblowing compared to most of that stuff!
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15-Jun-2012 10:34:55 PM
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>He's coming from the UK, Damo. Climbing in the UK isn't that flash (putting
>helmet on now),
Jonny Dawes didn't mind climbing in the UK...and he like's mulberries, so I reckon he's a good judge
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15-Jun-2012 10:41:47 PM
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On 15/06/2012 Big G wrote:
>Should go to wollongong uni, mt kiera is awesome!
lmfao. The Big K!
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15-Jun-2012 10:46:17 PM
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On 15/06/2012 Wendy wrote:
>Of course, if he chose Vancouver or San Fran, he'd have to write off half
>the year that the crags were under snow ....
Oh, I dunno, if you're happy to learn to love the Pinnacles and make the odd long-weekend/week-long trip to J Tree then there's not too much climbing down-time living in San Fran. The valley is usually only really too cold to climb for a few months each year anyway.
(Edit: all sort of besides the point given the original question was not "what's the best climbing city in the world that also happens to have a university?")
I agree that Buffalo is a great place - worth a lot more than one trip IMO (let's face it, if you've got the Lindorff/Murray guide you'll probably spend the entire first trip getting completely lost while trying to follow their instructions for an easy "10 minute" approach).
One comment I'd make, Max, is that to get much good climbing in around Melbourne will require you to have a car (or at least friends with a car). I guess that's true of most places, though. What are you coming to study, by the way?
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15-Jun-2012 10:57:56 PM
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On 15/06/2012 ARidgley wrote:
>On 15/06/2012 Big G wrote:
>>Should go to wollongong uni, mt kiera is awesome!
>lmfao. The Big K!
I'd rather be in the gong than melbourne any day. The big k is the gramps of the north and there are no victorians. Close to bungers, point, nowra, black range, blueys. Must be up there as best climbing town in oz. Not to mention dead cat wall and south beach bouldering.
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16-Jun-2012 11:22:48 AM
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On 15/06/2012 Wendy wrote:
>Of course, if he chose Vancouver or San Fran, he'd have to write off half
>the year that the crags were under snow .... at least Gramps/Araps has
>year round climbing.
Bullshit! If araps has amazing year round climbing, how come all the Nati climbers bail out of there for a couple of months every winter?
>Unless you were equally into skiing. In which case,
>you could easily find a dozen places in Europe with more convenient, classy
>climbing then Melbourne.
Ex-fukin-zactly!
>In fact, a tiny bit of recollection brings to
>mind it's basically 3 hours to the valley from SF - and 1 1/2 hours Vancouver-squamish.
> Advantage minimal???
Ummm, if you live in north Van as all the keen climbers do, you can be at the nearest awesome crag in 45mins (and at the ski hill in 20mins). Melbs to araps? 4hrs. Advantage minimal? Are you on some sort of pre-op meds?
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>Having said that, Araps and the Gramps are fantastic. You won't regret
>spending a year leaving down the road from them even if it does take a
>few hours to get there.
Being a melbourne climber sounds fuking dire! They have no life outside of work, commuting to the gramps, and training on plastic.
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>He's coming from the UK, Damo. Climbing in the UK isn't that flash (putting
>helmet on now), really, Buffalo is mindblowing compared to most of that
>stuff!
I recently got a facebook message from Fish Boy, who gave up being the keenest Buffalo climber around to go and live in Squamish...........he says "every single pitch I do here is better than any pitch I've done at Buffalo"
The end (of deluded bullshit about how melbourne is good climbing city).
At the very least, Sydney, Wollongong and Canberra (and probably Hobart) are better places to climb from.
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16-Jun-2012 1:13:05 PM
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Vancouver gets a vote from me though I still reckon Utah is the fun capital! Amazing skiing/boarding, climbing, hiking, mountain biking.... And they have pretty good schools!
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16-Jun-2012 2:40:43 PM
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On 16/06/2012 One Day Hero wrote:
>I recently got a facebook message from Fish Boy, who gave up being the
>keenest Buffalo climber around to go and live in Squamish...........he
>says "every single pitch I do here is better than any pitch I've done at
>Buffalo"
x2. The Grand Wall by itself would have at least three five star pitches, and five other three or four star pitches. Exasperator has two five star pitches. I hate granite, but Squamish is awesome. The quality of the indivual pitches outrates the valley IMO. You can buy a sundae at McDonalds and eat it on top of the first pitch on The Chief. Consumer. However, climbing is restricted to maybe 8 to 10 weeks per year.
Having said that, I'd take Arapiles over Squish any day. Did I say I hate granite?
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16-Jun-2012 3:58:16 PM
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Yeah, I wouldn't say that canadian crags are better than ours. However, if you live in Vancouver your summer after work crag is world class, whereas if you live in Melbs, your summer after work crag is a piece of shit.
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16-Jun-2012 4:15:08 PM
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What after work crag?
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