Crag & Route Beta

Author	Rosea ACA Guide
kieranl 12-Jul-2008 3:34:34 PM	Maybe I'll have to have a bash at Cream when it warms up. Would be a pity if the grade has gone up too much. Also, for those who have done Knick Knack recently, Ive just been looking at the 1977 guide which says for the top section "climb the wide crack using holds on the left wall at the overhang"
kieranl 23-Jul-2008 11:06:24 PM	Put in a topo for the Giant's Staircase, replacing the Martin Eden one. Missing the routes at either end as I don't know exectly where they go but the major routes are in except for Titus and Fuschia - hard to work out the features in the photo. The descriptions of the major routes have also been fleshed out. This is the first cut so could people please have a look and see if I've made any major stuffups. The first pitch of Call of The Wild may be shown going too far left at the top of the first pitch - again hard to pick the features on the photo and coorelate with my old memories.
kieranl 27-Jul-2008 10:07:17 PM	On 14/05/2008 JamesMc wrote: >I hope you can find the routes at the left. (The ones that the 1977 guide >described as "100m or so right of...".) Found those routes James and I can even reasonably positively identify one of them in the photo, for most of its way up anyway. Hadn't been to the very far end for over 20 years so went in on Saturday taking a GPS to try to get some sort of objective measurement of distances. The GPS was only partially successful giving widely varying measurements of ground covered going in and coming out. Possibly due to proximity to the cliff and canopy cover giving restricted view of sky so reduced accuracy. I was considering giving GPS readings for some of those scattered climbs but am not sure that this is worth it. If people want to do them they aren't too hard to find. Travel was pretty rough beyond Big Chimney with lots of bracken making finding my footing difficult. Very easy to do an ankle there. Later on I had a reminder of how dangerous trees can be. Was back at where the main track hits the cliff and turns to go up GIant's Staircase about to pick my pack up when I heard something odd. Glanced up and there was a large branch hurtling down from high up the cliff. I sprinted off down the track and the branch hit right where I had been standing, with bits both side of my pack. No wind, no people about to blame. Grabbed the pack before anything else could come down and sprinted down the track in a hailstorm.
kieranl 14-Aug-2008 9:23:34 PM	Does anyone know if the right arete of Debutante Direct Start (i.e. DS to Angry Young Men) has ever been led or only top-roped? Anyone here tried it on lead or top-rope?
kieranl 8-Dec-2008 9:44:41 PM	Went up Sunday with Norm to check out The Sloth. It's over 20 years since I'd done it and couldn't remember much about it except that it was pretty good but Pete Manning had really runout the first pitch and final pitch was scarey. I thought it might be good to finish up Dinosaur Gully DF and give a very sustained route. Ran into Tony (from the "left rope at Mitre" thread) and Julie on their way to Debutante DS and Diane as Tassie practice. The spring on the first pitch of Edge of Reality was still running (just) and Bubbles is probably not quite climbable yet. I took first pitch of The Sloth and found it great fun. The big cams were handy but there was plenty of other stuff and the climbing was was steep jugs rather than graunching in the wide crack. Doesn't get done much so it's a bit dirty but not too bad. Norm had a fight with the little tree at the start of pitch 2 - one branch got tangled in a quickdraw and accompanied him up the cliff for a little. The first few metres are fairly goey but the rock is reasonable and protection OK. The top half of the pitch is sensational - great rock, sustained moves and adequate - but not always brilliant - pro. Norm did well committing to this section with protection at his feet. High up there is an overhang that runs across into Dinosaur Gully. I thought that we would be able to move right just above that and belay in Dinosaur Gully and finish up the direct but moving past the overhang landed Norm on the big scrubby ledge. I got up and decided that reversing the hand-traverse from the ledge into DG wasn't going to be much. I also wasn't feeling like a return match with the final pitch of The Sloth so we grovelled up the original DG finish. From just below the overhang at the top of pitch 2 it looked pretty easy to traverse into the belay just below DG DF. That combo of Sloth 1 & 2 and DG DF would have to be a *** route if it came off. Maybe next time.
armstp 4-Jan-2009 6:35:05 PM	You are doing a great job of the online Rosea guide, Keiran. It still hasn’t made the place any more popular. I have been up there on 4 of the past 6 days and have only seen two other parties on the cliff. Not that I am complaining. To be able to go to one of the worlds great cliffs and have it to yourself is my idea of heaven. Particularly as the weather has been near perfect up there [except for one short spell on New Years Day when it got a bit windy and cold when we were half way up Last Rites] – mostly sunny days in the high teens. A couple of observations on the guide. I see that you have dropped Renate back to its original grade of 17 [the Baxter guide had it at 18]. I know grading is a subjective business but it seemed comparable in difficulty to Gillian or anything on the first 2 pitches of Requiem and a step up in difficulty from Heretic or Bubbles. I would say pitches of 16, 18, 17. Pitches 2 and 3 of Abysmal Brute are 19 not 1 and 2. The whole first pitch of The Stinger is very dirty at the moment, I had to put the aid back into it to clean off some of the holds. Which is a pity as the upper pitches are sustained 14ish, clean and some of the best easier climbing on the cliff. It needs some kind soul with a wire brush, a trowel, and some ets to aid the whole pitch cleaning it properly as they go. Phil
kieranl 4-Jan-2009 10:35:29 PM	Thanks Phil, I'll fix those things up. Are you able to send me a sketch of exactly where the upper pitches of Abysmal Brute go? I'd like to put it in the topo but it's one route I haven't done yet.. Either email me kieranl (at) aanet.com.au or snail mail to box 151 Natimuk if you can. The Stinger has really suffered from the curse of the select guide. Such a pity. Thanks for the cleaning effort. Have you done Drone Bee? I thought it was quite good many years ago but Nod did it recently and found it dirty and dangerous. Any other comments on other climbs there would be gratefully received. cheers Kieran
kieranl 18-Jan-2009 2:07:47 PM	New topos of the Tourist Buttress area have been posted on the ACA site. Many more routes are marked and some errors on the old topos corrected. No diagram for RIP corner yet because I can't work out the features in the middle section from the photo. Upper pitches of Speculation have been omitted as I've only ever done the first two pitches and don't know where the top pitches go. Anyone able to help me out? There's also nothing right of Holocaust. Has anyone done any of the hard routes based around Solitude (Fear and Loathing, Desperado)? I've done Tequila Sunrise and have no memory of it at all. I'll need to make a trip to Tosea to refresh my memory before putting it in. Any comments gratefully received.
kieranl 18-Jan-2009 3:44:11 PM	Also updated topo for Giant's Staircase. Post-edit : And for the Left Side including around Dinosaur Gully. All topos now have route numbers relating to position in the text so things don't have to be renumbered as the missing routes are filled in. Some of us haven't got anything better to do on a warm Sunday afternoon.
armstp 18-Jan-2009 6:41:34 PM	I climbed Speculation just a week or so ago Kieran. I remember doing the first 2 pitches with you and Jerry Maddox back in about 1979 so it only took me 30 years to get round to finishing the ascent! And you haven’t even managed that obviously! The variant start at 15 [just to the L of Heretic P1] is worth doing to make the route independent. The description of Speculation above the 2nd pitch is hopeless. P3 is given as grade 11 but none of the corners directly above where you reach the ledge is any thing like that easy. I climbed one groove above a large block on the ledge at about 14/15. I think you would need to go to the RH end of the ledge [traverse 5m R] to find an easy blocky groove. I will email you a copy of the topo photo with the upper sections marked and a suggested description including the grade 15 variant finish which whilst not particularly good is more worthwhile than the original as with the variant start it gives 4 consistent pitches of 15. I haven’t done any of the routes around Solitude but did climb the Never Ending Story recently. I will mark that in too.
kieranl 18-Jan-2009 9:41:06 PM	Thanks Phil, I'd forgotten that I'd done the first 2 pitches of Speculation with you and Jerry even though I've noted that in my guide!. I think we might have finished up Debutante. I did it another time with Meg and abeiled off the top of The Jesus Factor. Thanks for all of that stuff., it's good to see things coming together.
prb 20-Jan-2009 12:08:31 PM	Warning: what follows is a dry and tedious discussion of route directions at Rosea probably only of interest to Kieran and myself! But I'm the sort of person who's likes to get these things sorted out. I get a mention in the preamble to Ashes to Ashes by climbing what I thought was a new pitch in 1998 (Diane Super Direct) but what Kieran thinks is virtually a repeat of pitch 3 of ATA. And looking at the topo, they're certainly close. I hadn't realized ATA crossed Diane so low, thinking they may have crossed after Diane becomes Heretic. We were using the old VCC SE Gramps guide (1991) and were trying to climb Diane Direct Finish (ie. the normal Diane these days). We'd climbed the excellent rope-stretching second pitch (close to 60m) and stepped L onto the R end of the long, wide belay ledge backed by overhangs. Pretty sure we were on-route at that stage. The book then said, "The last two pitches of Heretic are now directly above". OK, lets turn to pitch 4 of Heretic: "Traverse 3m R and climb weakness in overhangs. Now up and L and up a testing bottomless corner..." So that's exactly what I did but before long realized the climbing and particularly the protection wasn't grade 16. The ACA description for p3 of ATA reads: "Up line above, with odd formation at 3 metres. Step left and up face and steep wall into hanging corner. Up corner to roof. Exit right." I can vaguely remember something "odd" when I moved R so I probably touched ATA at that point. But I then moved probably 5m back L when above the overhangs. I was straight above my belayer at that point and the scant pro obviously had him worried – he was rolling a smoke one-handed! It was good balancy climbing but I had to stay cool. A couple of testing moves upwards brought good holds to hand and I then continued up into a hanging corner and much easier climbing. I can't recall a roof and an exit to the R. The corner ended at a pleasant niche/ledge and we finished up a short easy pitch straight behind the belay. But unless there is another hanging corner between the top pitches of Heretic and ATA, I concede this was probably the finish to ATA. I see the description to Heretic has changed on the ACA guide and the old Diane Direct Finish has become the standard Diane. This will make things easier.
kieranl 21-Jan-2009 8:19:30 PM	Hi Paul, my interpretation of where your pitch goes in relation to Ashes To Ashes is based on there being only one hanging corner in that area that fits the bill that I can see. Exactly how the corner is approached depends on where the belay is as it's possible to climb the first few metres above the ledge almost anywhere. What I'll do, as there is some ambiguity, is stick a copy of your pitch description in with the third pitch of AtoA and that way people have the full picture and we can get some feedback from repeat ascents (hint: people should be out there climbing these things as well as the 'select" routes) as to whether there are two distinct pitches or one pitch with different approaches and interpretations. That's the beauty of this online guide stuff. The descriptions can evolve through feedback and my interpretation does not become gospel. WRT Diane : I believe that the route should be described as it is done. The history of Stranger doing the start and then wandering off needs to be recorded but noone is interested in exactly where he went and recording it just confuses things.
kieranl 9-Mar-2009 8:10:18 PM	Anyone done Shadrach DS at Rosea or know of anyone doing it? Trying to work out which of two possible options it is. There's a very good looking option, straight up the orange groove but I backed off it because of poor protection and it doesn't actually go to the tree at the top of pitch one. The other option is the grey corner left of the wide crack of Shadrach but the descriptions don't mention the traverse right to get to it and the block at half height looks suicidal to climb past.
kieranl 9-Mar-2009 8:28:47 PM	Got some feedback on the first pitch of Sweet Maggots from Phil Armstrong and Jerry Maddocks firsthand on Sunday. Jerry thought it was the worst pitch that he has ever done. Coming from Jerry that's a big call with some very stiff competition. I gues it's suffering from the "Select Guide" curse. It's not in it, so it doesn't get done so it's dirty. I'll see what they think about the overall route. I've done the whole route once and repeated the first pitch and thought it was OK. Close to that the Baxter route St Valentine's Day Massacre is a very nice short 15 to finish the day with (not just my opinion so you can rely on this reccommendation).
adrian 9-Mar-2009 10:35:00 PM	Can anyone describe to me where Speculation supposedly goes? Had a great day up there on Sunday doing Heretic and then decided to cruise up Speculation to finish the day. Ended up doing a 2nd pitch that was much harder than expected, got thoroughly lost on the 3rd pitch and ended up climbing over a huge flake (was the best 3 moves of the whole pitch), then traversed back into the final pitch of Heretic just to get to the top! Any suggestions on where people commonly go wrong?
IdratherbeclimbingM9 9-Mar-2009 10:40:54 PM	On 9/03/2009 adrian wrote: >Any suggestions on where people commonly go wrong? ... Not expecting adventure at Rosea?
adrian 11-Mar-2009 11:02:40 PM	On 9/03/2009 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote: >On 9/03/2009 adrian wrote: >>Any suggestions on where people commonly go wrong? > >... Not expecting adventure at Rosea? That goes without saying! I always expect something to not go to plan at Rosea, so I wasn't surpised that it happened. Kieran, any suggestions on where this route goes? I think it may have been you that we had a quick chat to at the base of Debutante Direct Start...
kieranl 12-Mar-2009 12:35:13 PM	I can't give you much information on the top pitches of Speculation as I've only done the first two pitches, finished up Debutante once and abseiled off another time. Phil Armstrong has recently sent me a topo with the upper pitches and variant marked and I'll get that on the site in the next week or so. Phil commented that the upper pitches aren't much chop though.
adrian 12-Mar-2009 2:10:01 PM	Thanks Kieran - look forward to seeing the topo when it goes up.

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