Author |
Booty call: Pinnacle F / L Watchtower area, Araps. |
|
|
11-Feb-2014 12:29:42 PM
|
On 11/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>What, not even the right face?!
>
No. THe righthand skyline of your photo shows the Watchtower itself. Watchtower Crack goes up the right side of that. Tauraroa is supposedly grade 9 and rarely climbed. Give yourself a tick that most of your friends won't have. The second pitch looks like it would have been a good pick for the day, not so the rest of it.
As to how you managed to become so geographically embarassed in the first place?
|
11-Feb-2014 12:59:25 PM
|
Embarrassed, that's the word for it alright!
|
11-Feb-2014 2:38:53 PM
|
>>>you're in for a real treat when you get onto it properly!
Absolutely. Roost_Chook, Watchtower Crack is absolutely brilliant and well worth doing once you've recovered.
|
11-Feb-2014 2:53:11 PM
|
What guidebook were you using?
|
11-Feb-2014 3:07:43 PM
|
I think it was Geoff Milburn's guide to Llanberis Pass.
|
11-Feb-2014 3:13:03 PM
|
On 11/02/2014 simey wrote:
>What guidebook were you using?
>
Afraid of your guidebook being associated with this little blunder perhaps?!
|
11-Feb-2014 3:32:30 PM
|
"Marijana trying to free the C4" - More like marijuana B4 climbing
|
11-Feb-2014 3:47:20 PM
|
On 11/02/2014 kieranl wrote:
>Wendy's probably jumped in the car already.
Nah, I was in Horsham. I don't need gear that badly to go chasing it in the heat. I was just wondering how the hell they managed to get so lost on Watchtower Crack. Now we know. That first pitch looks like the first pitch of Xena. I assume they zipped around the corner into the chimney after that, where Xena heads straight up the face. I think they might have gotten heat struck whilst walking there and lost the spacial awareness to be able to compare topos to cliffs. Either that, or they did have the Llanberis Pass guidebook.
|
11-Feb-2014 5:49:45 PM
|
Guidebook? Nah mate, just had the GPS from the car - it said "Keep going straight ahead. Your destination is on the left hand side"
Truth be told we didn't have the guide on us climbing as I didn't think we'd need a book to follow a crack for 3 pitches. It seems that we missed the crucial point that you have to be at the foot of the crack to follow it. Details details...
On the plus side I'm pleased to have provided some Chockstone entertainment to the regulars after lurking all these years - now to work on my spacial awareness...
|
11-Feb-2014 9:56:54 PM
|
On 11/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>Guidebook? Nah mate, just had the GPS from the car - it said "Keep going
>straight ahead. Your destination is on the left hand side"
>
>Truth be told we didn't have the guide on us climbing as I didn't think
>we'd need a book to follow a crack for 3 pitches. It seems that we missed
>the crucial point that you have to be at the foot of the crack to follow
>it. Details details...
>
>On the plus side I'm pleased to have provided some Chockstone entertainment
>to the regulars after lurking all these years - now to work on my spacial
>awareness...
I think you should climb more and do awesome trip reports and post them on Chockstone all the time. You are one cool cooked chicken.
|
11-Feb-2014 10:59:15 PM
|
Thanks Shortman - maybe I'll untick "Trad Multipitch" on my profile until I can reliably string together more than two pitches of the same route when I climb...
|
12-Feb-2014 10:38:42 AM
|
Are you guys simul-climbing pitch one?
|
12-Feb-2014 12:08:48 PM
|
Not as I understand it.
There were four of us so I lead on two ropes, Matt and Craig then followed at more or less the same time (on a reverso) with Matt also trailing a rope to Marijana. Whilst I lead the next pitch belayed by Craig, Matt brought up Marijana.
We didn't swing leads and, apart from maybe one or two small issues with route finding (cough), it worked quite well.
|
12-Feb-2014 12:28:04 PM
|
On 12/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>Not as I understand it.
>
>There were four of us so I lead on two ropes, Matt and Craig then followed
>at more or less the same time (on a reverso) with Matt also trailing a
>rope to Marijana. Whilst I lead the next pitch belayed by Craig, Matt brought
>up Marijana.
>
>We didn't swing leads and, apart from maybe one or two small issues with
>route finding (cough), it worked quite well.
An interesting thread.
R_c, how do you reckon your party climbing-strategy would have gone, had you actually been on Watchtower Crack, a Gd 16 more direct line, with smaller belay stances, as compared to Tauraroa - variation, a Gd 9 chimney, but with your variation possibly being more rambly and having larger belay stances?
Hmm. The Gd 9 climbing when you expected Gd 16, didn't set off alarm bells with any in your party?
I am glad that it all turned out ok for you and your party, and commend you on self-rescuing yourselves.
You might want to try Sundance, and Wall Of The Afternoon Sun, in winter!
☺
... If it was me who retrieves your gear, I'd give it back to you, as you may need it again in the future! Heh, heh, heh.
|
12-Feb-2014 12:52:19 PM
|
On 12/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>We didn't swing leads and, apart from maybe one or two small issues with
>route finding (cough), it worked quite well.
Rest assured you're not the first, and won't be the last, to have missed your chosen route by "that much".
|
12-Feb-2014 12:52:22 PM
|
On 12/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>Not as I understand it.
>
>There were four of us so I lead on two ropes, Matt and Craig then followed
>at more or less the same time (on a reverso) with Matt also trailing a
>rope to Marijana. Whilst I lead the next pitch belayed by Craig, Matt brought
>up Marijana.
>
Wait, Matt and Marijana? You guys don't climb at Hardrock city do you? ;p
|
12-Feb-2014 2:00:17 PM
|
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.
|
12-Feb-2014 2:02:07 PM
|
Yup pecheur - damn - my shame is now public :o(
|
12-Feb-2014 3:00:08 PM
|
On 12/02/2014 Roast_chook wrote:
>Yup pecheur - damn - my shame is now public :o(
Oh good I'll get her to point you out to me next time I see her (admittedly I'm rarely there on Wednesdays).
|
16-Feb-2014 5:12:24 PM
|
There was a party on Siren this morning who I guess will get the gear. They were posing for a photo just before the step-across when I left and I could see a mass of shiny gear just a few metres above them on the traverse.
|