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Landslide Chimney Trip Report 28/11/08 2-Dec-2008 At 2:52:52 PM Mish Mash

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Last Friday I managed to convince a friend James to come up to the Blue Mountains for a day of
climbing. He mentioned that he was keen to get a little more multi-pitch experience and myself having
a bit of an infatuation with the cliffs around Katoomba (having climbed Ice, Echo crack and Wally’s
World in the past 12 months) mentioned that there was a nice chimney down near a popular climbing
cliff called Dogface (hehe) that would be good fun and possibly offer a bit of protection from the
predicted thunderstorms. In retrospect I think I was sandbagging on much more than one level.

As we drove up from Sydney the skies greyed but we kept trying to reassure ourselves that the bad
weather was over to the North of the highway, we would be fine. As contemplation of a nice day of
sport climbing set in we fought it off, deciding to drop into Paddy Pallins in Katoomba for a quick squiz
at the guide book (very roughly 100m+ up grade 18 was about all we got from the description) and a
weather check (afternoon showers still on the way).

It was wonderful for the good people of the Scenic Railway to provide us with free all day parking.
Before any second thoughts set in we were harnessing up, sorting out the rack and stuffing apple
Danish’s down our throats like we would never eat again. We had the usual groups of tourists to
negotiate to begin the walk in but after we had beaten them off with my 1980’s Camp size 11 hex we
were away. The amount of water on the track in worried me a little (drawing out vague memories of
the strength of wet sandstone) but already we had walked down more steps than I would like to have
to walk back out, there was only one direction to head.

After a nice stroll around the national pass, scouting out possible lines along the way, we got a view of
what we were in for:

The mighty Dog Face

The face is awesomely intimidating in its steepness and height. Gigantor just looks amazing splitting
the cliff. I would really love to come back and aid it (if I ever end up learning how to aid). The view left
us with a strong sense of awe and respect for the visionaries that first climbed this face.

Now I had been under the impression that Echo Crack was the line of lines, but I mean, as if 100m of
gardening, offwidthing and tight chimneying is not more impressive than a simple hand to fist crack:

The line of lines:

The first pitch is about 40m leading up to jan alcove just below the obvious roof. Gingerly I began
leading up the slabby start. This involved smearing on damp moss about 1cm thick that somehow
stuck to the sandpit underneath it. There was nothing to trust apart from faith in God as the first pitch
steepened with occasional wrist size tree for protection. Already holds and rocks were breaking and
flying off left, right and centre. The belayer has nothing to worry about though, all these rocks seeming
combusted on their way down and just left James with a steady shower of sand.

As the pitch steepened the style of climbing disintegrated to shear desperation. Anything went to
simply get up. At one point I was smearing on vertical wet moss from which I pulled myself up on a
very loose shrub in a desperate lunge for a chicken wing in a head size crack. With all my weight on
this and my feet kicking in space I unraveled myself from my slings and launch these over a
chockstone as I repeated to myself “please Mr Ingham, I will never speak ill of your chicken farming
policies if you just let this wing stick”.

Just below the belay you are required to layback and jam up a steep hand crack. Here you realize how
much the rock (I use this term lightly) is moving, bending and groaning in your hands before a
desperate move to grab another tree and pull in to a small alcove. Here there were 2 bolts that had
rusted to about 3mm diameter and one nice new looking bolt. Does anyone know when this was placed
and who by? Although I am sure this route has not had many repeats, I feel it is warranted to say that
every ascent is a FA as we launched what could be described as genocide on the key holds.

James Topping out on pitch 1

From here the real fun begins, a 50m pitch of chimneying between two moss covered walls that
constricts down to “helmet” width at which point you can only look in one direction.

The 2nd pitch

With more than a shadow of doubt I launched into what can only be described as an epic battle against
the loose bowels of this horror known as Dogface. Every inch was a fight, there was no Geneva
convention for this warfare. I wormed, chimneyed, knee jammed, swore, chicken winged and pushed
my way up for what seemed like an eternity only to look down and realize I had made about 5 vertical
metres.

Start of the 2nd pitch

Piece by piece I began to drop gear down on a long sling underneath me in order to fit through the next
constriction. I am not even sure why I brought the rack, there was no hope of placing anything. Out of
shear terror I kept moving deeper into the pit, groveling and fighting up. At about the 10m mark I
spotted an old rusted carrot, about 10m to my side near the edge of the crack. With great reluctance I
traversed across to the little ball of rust, clipped it, then dived back into the chasm as if it had become
my storm shelter.

Which it actually had as a few drops sprinkled down from above:

As the storm hits

15m above the carrot there are a few chockstones that kept me sane as I climbed. These, I kept
saying over and over in me head, will keep me safe. Just below these the chimney widens to an
uncomfortable width at which you do not feel secure, yet it is not wide enough to chimney with back on
one wall and feet on another. Again with a few words to the God I was keeping busy that day I
squirmed until the chockstones were in arms reach and grabbed on to them with a sigh of relief.

Except that they were basically sand wedged in a crack and my fingertips began to gauge claw marks
through them. The logical conclusion was to rotate my body horizontal to a point where my hips were
wedged before inverting to some sort of sick-minded mantle on the rapidly decaying chockstone.

The rest of this pitch followed in similar fashion. Your mind slips into a mad frenzy in which you
trust nothing, but you know you have to use what you have before you if you ever want to escape this
jungle of despair. Then you see the light. A little hole appeared before me and was my goal, my aim,
my purpose.

James followed me up this pitch as if he was working as a demolition man. Which he kind of was as
he found this oldschool helmet in the depths of this Blue Mountains Mordor:

Helmet found:

Does anyone know what I.C.V.U. stands for? I thought it left James looking very much like a member
of the Village People:

James

Despite having escaped this nightmare, the short 3rd pitch did not offer any nice face climbing, no
pleasant hand crack, nope. It was straight back into some heel and toe shuffling up another tight
chimney. I swung the lead over to James who completed it in fine style:

James on pitch 3

There was not much flat rock on the summit for a victory photo with the sel