Friends united

There's something a bit different about Melbourne climbers. I think it's the commitment required to stay psyched with no decent rock within day trip distance of home. If you want to get good at climbing in that state you have to plan ahead, suck it up for the big drive and get used to camping every weekend. They climb like every dry and warm minute is precious! It was great to catch up with some of my old mates on the weekend at Nowra. Kent literally leapt off the plane when I went to pick him up from the airport - he was foaming at the mouth to get back on Shoalhaven rock. A far cry from the miserable over-worked Kent I met when I first moved to Sydney last year. At his lowest point he refused to go outdoor climbing at all, locking himself up at St Leotards gym every night drooling rants about Thailand. I think it goes to show you need to have a decent work life balance to get enthused! I hadn't seen Kent so happy in years when he arrived in Sydney this time. Jackie Bernardi and Tim Le have also flown in ready for a week of Nowra action. At the Animal Park camp 'Bogong' James and Bec were also in attendance to round out Team Vic 2009. Where are all the Vic hardmen? They must all be injured again as per usual. We had a wicked day busting forearms at Thompsons Point on Sunday. Highlight was probably Mikl's classic Taipanesque testpiece Silly Putty (24) over at Black Betty Wall. It's got some great funky weirdness. I always ponder how a first ascent climber's personal style reflects on the routes they do. Get on it! Tim Le is in tip-top form onsighting everything he touches, something I havn't seen in ages. Seems like his old smoking and new found rave habit hasn't slowed him down at all. Might have given him some endurance? His fingers were once screwed from over-training, but now seems to be able to crush anything within reach. Sunday was a tour day at TJF with the Viccoes. I did the first ascent of Thriller, not the Yosemite boulder problem, but a cool steep arete route in the first gully. Ended up over at Rick's Cafe and The Corner Store with every route being drawed up by the raging enthusiasm off sun deprived Victorians. By the end of Sunday I was ultra wrecked. I just couldn't keep up with the pace of these guys! Special note must go to Mr Hill, that's Graham to his mates. He seems to be a one man brushcutting machine slicing a whirlwind track along the base of TJF. What was once an annoying thrash over hundreds of fallen dead logs is now a delightful sunday stroll. See it to believe it. We should call him Graham Chainsaw Hands.

Not enough light

It's been a big few weeks. Well, if you count sitting on a rope and bush bashing on my hands and knees in wet jungle as big. I've spent several consecutive weekends exploring the hills to the south west of Nowra. It's sort of the foothills of the Southern Tablelands I guess? Rocks looks the same as Wingello as does the surrounding bush. There is a bunch of crazy 4WD tracks all through the forest as its some sort of state recreation area (not a National Park). These tracks lead to gold if you can navigate and utilize Google Earth. Rick's been putting in the hard yards exploring the area as well. We've found several nice areas, the best is sadly the one with the longest walk-in. I wonder if anyone will bother walking in for 30 minutes to climb the best pockets in New South Wales? Seriously I reckon at least one of the routes I've bolted is simply supersonic. I'm hyperventilating just thinking about it. White polsihed rock with little two and three finger pockets all over it - but spaced enough to make it very interesting climbing. Just like Euro limestone at the 'Tarn. Maybe i can pop down after work and climb it at night? Damn, its 2.5 hours away. The location will be revealed once I've worked out how to get there without crawling across a swamp. Wasn't Mitch hyping up a new area with a swamp in the Bluies? I don't think he had actually found a cliff though - just the epic walk and the swamp. A few weeks back I also did a day at Sublime Point in the Bluies with an old mate Jacqui ( the dope smoking ex-dreaded bike loving chick who moved to Canada - that Jacqui). Anyway - I ticked off one route I bolted there in the rain and at night a few months ago. When I bolted it the wall was a waterfall and I was using the dregs of my bolt kit - some capsules, random recycled rings and the last of my glue. I wasn't even sure if the route made sense as bolting at night gives you mega tunnel vision. Lucky it all made sense when I saw it in daylight. It's very steep (overhangs 5m!) a bit short (16m?) and ultra juggy. Grade 19 juggy I thought! Nice orange rock and totally weatherproof. Might see a few ascents with all the stainless in it. I then had a crack at a mega single pitch I bolted at Bentrovarto Wall - 17 bolts in about 40m of height. Hilariously sustained face climbing which I suck at massively - but working it should give me some technique. I fell off a lot and got to bolt 15 and ran out of rope (and hope?). It then started raining (there is a theme building here). Jaq and I then shot up Sweet Dreams in three pitches and got saturated in the process. We overtook a couple of young punters having an epic on the direct finish in the heavy rain. The poor second was shouldering a rope bag and back pack stuffed with clothes and other crap, whilst slipping and sliding on every hold. Hmmm, what else has been happening? I did Top One Thommo (27) on the weekend. My first hard route since I broke my ankle last year. Yay for me. I'm way more psyched for the new routes out in the highlands.

Oh dear - a list of unfinished new routes

I realize I've been getting ahead of myself with bolting recently. I think it might be time to actually climb some of the myriad of new routes I've bolted recently!

1) 45m face route at Thor Head, Bluies. I've only had one go at this route in November last year. Felt about gr26, and I did all the moves. Then I broke my ankle. I havn't been back since. Anyone?

2) Three pitch sport route near Yesterdays Groove (Pierces Pass). I bolted this at night in the rain and it has not really stopped raining since. Probably wait until summer for this. It's not even that hard - 22?

3) 20m sporty thing at Narrow Neck. I bolted this when i first moved to NSW in September. I had one go in the sun and struggled with a slippery move that felt a bit impossible. Rest was nice 23.

4) 30m Arete at Deliverence (Hawksbury River). One of the first routes I bolted out here with Lee, but have only given it one token try and got scared of the runout at the finish. Must add one more bolt to make it sane! It's a big route and very Nowra like in some ways.

5) The cave prow at Deliverance. Had a few shots at this and did all the moves and vowed to return. That was a few months ago. Opps.

6) Big wall at Sublime Point (Bluies). It's the face on the right side of Bentrovarto Wall with about 14 rings. Bolted this in the rain but looked ok. Could be hard in a slabby techy face kinda way.

7) Short pumper at Sublime Point. This is the first route you walk past on the walk in to Sweet Dreams on the red ledge. Nice easy tick once i get back there! Bolted at night in the rain (i see a theme developing?)

8) Orange cave bulge wall thing at TJF, Nowra. Bolted and enhanced to perfection many months ago. Just need to get back and climb it now!

9) Two little punchy routes at Darkside. One is 24 - other is ? (easier i hope!)

and then of course there is the routes in Victoria.... :-)

Expert at Nothing

The problem with being hyperactive is that you never really get good at any one thing. It's a focus issue, I can't sit still so I rarely finish anything. Take my climbing for instance. This last weekend in rainy Nowra was the usual mix of trying too many things and wondering why I end up smashed on routes I onsighted 15 years ago. Started out by driving solo down the two hours to the crag at 6am to meet up with Bundy and Rick at their new Darkside crag. An interesting place on first appearances. Big, black and steep, with a bizarre band of suss looking conglomerate at the 15 metre mark on most routes. They assured me it was bomber, but later in the day someone ripped a junk off which quickly killed my faith in these welded in pebbles. The moment I arrived I ran the length of the nearby crags to suss out any new route potential and quickly found a nice pocketed wall with a fun looking flake at the start. I promised myself I'd do some climbing before bolting (for once in my life!). Enthusiasm takes hold of me all too often and I struggle to not get distracted by the latest and the greatest. Focus Neil! Repeated a few of Rick and Bundy's route which were great - all felt 2 stars and were nice and long - a style I really enjoy. I even surprised myself with an onsight 2nd ascent of Bundy's new route Yaksitive (23?). Really wicked route up a steep wall with a few crimpy bits. Top 1/3 was a bit too easy and juggy to get it the full 3 star treatment. After doing these token routes I grabbed my drill and set about bolting two sport lines at the new pocketed wall I had foudn earlier. Both needed a bit of brushing (something I very rarely do these days, but it was something we did a lot of in Queensland back in the 90s!). These short winter days are doing my head in! By the time I had finished bolting it already felt late - but I wanted to climb my new routes! Problem was the other guys at the crag had strung draws up on about 5 routes and were also bolting things with various degrees of success (Adrian forget the hammer and was smashing in bolts with a rock). I manically climbed a few other routes to clean them of draws then in the fading light attempted one of my new routes (i kinda hoped the glue was dry!). Did all the moves, but it was quite a bit harder than I expected due to a section of tough little crimps over a bulge where your footwork is a sort of chimney move between two horizontal blocks. Funky - maybe 24? It was solid dark before we knew it and the explosion of gear scattered amongst three crags took a while to clean up. No rest for the wicked - I headed over to Rick's place to talk about the new Nowra guide. We agreed it should be photo topo based and symbol based like the Rockfax guides. Rick wants it to be funny and funky like CRUX - I hope he can write like that! In my usual anti-social way I decided to bivi in my car at the top of Thompons Point rather than struggle with the pleasantries of party central camp life over the river. I needed the sleep anyway. Up early at first light rearing to go. Was supposed to wait for a phone call from Lucy to let me know where they were climbing. She's not an early riser so I knew I had some time to kill. Headed down to the crag with my camera to shoot some test topos for the new guide. Ended up walking the whole length of the cliff and shooting good topos for every climb. TP is such an amazing cliff for it's variety. It's a true benchmark crag and one that I always compare other crags to (to their detriment). I was hyped for some climbing and the sky was blue! By 10am I still hadn't received the elusive phone call from Lucy about climbing plans. An SMS prompt in her direction got a terse response about a peaceful breakfast. Looks like I still had time to kill even though I'd been up 3 hours already. Checked out Thompons' Sunrise crag which is a newish developed cliff near TP. One word to describe it - JUNK. One of the worst excuses for crag development anywhere. Very short, mossy and loose. Reminded me of the worst bits of that poxy little Queensland sandstone area Brooyar. Since TP was only 5 minutes walk away why bother?? Finally I convinced Lucy to drag herself away from the full buffet breakfast and to get cranking! By the time she arrived there was fifteen cars in the carpark and the weather was looking iffy. By the time we made it to the crag it was raining. From there it was a bit downhill. The crowds swarmed into the caves and I got spanked on pretty much everything I tried. Even routes I had onsighted fifteen years ago were breaking me apart like a coconut hurled on a rock. Had a dog fest across Top One Thommo (27) - which is a route I have lusted over ever since Noah was a lad (1992 to be exact when i saw a pic of it in an old Rock mag and couldn't believe how steep it was). Surprisingly the moves were quite reasonable but the linkage would be killer. I think all my roof climbing prowess has withered since moving to NSW. I was once the king of the roof swing - but now my arms feel like deep fried pastry. I'm inspired though and will be queuing with the punters next weekend hopefully. Everyone one else was cranking off 27 and 30s all day. Even the fragile girls were punching as hard as the boys. Quote of the day would go to Frenchie (the french climber girl). "I can't climb routes like that as it would harm my career." - when questioned she explained she couldn't climb roof routes as it builds her shoulders up and she is a model and they don't like big shoulders! Last climb of the day for me was Pulling on Porcelain which obliterated me into a crumbling mess. Weak and disgusted I drove home with a side stop of the lonely hardmans club - donuts and hot chocolate in Berry.