Ascents as various tick types as aid by Alex Mougenot

Whaaaaat a bloody awesome experience made all the better by having the best company (in the form of the legendary Dave Cook). Dave has all the juicy details on his ascent, so refer there for the specifics of the day.

We embarked on our journey late in the morn, the sun was high and our excitement helping lift our pack loads filled with 2 days' supplies and gear for the wall. We reached the wall around noon after a few hours' of fun slogging and borrowed 14L of water from the bubbling creek below the wall. (I say borrowed as we returned it over time hehe).

For two days we quested up the wall, armed with gear loaned from dear friends including skyhooks, fifi's, and camhooks, etriers and daisy chains - bizarre tools of the dwindling now-sub-culture of our sport that were once common-place among one's rack. The goal was to free the climb the route free-as-can-be, though this goal fell quickly to simply getting to the top by any means due to the fact that the free climbing was tough, and we were unsure of whether the free line would lead us into territory from which we could not push further. And thus we resorted to delving into the dark arts of aid climbing in which I saw the light. CAM HOOKS AND FIFIS ARE RAD! The beauty of aid climbing for me is the refinement of systems, the technical problem solving of making your way up a wall by mostly means of equipment, and the intricate focus one has with the protection. That being said, I found myself missing the flow, speed and the organic nature of free movement over rock!

Learning the tricks of the trade through doing and without research/practice (on my behalf at least - sorry Dave!), we slowly trudged our way to our Big Grassy bivy at 8pm - one pitch below our day's objective - glad for a warm dinner and comfy first night's sleep on a portaledge where I had my best sleep of the trip!

We rose at sunrise and pushed through to the top, without much drama but a lot of excitement and awe for the position we were in. I gave the final 24 offwidth pitch a free-climbing crack, and got all but once move (with another handful of falls!), then Dave and myself topped out and hauled the haul bag up and slowly trudged back to the carpark, stopping to search for a the creek on the way to drink up as we'd long since returned the rest of our water back to the Gorge!

Perched up high on the steep granite with pitch after pitch of stellar climbing and immaculate rock, the gorge below dropping dramatically, and the sounds of the cascading creek and bird calls filling the space (and muting our climbing calls!), I couldn't help but feel like this must surely be the best route in Australia. The feeling of a yearning to return grew in me up there, and it has continued growing ion the two weeks since. I'll be back!

Again, huge thanks to Dave for doing this with me! Totally smashed the aiding and pulled us through the roof pitch which would have been super scary on lead!!!

Quite a memorable lead. Plenty of gardening, a bit of loose rock, some nice face climbing, good gear that you definitely need to search for, and a bloody fantastic 15 degree overhanging wide hands corner crack finale that is absolutely epic ... and then the roof! The roof totally will go, but looks diabolical. Was fun aiding out the roof on those bolts, but will need to replace them before trying to free the roof.

Could go with inverted OW techniques> powerful under-clinging? kneebars? bunched up chimney-ing? No idea, but keen to find out!

A highly memorable day out with Blakey on an unforgettable climb. The climbing is great the whole way through, and the last pitch is standout. Slightly worked the aid moves free. They'll go. A beautiful line smackbang up the centre of the wall.

Only to the top of pitch 2. First time lead/aid soloing. Was a great experienced.

Epic day out that got made epic-er by a mixture of poor planning, and psychedness! Got to the top of P2 at 4:30pm, and faced with the fact of if we continued, there'd be no turning back, we opted to go for it What we didn't know is that it'd get freezing and that freak winds would come to throw us off Swinging on etriers through the roofs, un-usable numb fingers, frozen bodies, bolt plates getting pinged off by the wind-carried rope, and nightime summit views were all part of the fun

After midnight Heaps of fun, even though it took me a while. Just stayed on bolts, can't wait to try out some hook moves.