Ascents by Brendan Heywood having Distinct route

The new gear beta is great walking or unclipping behind you, leaving just 2 reds at the first lip and two yellows at the second. Fell at crux again, the jams are fine I just need much more weetbix and more stamina.

The first third is horribly hollow and loose for gear but otherwise climbs well. Topped out on the ledge. Didn’t do the crack which needs a good clean. Not inspired to lead it

This one has been on the list for ages and I should have done it years ago, its one of the best routes in the gorge! It climbs well and it's in a top spot

Lots of mental rehearsal. Once you commit and get into it it’s not too bad, holds are pretty juggy and the mantle is probably technically the crux.

Good go, got to end of traverse and popped and my shoulder wasn't happy so rested it the rest of the day

The boulder start to this is really cool

I was originally going to do the real easy far right zig zag but got a bit sketched by the levitating arch. It seems solid but I definitely won't be putting gear near it. The move onto the slab is interesting but it's over too quick and the grassy ledge section at the top out is not ideal.

'Attempt' is being polite. I flailed on this hard. I've given Michael so many catches it was overdue I had a play. The first half is nice and easy but not trivial. Maybe grade 18 and I've often wondered about it being a route in its own right as the two sections are so different in style and grade. At the roof the doom music kicks in and its just ... hard. I may have done about 4 actual moves total on the head wall between sags

Fun and flowy, fairly consistent and a great warm up for Innocence in a similar style

Super fun, stoked to onsight the FA thinking this would be baggy fists but its solid hands almost all the way

Based on the dust and cobwebs this probably doesn't see much traffic but it's pretty neat. If we hadn't left some gear at the bottom we would have been done for the day but it was a really great little one to finish up with. Nice to have some jams for a change and switch up the muscle groups.

Super fun! I think this might be my fav route of the day, the second half of pockety goodness is bouldery and very happy to pick my way through the swiss cheese

Very cruisy fun with a nice finish

Slightly higher high point that last time, much cleaner sequence with less faffing. Sagged at the fist crack. Powered through the rest with a little scream, much easier than trying to be slow and steady. Classic!

First go, jammed it all up to the little rooflet which was super pumpy, came down after second rest

Rapped off to film Michael, had to bail before I had a go

First time I've been on the 'real' inertia, always been confused by the bolts. This route is quality. Take care to extend gear over the sharper lips to save your rope. Was lightly raining, the cross through move at the lip shut me down and was a bit rushed to spend time working it.

Steeper than it looks, no jambs just laybacking. Flash pumped and hung, but once you figure out the sweet spots the crux is over way too soon. I got onto the top of the roof after some gardening and there is a big dead tree before you can get to savage amusement. SA needs some big cleanup to finish. Ended up back climbing and I think I did it in better style than the ascent

This cleaned up fairly nicely into a pure crack problem without the features to the left which we thought would be needed. Could be a couple variants. All over in 2-3 moves but still good fun. Still not sure I'd want to solo boulder it.

Naively was psyching myself up for an onsight, totally shut down. Had maybe half a dozen goes, high point was left cup after the constriction, high right fist after that

Surprisingly possible. Minging crimpy start and then its mostly ok in crack, then crux topout. On my last go my high point was the last pinch jam. I did the top from the good crimp way out left at the top but I think its too far and I can do it just with the nipple crystal instead. Ben was super close

Had a crack at the direct start, really fingery layback. The gear was in the way. This time actually finished it up the fun original route which has bomber knee jams to the pillar.

After Volo and Soph, and then Ben, I too had to get a taste of climbing while being intermittently hosed when the wind diverted the adjacent waterfall onto the route. Refreshing! I won't say I dogged it, more like an eel. The route is great and keen to repeat when dry.

Had a brief mini tantrum after discovering my harness was ... not present. Textbook hand jams, a delightful warmup.

Really nice and naturally clean

Crux is a high fingery start then good jam practice. Perfect spot for top roping crack practice

We'd eye this off while bouldering underneath it so didn't have a great sense of scale and thought it would be mostly offwidth and I was keen due to my hand still not being ready for crimping. It ended up climbing quite nicely, it felt like a small segment of a much larger multi pitch

After a good rest day we were much better prepped and had a proper alpine start for this. Had a tourist chopper buzz us at some point. On the start of the 3rd pitch stemming over the mini waterfall my foot blew on dodgy rock and I tumbled about 5m back to the belay. In hind sight it is probably the worst fall I've ever had but luckily I was barely hurt with just a bruised forearm which has yellowed up nicely since. 'With care' is an understatement of the start of pitch 3. Pitch 5 has a fantastic airy crux and is the jewel in this route. We topped out with plenty of light and back on the ground at dusk, then hoofed it back to the car and home

We arrived at Balor close to midnight the night before so had a slightly relaxed start. Finding the start seemed fairly ok and I started climbing at 11. I was feeling rusty so let Ben have the first two money pitches, which mean I ended up spending a lot of time chilling out literally while he went on a wild off-route-finding spree. By the time I joined Ben at the rap it was 2:30 and I'd ended up aiding some moves through the mystery pitons and was deep in type II fun: some combination of too cold / too hot / dehydrated / wind chill / cramping badly. We did discuss bailing from the rap but we forged on prepared to climb at night and I estimated it would be a midnight finish. After a couple pitches the type II fun gradually eased back into type I fun. I "led" the top pitch just so I could say I actually placed a single piece of gear somewhere. As we scrambled over the lip we met hectic arctic winds off the summit. I arrived back at Balor on the dot of midnight Best summarized as we had a 'choose your own adventure'.

Benji and Ben went earlier and I knocked off mid arvo and trundled up stylishly late. They'd had a solid session and Ben had already cracked the crux which is just sick. Benji had a go at leading up the first slab and roof crack pitch. Apparently they'd had an epic cleaning session and it showed. After Benji retreated I had a go and "flashed" it. The caveat is I had been on this on our very first session here but I had retreated from the sea of choss, loose dinner plates, and since trundled death boulders.

Benji reckons its a legit flash because it's genuinely so different. It actually climbs well with a fun left hip stretching move through the bulge. Apparently there is a cave I need to explore in there which I completely missed.

Benji getting some trad practice. This is a great route to learn trad placements on, bit of spice on the top out

I'd forgotten how good this route is, perfect rock, big dyno move (couldn't make it) or alternate left sequence

Planned on watchtower which then evolved into skink, but some earlier birds got that worm either way so we did this instead. Admittedly I was cold and pretty overall hammered from 8 days straight climbing off the couch so was a bit more anxious and not pulling my weight in the psyche department. Despite that Ben was a total champ, this route has some very thin and delicate gear. Had a minor rope tangle getting off

A great wind down after all the hype of Kachoong. Relaxed arvo climb watching the birds of prey, and the moon rise on dusk and just soaking it up and avoiding thinking that we'll need to go home soon.

At this stage I believed I'd lost my camera on either Lamplighter or bouldering somewhere, and either way we didn't have an extra photographer so we weren't really expecting to come away with the clichéd money shot. So when we hooked up with Jose, William and Winnie it worked out awesomely, thanks a ton to William for the shots. As Ben started up it started raining, he was moving fast and only put gear in at the roof. I had thought I'd be cleaning it, but I ended up placing more gear on second so the others could lead on that after me. New tick type?? The whole route is great not just the roof - and despite the glory jug at the lip being a puddle which just made it more memorable!

Ripper of a route. The gear looks sparse from the ground but it's all there and the moves are ace

Great little route to access the Tannin ledge. While setting up for Tannin and eating some food my helmet took a small tumble which then escalated and fell all the way to the ground. It didn't seem to noticed.

The step around on pitch 1 is really nice. We thought we'd end up finishing at night again but topped out on dusk. Got a bit cold on this. Ben ended up finishing slightly early so I lead the '3rd pitch' 3m to the proper top. The keyhole exit is cool, rapped off in the dark.

I'd been slightly off ever since I left home, felt worse this morning and you know it's bad when a grade 10 knocks you around

Second pitch was great though as soon as I got warmed up, and the chimney finish was right up my alley, weird semi-caving stuff

On pitch 1 had a little fun fishing out one of bens big cams which was in deep and I couldn't quite get my chest in deep enough to release it. The move over the lip to the midway ledge is cool. Ben started up the second pitch on dusk and I went up by headlamp