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Sector 'Sunny Side'

16

Seasonality

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Description

A mix of incredibly steep climbing and some more vertical walls to the left. A reasonable warmup area and gets a fair amount of sun.

The Sunny Side will be in the sun until around 12 in summer and 10.30 in winter.

Access issues inherited from The Pit

The tracks and paths are frequented by many users other than climbers so please keep our impact to a minimum. Avoid obvious track markers and cairns within sight of the main trails.

The Blue Mountains are a World Heritage listed area. Radiata Plateau, The Grose Valley, the cliffs around Katoomba and much of the Narrow Neck peninsula are part of the Blue Mountains National Park which is managed by the NPWS. The Western Escarpment - where most of the climbing is - is mostly Crown Land managed by the BMCC. While the NPWS Plan of Management nominates several locations in the National Park where rock climbing is deemed appropriate, the majority of the climbing remains unacknowledged. To maintain access our best approach is to 'Respect Native Habitat, Tread Softly and Leave No Trace'.

Approach

To access The Sunny Side, simply traverse under the whole Pit Fighter sector and follow the ropes down the rock step (these ropes are poor as of June 2023 and need a refurb). Follow the path across the valley, and up to the other side. Takes all of 2 minutes to walk to the other side.

Once below the Sunny Side cliff, either traverse all the way under it until below the orange wall of Dichotomy or use the hand-over rope up the short slab to the ledge between Magnitude and The Arkenstone (this rope is also poor as of June 2023 and needs a refurb).

Ethic inherited from Blue Mountains

Although sport climbing is well entrenched as the most popular form of Blueys climbing, mixed-climbing on gear and bolts has generally been the rule over the long term. Please try to use available natural gear where possible, and do not bolt cracks or potential trad climbs. If you do the bolts may be removed.

Because of the softness of Blue Mountains sandstone, bolting should only be done by those with a solid knowledge of glue-in equipping. A recent fatality serves as a reminder that this is not an area to experiment with bolting.

If you do need to top rope, please do it through your own gear as the wear on the anchors is both difficult and expensive to maintain.

At many Blue Mountains crags, the somewhat close spacing of routes and prolific horizontal featuring means that it is easy to envisage literally hundreds of trivial linkups. By all means climb these to your hearts content but, unless it is an exceptional case due to some significant objective merit, please generally refrain from writing up linkups. A proliferation of descriptions of trivial linkups would only clutter up the guide and add confusion and will generally not add value to your fellow climbers. (If you still can't resist, consider adding a brief note to the parent route description, rather than cluttering up the guide with a whole new route entry).

If you have benefited from climbing infrastructure in NSW, please consider making a donation towards maintenance costs. The Sydney Rockclimbing Club Rebolting Fund finances the replacement of old bolts on existing climbs and the maintenance of other hardware such as fixed ropes and anchors. The SRC purchases hardware, such as bolts and glue, and distributes them to volunteer rebolters across the state of New South Wales. For more information, including donation details, visit https://sydneyrockies.org.au/rebolting/

It would be appreciated if brushing of holds and minimisation/removal of tick marks becomes part of your climbing routine. Consider bringing a water squirt bottle and mop-up rag to better remove chalk. Only use soft (hair/nylon) bristled brushes, never steel brushes.

The removal of vegetation - both from the cliff bases and the climbs - is not seen as beneficial to aesthetics of the environment nor to our access to it.

Remember, to maintain access our best approach is to 'Respect Native Habitat, Tread Softly and Leave No Trace'. Do not cut flora and keep any tracks and infrastructure as minimal as possible or risk possible closures.

For the latest access related information, or to report something of concern, visit the Australian Climbing Association NSW Blue Mountains page at https://acansw.org.au/blue-mountains/

Tags

Routes

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Grade Route

Shared start with Einfingerkuppenaufleger and Astral Traveler. At ledge of Einfingerkuppenaufleger, heads right through overhanging corner feature and up beautiful wall above.

Set: Emil Mandyczewsky, 26 Feb 2015

Great fun. Climbs up to 1 move before Einfinger.... crux and busts out right to finish up old open projects.

FA: Tom O'Halloran, Mar 2021

Yet another impressive send by Alex, giving it hard 34. Shared start with Astral Traveller. Head up to small ledge and straight up with increasing difficulty.

Set: Emil Mandyczewsky, 2013

FFA: Alex Megos, 1 Apr 2015

A brilliant route offering superb, pumpy climbing until the devious crux sequence. Walk all the way right on the ledge, past a couple of rungs to a small ledge. Best to stick clip the first 2 bolts and trend left through the limestone-like pockets then up. A classic route. Start rung is now glued in and a few more rungs have been added to the slippy traverse.

FFA: Emil Mandyczewsky, 2014

Start as for Rolling Thunder then head right at the ledge. Finish as for Astral Traveller's last 3 bolts.

FFA: Jake Bresnehan

FA: 4 May 2018

Uber classic steep pumper. Think 'Way of All Flesh' but longer, steeper and likely a touch harder. Start towards right side of main ledge below bolt on slab and corner feature above. Best to belay off first rung on ledge.

FFA: Emil Mandyczewsky, 2014

Steep roof climbing in the guts of the cave. Difficult boulder off the ledge then get your steep on. Starts just right of approach hand-over rope.

FFA: Logan Barber, 2014

As for Farkenstone, but instead of tackling Arkenstone's roof boulder, keep trucking right to finish on the skyline. Consistent juggy steepness the whole way.

FFA: Lee Cujes, 18 May 2018

Avoids The Arkenstone's bouldery lower crux by coming in from the left. Clip the first bolt on Force Cannon, then up right past four new bolts to join the original at the 'hourglass' hold. Finish directly up through the roof as for Arkenstone.

FFA: Lee Cujes, 6 May 2018

Links Force Cannon into Farkenright. Climb all of the hard bit of FC to the horizontal break just before the ledge. Now bust directly right via a tricky boulder, then across the break to the hourglass hold, continuing R as per Farkenright. Lots of roof climbing!

FFA: Lee Cujes, 10 Aug 2018

Starting at the top of the handline. Up and out through the monster roof. Fun!

Set: Lee Cujes, 24 Feb 2018

FFA: Lee Cujes, 31 Mar 2018

Start 5m right of Magnitude. Big roof. Big holds. Big moves. Harder than it should be.

Lee Cujes

Set: Emil Mandyczewsky, Feb 2018

FFA: Emil Mandyczewsky, 26 May 2018

Classic Mountains 25. One of the bestest at the grade. Tricky flake to steep thuggy roof to pumpy headwall - awesome. Start approx 20m left of approach hand-over rope below right trending flake feature.

FFA: Scott Boladeras, 2013

Vertical climbing on beautiful orange wall. A little stiff and likely not the warmup you're looking for. Great route regardless. Access ledge via a couple of rungs and this is the furthest route right of the 3.

FFA: Scott Boladeras, 2014

Great route that tackles both the orange, vertical wall and the steep roof above. Anchors provided below the roof for a cool 24 or all the way for an excellent 26. Starts in the crack feature left of Cruisin' for a Bruisin'.

FFA: Scott Boladeras, 12 Aug 2014

You'll be proud you got up it. Not everyone's favourite! The leftmost route on this ledge directly up and left of the access rungs, starting in a steep crack feature.

FFA: Scott Boladeras, 2014

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Selected Guidebooks more Hide

Author(s): Simon Carter

Date: 2019

ISBN: 9780958079082

The latest comprehensive, latest and greatest Blue Mountains Climbing Guide is here and it has more routes than you can poke a clip stick at! 3421 to be exact. You are not going to get bored.

Author(s): Simon Carter

Date: 2019

ISBN: 9780958079075

Simon Carter's "Best of the Blue" is the latest selected climbing guide book for the Blue Mountains and covers 1000 routes and 19 different climbing areas. For all the sport climbers out there, the travellers, or just anyone who doesn't want to lug around the big guide that's more than 3 times the size - cut out the riff-raff and get to the good stuff! This will pretty much cover everything you need!

Accommodations nearby more Hide

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