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Rock: The bar-fridge sized block to the right of the corner at about mid height is loose

Not 'wobly' by any means but I put a cam behind the block and gave it a tug and it shifted the block. It's an unlikely scenario that it'd go, but something to be careful of cos you would not want it to happen

See warning details and discuss

Created 2 years ago
1 20m
2 30m

description

  1. Start as for PIS, right into fantastic corner and up around the slight rooflet. Go left under bulge at top to anchors as for Gently Mine.

  2. Not really worth doing. Head right from belay stance over bulge. Up wall past two BRs to top. 50m rap to ground. Rebolted August 2017.

A perspective from the one of the first ascentionist, Keith Bell. From a slight online interview conducted, Keith had the following to share with the world about the first ascent of this beautiful climb:

I was keen on Greek and Roman History/Myths and the Gates of Janus refer to a temple with two doors. I think they were opened when Rome was at war and closed in peace time. A Janus Head is also two joined heads looking in different directions. I think the name came to me because a) it sounds good and b) The climb lies at the bottom of an access gully.

Recently I wrote the following: By the start of 1970, a few climbing goals had been kicked and others had arisen to take their place. In the Warrumbungles, Howard Bevan and I had made the fourth ascent of Lieben, and the first ascent of the Gates of Janus at Mt Boyce. Rather stupidly this ascent was made in the first wear of my first pair of friction boots, a pair of RD’s that featured brown suede leather uppers and bright red laces. The rubber on the sole was case hardened and since it had not been roughed up made the layback up the corner a very slippery affair. The ascent was also cam and hexcentric free leaving the only large protection available, the extruded aluminium hexagonal chunks that were fashioned and sold by John Ewbank.

Route history

First ascent: K Bell & H Bevan

Warnings

26 Apr 2021 Warning Rock: The bar-fridge sized block to the right of the corner at about mid height is loose

Location

Lat/Lon: -33.61509, 150.26254

Some content has been provided under license from: © Australian Climbing Association Queensland (Creative Commons, Attribution, Share-Alike 2.5 AU)

Grade citation

16 Assigned grade
16 Nathan Poole
16 Rockclimbs in the Upper Blue Mountains
19 [18 - 19] ++ grAId

ethic

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/

inherited from Blue Mountains

Seasonality

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Seasonality

Quality

Mega Classic
Classic
Very Good
Good
Average
Don't Bother
Crap

Overall quality 78 from 150 ratings.

Difficulty - 16

Soft Touch
Easy
Average
Hard
Sandbag

Based on 3 ratings.

Suggested Grade

16

Based on 3 ratings.

Tick Types

Onsight 80
Flash 7
Red point 12
Tick 52
Pink point 1
Attempt 21
Target 3

Comment keywords

fingers feet technical bad steep crack interesting epic rest layback chossy awkward roof undercling easy lip dodgy jugs jamming arete traverse face adventurous hands fiddly committing unprotected tricky scary exposed horrendous runout intimidating fall pumped sustained crux strenuous hard sandbag solid nice good awesome super stoked great cool fun rad beautiful lovely amazing brilliant classic incredible fantastic exciting pleasant perfect

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!

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Tue 28 Mar
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