Ascents of Samarkand

Came back for redemption. Second pitch will go one day.

Ooftt started the weekend with this ripper, finished the weekend with a 17km overnight hike all on my first two days of my bleed. I'm both v stoked and v wrecked.

Now just gotta come back for a lead of p2 and I'm done with this climb (edit: or maybe I won't, maybe I'm already done with this climb).

A great afternoon (in the sun) with Mungo.

I was pleased to climb through the P2 crux after a little rest on the rope depite almost losing consciousness from dehydration. I was also very happy to redpoint the last pitch despite fiddling with gear a lot and getting pumped. I think pitches 1, 3 and 4 are probably only about 20, and pitch 5 might be 21

Oh my lil chimken biceps are never going to recover from this one. I'm still moving through the stages that are necessary to make this type 2 fun.

This day involved: - stuck rope on abseil for around 1.5 hrs - mega steep and 3D crack climbing - one lush chimney - many stuck gears and bloody knuckles - one large wailing sob across the valley - one lush corner pitch (4) in the glow of the sunset - one headtorch pitch in the dark

I keep saying I'll never have a day like this again but then I go and have another day like this lol.

Great movement all the way on varying rock quality.

After a sleepless night got up at 6:30 knowing I was gonna try pull the onsight of my life out my ass.

Tried to link the first three raps with a beena blocked 60+70m combo resulted in roughly 1hr and 45 mins of myself and Alyssa faffing furiously with a 3:1 to drag the rope down.

Finished hauling the rope down and rapped in by 10:45

10 hours car to car 1 whip, lead them all, hauled them all Was very fun Last rappel is 50m Evolution in bungonia is better still

Hot damn, took up eye to eye with the jug. Not sure about the grade of p1,3,4 maybe 20, 22, 21?

Amazing pitches 2 and 3. Something to come back to to do it in a better style

first time on Samarkand for both me and the second. Rapped in via abseil route (single plus a half rope which we also used as a haul line for backpack) in 3 abseils. Led all the pitches and got completely smashed by the end of 5th pitch. I also was a bit nervous about timing and making sure I'll have enough juice to finish the leads so I wasn't in proper send mode and rested a lot on gear. Second pitch is definitely mega and middle of the third pitch is really nice too. The rest was average climbing on pretty average rock but the line definitely gets the uber classic status for the position and effort. First pitch slab was completely wet all the way but luckily not very hard. It's also definitely a nice idea to find a way to stick clip first bolt on the second pitch (like 1m stick) coz the start is wet and bouldery. Great day out!

One of the greatest adventure routes in aus with plenty of hard climbing and choss to always make the ascent a little uncertain. Classic. Double rack from micro to #3 and a single 4 was great. (Triples in 0.5 and #1 is useable, the lay back tips crack doesn't need too many small cams, its all over pretty fast). The micro nuts in the first pitch are handy, although you only need 3-4 of them max, micro cams are just as handy. First pitch is soft for 23, maybe 20 even, but on some bad/wet rock. Second 25 pitch is stellar, and very aidable. Dan onsighted it, despite it being his 4th trad route or something. Third pitch is very reasonable for the grade, though I French freed anyway. Fourth has some choss, but is mostly soft for 22. Fifth is pumpy as, with a mega grass clutching finale, classic!

Mega route and so good that my dad bod can still produce. Totally soft at 25, one hard move off the belay and then cruisy to the crux which isn't really that hard. The rest was largely pretty stunning with occasional crappy rock.

Rest day support mission, We were originally going to climb out at Raid and EMAHD area however a grumpy truckiethwarted that plan.

So car to car left at 11:30 back by 6pm

I had a few sits on the 25, 1 sit on the 23 and the rest clean seconding.

Great work Ange!

Rapped in to check it out. Ended up pulling the rope and leading the crux pitch. Pinned off the first few moves on wet holds, them pulled on and lead all pitches to the top. Thanks Match for the endless psyche and great support. Will have to be back at some point to clean up the first pitch which doesn’t look exactly like a classic anyway. The route gets the wow factor for the exposure and bommer gear but id think its definitely a bit easier than some other trad lines at the grade, with climbing being pretty straightforward . Definitely an impressive line and beautiful continuous feature are to merit the stars

a last minute adventure.

and a brilliant one keen to get back for the full tick.

Ange bloody killed it going for her first attempts.

we didn't do the first and last pitch 25 2 sits 23 1 sit 22 clean 21 clean

so much fun and way better than aiding it haha

Happy to get this done. Lead/seconded the same pitches as last time, but ticked P2 with more rest and less panic.

Helped by a big effort from Jacques, who put up with my stuck cams and slow progress (and even seconded p2 clean while dragging up a tree stuck in the haul line...) thanks mate!

Went on this one firstly to support Anton's Redpoint of P2 but also to redpoint P1P3P5 which I only seconded in the past. It was meant to be an easy day out on easy terrain as I'm still recovering from finger injury. I didn't realised how tired I was from the day before jumaring all day. P1 was awful, super wet and struggling with Anton's rack. P2 was a great success as Anton's marathon ascent ended up in a redpoint, not so much for me. The haul rope was stuck in bushes and pulled me down the whole way, struggling cleaning gear was hell, running on empty at crux, still managed. P3 lead layback was hard as I didn't recovered from P2. P4 seconding was relaxing finally no struggles. P5 was beautiful until the wetness. Then it was ugly in every ways, the clipping jug for the second carrot was dripping wet and I had a mental breakdown holding the draw momentarily to clip then carried on climbing swearing my head off. Then topped out climbing on my knees in the mud grasping at trampled grass tufts contemplating falling off backwards, I was broken inside out. A day to remember.

As I bum-slid backwards towards the bolt after p2, unable to stand up due to a mix of exhaustion, overheating and pure terror, I may have considered changing my name and moving to a lonely ashram somewhere in search of whatever the opposite of what I had just experienced was...

Apart from that, it was a pretty rad day out, where everything went mostly as planned and I got to do all other pitches clean! Thanks Henry for coming along and swinging leads 🙂

Talked dave up from an afternoon at Villawood to a day outside, on the strict requirement that we have a super cruisy day on Darkside / silk rd.

At the carpark I specifically said "I have the 6, 5 and doubles of 4 to 1, so you'll need to bring everything below a 1 please". He accidentally mis-interpreted that to mean that I had nuts and only a single rack of .75-.1, and decided to bring a SINGLE rack of small cams and NO nuts, and left the rest of his gear in the car. We also forgot the tape gloves

Rappelled into the crag. Started arguing over whether or not we were lost when it became apparent there was no chimney. After scrutinising many topos we realised we'd rappelled into samarkand by accident.

dave was very unhappy. I was very unhappy we had not brought nuts. I weighted passively placed cams for the first time in my life. It was a very sloppy ascent by two friends who had not outdoor climbed since they last saw each other in Arapiles many months ago (i think). Our hands got wREckED.

Great chit chat in the car ride home though.

Need to work my thin hand jams for the p2 crux. Got too pumped and took the whip. Otherwise all other pitches went free! Will come back next trip for the all free ascent. Awesome exposure and good placements! Was sitting bricks walking up to the route but the nerves died as we got higher. The belay jacket was a necessity as temps were in the low single digits with blasting wind, such an awesome adventure that I'll remember for a very long time.

Wow - lost for words really, life changing day what an incredible adventure. Strong friendship! Truly looking forward to the next time, albeit the thunder storm

Epic, but a total choss fest. I've been hoping to do this for years, but didnt think i was strong enough. Turns out it was ok, and the lead might be possible. Crux really just had one hard move, thin hands for me, maybe a ringlock. Led pitch three and should've gotten it clean, just got tired and lazy. Postitions were epic and so was a lot of the moves, can't be bored on climbing like this.