Ascents of Samarkand as Hang dog

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?

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!

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 🙂

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.