Handsome Crag bouldering
273 routes
in Crag
- Description:
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Handsome Crag has quite a decent amount of reasonable sandstone. There is quite a lot of potential here for bouldering, and there has been a rapid amount of development here since it was kicked off by Dave Humphries, Jon Nermut and Campbell Godfrey in May 2008
- Access Issues:
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Unfortunately a locked gate has been put up on the bottom of the access road. The crag though is on Crown Land and administered by Forestry Tasmania hence it is possible to use other access roads which in turn involve a reasonable amount of walking.
- Approach:
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NEW APPROACH
Instead of turning right off Back River Road keep driving for another 400 or so metres until you get to Handsome Cave Road. Enter Handsome Cave Rd and park on the green patch on the left. If you have a 4x4 with A LOT of clearance you can keep driving on Handsome Cave Rd over some rough terrain. T At the first fork you get to, which is right after the BIG hole in the road, it does actually not matter whether you take the left or the right road since they meet up at the top,....for hikers I would recommend the left rd and for cars the right,.....at the top where the two roads merge again follow the road to the left, past a shack on the left and keep driving/hiking until you get to another fork. Take the left hand road and drive for a couple hundred metres until you get to a bit of a clearing which acts as a turning point for cars. This is where you park your car in case you drove up,...from here follow the marked foot track. The marked track is relatively easy to follow if you stay observant and look for cairns. At the top of the cairned track you will arrive at the old access road. Here you will have to turn left to get to the Weakhold or turn right to get to the Stronghold. Each of the starting tracks to the areas are marked with cairns.
OLD APPROACH
To get there head up to New Norfolk and cross to the northern side of the Derwent River. Head up river and take the first right, followed by a left. Follow this through the outer suburbs of New Norfolk to the T-junction: to get to the cliff turn right along Back River Road. The turn-off to the crag is about 2km along Back River Road from the T-junction. Turn right at the driveway to house numbers 658, 660 & 662 (this is the old access road which is now locked via a gate) Another possible access which involves about 40 minutes of walking is the Handsome Caves Road. Park at the beginning of the road, hike to where the road turn into a walking track and follow to walking track to the caves area. From there follow another faint track leading atop the caves and hill towards the Weakhold end of Handsome Crag.
Areas
| Name | Style | Climbs | Ascents | Height | Grade Band | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Main Cliff Boulders Area | All Boulder | 14 | 0 | |||
| 2 | The Blockhouse Area | All Boulder | 11 | 0 | |||
| 3 | The Stronghold Area | Mostly Boulder | 138 | 34 | |||
| 4 | The Weakhold Area | All Boulder | 99 | 19 | |||
| 5 | The Theatre Area | All Boulder | 2 | 0 | |||
| 6 | The Outpost Boulder | All Boulder | 9 | 0 |

