Ascents in Northern Escarpment having Beta

Had a lead attempt. Fell off and lowered at the top of the finger crack. Bonnie then volunteered to lead to the top and spent the next hour or two slowly working her way up and down the pitch. I seconded clean all the way until the offwidth where I fell less than a meter from the anchor. Taking the tick since I could high five Bonnie before falling. Only pitch one.

Just the first 40m but split in 2 pitches. I lead up gorgeous splitter up the first 15m. Lovely jams! Al led the second pitch with some tricky wide sections that again had me lamenting large-handed men. Near the top, I left the crack for a bit somewhat accidentally and did some sidepull face shenanigans before rejoining. Heaps of fun!

A beast of a route! So stellar, so hard, so intimidating. Al started up, fell and lowered from the fingers bit, and if he falls that often bodes poorly for me. We thought about bailing but I couldn’t resist the call of such a searing and commanding line. My turn to lead, found the fingers section diabolical! Could not work out the technique, so I dogged up a move at a time… It was looking grim but then the glory hands started. A beautiful rhythm going onwards and upwards to the sky. To keep it engaging the crack kept changing size, from hands to fists to fingers to thin hands to wider than fists. Bumping gear is not my specialty, so there were many takes and some lowers to retrieve pieces. Hours later, the marathon was coming to an end. I stupidly decided to do the alternative finish out R, and did a hard and scary offwidth with a huge runout. Never have I peaked more in my life. God was kind though, and I didnt whip. What a special privilege to have experienced this route! I’ll be back for you.

Fun intro to the Ben. Incredible place, stunning big walls. P1 was a nice lil bit of jamming. P2 corner crack was awful wide fists for me, with my lady hands, and was a bit desperate, with a very inelegant mantle. Super classy side pulls off the flake, with a scary lose runout at the top. P3 was choss!! Weetbix! Topping out on the plateau in the golden hour was perfect!

My crack climbing skills leave much to be desired 🥲 but this was fun!

Whent out to give it a suss on top rope. First lap felt okay with a few sits and 2nd lap did it clean. It just goes and goes and goes and goes. Super fun day out. What could be better than toproping one of the best routes in the country and spending time up at the Ben with a friend!

2 very nice & chill pitches. P3 looked gross. Rapped (1 with a 80m).

Classic climbing!!! Really nice pitch, not sure on the spike at the top, it moved on me but goddamn I feel like it's locked in, not sure, death block lol. Offwodth at start gross. Last pitch actually deece, not 17

Gassed

Didn’t the right gear

Tooo longgg needs a few hanging belays and then maybe I can do it 🤧.

Fist jam is hard… Scrambling is equally hard…😅 是我不行

Really cool. Sent first attempt after rapping down and scrubbing the top headwall, was quite filled with lichen

Real good, very adventurous feeling. Went a bit far left into mossy terrain and had to break it into 2 35m pitches

Jugs n rests

Skipped the first pitch because I’m a chicken. Sustained and chossy near the top which keeps it exciting. Didn’t know about the death block and yarded on it and pulled it out from the wall and the entire thing rocked out towards me. Would discourage touching this. Another project trundle.

A magic line. Not quite as hard as I was expecting, but the gear might be where some extra difficulty comes in. 2 laps, 4 sits on the 2nd lap. So long!

for sure one of the best trad climbs ive done, mega jaming in all sizes , long and technical can defintly understand why it holds such a rep.

Old school 19 for sure lol!! What a fucking stellar route though, all the tricks in the bag required, sadly fell at the purple cam size as I was trying to lock a layback lol. Lots of swearing on this route after looking up and back down and realising it truly is a marathon testpiece. Mega classic mulcher

An absolute mega classic jug haul!

A 5 could be nice, but take least two 4s.

Fell at the last 4 metres. Epic battle and challenging route requiring all tricks in the bag.

A full day out with walk over scree, climb, rap and scramble up gully, then walk back over plateau. Stunning, with great conditions.

Edie's first day at the ben and first multipitch. Climbed on only hexes.

7 degrees and 70km winds stopped my Queensland acclimatised fingers from giving this a lead burn. Decided to aid it because we walked the whole way. Looks nails for 24 but that’s Ben lemon I guess.

Split the pitch into two as we had a party of tree and one rope

Sean was meant to lead P1 and drag me up it, but he bailed off a .4 after 7m or so. I top-dogged piece to piece to his high point and then led another 7m to where the crack constricts and set up a hanging belay with a #.5, #.75 and #2. This whole first section felt nails, especially since the triple rack of cams makes bridging awkward (I tried to mitigate this by racking everything on one side). On Sean's second go he made better progress facing right and bridging, with some laybacking where fingers were too loose.

Second half of the pitch went better for me; sat just once to dislodge a stuck #1 down low. Used various techniques from left knee bars to all limbs swimming up the crack to stems to bridging. The finger locks on this half set way better and there were some nice pods that set both downward and upward. The fist jams felt secure too, although the crack was wet near some of them. The few little ledges on the left face set up some rests, though it was mostly a case of exchanging hand pump for calf pump.

My quads were completely cooked from bridging by the top.

As others have observed, this route is substantially harder than other grade 19 cracks like 'Infinity' and even the directly comparable 'Devils Dihedral' (20).

Great climb!!! Big jugs, I love dolerite!!!

Really cool and underated!

The position is what makes this climb worthwhile. We climbed it in three pitches, a small ledge after 28m, the belay ledge with busted cam after another 28m then finally topping out. The final pitch - across the rocky saddle then heading left, was super easy climbing, but didnt have much gear. The GPS location is incorrect. The correct location is -41.513110 147.647660

Got spanked! The tricky gear, had me pretty scared.

In general, a pretty taxing climb that (along with the long approach and exit) left me sore. The hands jams were quite taxing since they were often deep, baggy and (especially with both feet in the crack) required pulling on to stay close to the rock.

Some real runouts on unlikely seeming moves. Twin ropes help alot. Super fun climbing

Average

Bomber jams all the way!!

Great tri crack with good rests blew the onsight trying to switch sides