Ascents in Newnes Plateau as Working

All sequences now solved and final moves through the birth canal till end done free. One more sesh to link together last section and then red point attempts. Would be great to close this out before Europe!

Failed to get my goal of a ground to birth canal link today. 🤷‍♂️

All sections are fine in isolation but to actually join them is mega all body pump. Dialed in more beta, climbed sections with far less effort and made it into birth canal. Keeeeeeeeeeeen!

Day 2:

Tie in 1: A little sketched out by disbelief as the crack was full seeping and I wasn’t 100% ok with cams in potentially wet sandstone. Turned out to be ok and just needed to get the head on straight. 5 sits to get up to the roof and then work a bit more of the beta.

Tie in 2: Tried for a full link from ground to the double knee bar. Cruised up Disbelief until a hand jam popped out of a wet piece of the crack at the anchors… Ahh well!

Climbed from the fall through the roof to the double knee bar, sat, and then solved the final sequence (mini crux?) that entered the birth canal. Goal for today was to get to birth canal, so that’s a success ✅

Aiming for a clean link from ground into birth canal next session. Beta is all there, climbed all current sequences clean… the final piece might just be a dry crack! 😂

Day 1: Bargained, borrowed and begged for every size #4 cam between Blueies and Brisbane to tie in and scope this out.

1st tie in: Aided through about 8m of the horizontal fist crack, getting acquainted with the jams and gear. Back jumped down to anchor and lowered off to give Johnny a catch on another route.

2nd tie in: Had a decent idea of the beta for the section I played on so decided to put all my beans into it. Freed the whole section in one push at max effort, Johnny described the screams as some sort of dying dinosaur 😂

So… super happy with the day as I managed to free an entire section! Still have quite a lot left to do, and conscious the hard stuff is still to come, but it’s a good start.

A few takeaways:

• Finger isn’t a problem on this if I tape it.
• I’m definitely not at full fitness after working like a maniac for 2 months. Lots of room for improvement there.
• Miuras the shoe beta. Wide boys the jammies beta. Knee pads essential.

Pretty stoked to check this out. Mostly went up to do the 180 move, Ben's photo of which got me keen on cracks in the first place!

That went well, so I kept going to the birth canal. Surprised to do all moves (and clip all gear) free! But I know it gets harder later... Working a ground-to-birth-canal send could be a nice short-term project (Jacques suggested 25 to there but I found it a huuge step up from the 24 version 🤷‍♂️)

Did about 15 shots this year 2021. Last shot was on pre-placed gear and climbed through all finger lock section and took my first real fall with the second hueco latched but unable to progress to third. Only three moves away from jug! Climbing it placing gear up to aid move is now a short term objective.

Humidity 92%, good shot though, didn't get second jam perfect, still went for third without success

Highpoint! Second jam was quite good, still, kept pushing fingers in further, got third jam, then crimp, left foot up, botch the trow for the pocket. I never fell for the pocket before, I had still plenty left in the tank I think I was just too surprised! Once I have the pocket, there's still the hand shuffle and wrist kneebar to do but these moves are nowhere as hard as the 2nd jam.

good shot, didn't get second jam perfect, third jam just tips in, not a chance

Belayer had no harness so just played safe with the tree belay and aided to TR crux. From Entry crimps all the way to pocket twice in a row, even did the hand shuffle at the second go. This is the first time I linked through the crux from entry. I did several other tries focussing on moving from 2nd to 3rd jam and noticed going from 3 layers to 4 layers on RH index made an amazing difference. Humidity was 67% and crack was showing some white chalk instead the usual brown. Shot 32.

Warming up, felt slippery (85% humidity), destroyed another yellow X4

Although I was a smidge under the highpoint this was my best shot at it. I felt that was it. Felt strong at every moves until I botched the backstep reaching crux 2nd jam, it popped and down I went.

Went straight down to start anchor from shot #2 and rested few minutes and went for it. Not bad got to 2nd jam on tips only and desperately leaped for third jam. Worked on the crux several times but I guess I was too tired. Did the rest of the climb with difficulty and topped out. Just measured the rope length between the start anchor and topout where you can untie the rope is 24m.

Dreadful conditions, building up muscle memory. Climbed up to the roof, just fantastic climbing. Shot #28

Friction ok as the mist doesn't seem to reach under the roof with easterlies. Low pocket proved useful at resetting the start pinch. Found new footwork at double crimp so I can now breath and chalk prior to crux entry. Extended crux nut so not much rope to pull out to clip. High point hopping for third jam with second jam half way in, then did triple jam sequence 5 times working on details falling only once. Understand now better the first jam is now almost a side pull high Left foot Drop knee right and bring shoulders more in line with the crack so the cross over RH to second jam thumb down can be established properly. Then feet straight under I need to work on my RH scapular pull to reach LH third jam. Stopped at crux crimp avoiding wearing myself out doing pocket hand shuffle etc. Shot#27

Skipped the pocket clip which is not only saving the strenuous clip itself but all the footwork shuffle related. No longer need to use the pocket. Although the crack isn't wet at crux, colour is brown which means sub-optimal, anything sub-optimal makes the whole thing impossible for me. Strategy now is to warmup climbing to crux and lower off. Rest and jug back up the rope to crux with blower and ISO Alcohol, bring it back to white bone dry and tram back to start anchor, rethread and fire up within 10min otherwise condos go back to sub-optimal brown. Tried with tape on RH middle finger 2nd pad but finger won't get in, tried crux again with no tape at all, not working without RH index 2nd pad taped. Felt really strong at crux entry reaching high with minimal effort. Climbed up to hand shuffle and stopped to save my elbow tendons, took the fall there, nice clean fall onto mid-crux nut. Shot 26

Warming up, although the crack looks dry you can feel the water table pushing through the rock pores.

Slipping off the triple jam every single move, cruised trough the crux end and the top, this is easy now no real need to rest, stopped at roof cause it's a pain in the ass to walk back down.

Trying triple jam multiple times, it's just not working today, didn't make it through the hand shuffle either, nice fall at least... OMG shot #25... this is becoming a real siege.

No improvements today, friction good on crimps/pockets but average in crack. Felt weak as a rag, at least I did the roof exit again which is just tricky enough, it's a great feeling to top out, I managed rope drag better this time staying left and out on easy ground. Shot#22

Conditions improved greatly to spoogy. Worked out a way to consolidate second jam by progressively pushing fingers in while moving body leftward. Keeping pinky out helps.

Took several falls from mid-crux ending up touching the rock face at start anchor. I felt quite uncomfortable to progress further without being able to clip extra gear. I never contemplated clipping the mid crux nut before but I progressed so much on the start moves that I could clip it with ease! It breaks the flow a bit but frees my mind for the remainder of the crux. I took several falls from the crux end onto the mid-crux nut and the falls are beautiful. Just need my dodgy elbow to hold up and good friction to come back, this was my 21st shot.

100% humidity with the light drizzle creeping under the 15m overhang, not the best condos. Still worked out few important details.

Another highpoint to the third jam but the jam wasn't set well enough to progress to the crimp. Sat down and did some fine tuning on the finger jams as they have to be absolutely perfect, then with first jam established did all the way through the crux and section III then through the roof for the first time and exited GR23ish with horrendous rope drag on very easy ground, untied the rope and walked off. GOLD!!!

Felt a bit tired but went for it anyways. Another breakthrough, from crimps at crux entry went all the way to the third jam fully established and ready to hop for the crimp. I backed off there as the next bit would have been a compromise on my elbow rehab.

Friction was amazing today. did all moves again and linked most sections. The top section goes down casually now.

Forgot to tape the RH index critical for the 2nd crux jam. Tried different combinations of fingers but none are solid enough. Friction was very ordinary today. Linked again from crux end pocket to roof exit for the first time. The roof is good fun as expected with heel hooks but the exit looks trickier. I stopped there as it needs more cleaning.

No striking progress today, have to accept the slow process

Man that crux is intense, shot #14 right?, that thing has got to be more than gr29

Warming up and not trying too hard this time. This allowed me to fine tune everything before and after the crux

Break through. Climbed from start anchor to crux entry. From crux jams 2&3 established from rest climbed the remaining 7 moves of the crux then all the way up to under roof. Getting closer to pinkpoint! Major linkups!

Not feeling as strong today perhaps need a full week between sessions

did good progress linking from crux 1st & 2nd jam established sitting on the rope did 3rd jam, crimp, pocket LH, shuffle 1, shuffle 2, pocket RH, crack sidepull, jug. Found some very useful taping beta right index second pad helps tremendously on ironstone pinch and 2nd jam. Subsequently Nathaniel skipped the shuffle and the crack sidepull to go directly for from pocket LH to jug which makes more sense than the horrible shuffle. I just never contemplated trying, next time.

Best session so far. The crux is dry despite the recent rain, very good news indeed.

Drying the triple overhanging finger jam with isopropyl alcohol and blower, a real promising technique. So the current beta is from double crimp, reach high with RH thumb down pinching an tiny ironstone then reach LH very high bad jam thumb up focussing on wedging pinkie down (and it's so thin you have to hammer this home) then drop knee right leg keeping hips in crossing with RH thumb down proper jam (still bad) reaching up with LH thumb up side pull go for crimp right with RH leaning hard right reaching LH on good pocket straight up then you stuffed you have to match so reach out right RH bad crimp no feet move LH out of pocket on that shitty crimp thumb catch so you can cross RH in that pocket finally. Then do what you can with no feet but reach high LH left good jam side pull, left foot up then boom magic knee bar off your left forearm and reach up glory jug RH. This is like 2m of climbing and I didn't describ too much the footwork.

Drying the triple overhanging finger jam with isopropyl alcohol and blower, a real promising technique. So the current beta is from double crimp, reach high with RH thumb down pinching an tiny ironstone then reach LH very high bad jam thumb up focussing on wedging pinkie down (and it's so thin you have to hammer this home) then drop knee right leg keeping hips in crossing with RH thumb down proper jam (still bad) reaching up with LH thumb up side pull go for crimp right with RH leaning hard right reaching LH on good pocket straight up then you stuffed you have to match so reach out right RH bad crimp no feet move LH out of pocket on that shitty crimp thumb catch so you can cross RH in that pocket finally. Then do what you can with no feet but reach high LH left good jam side pull, left foot up then boom magic knee bar off your left forearm and reach up glory jug RH. This is like 2m of climbing and I didn't describ too much the footwork.