Found the hiking trial easily enough and got down to the cliffline. Countoured around the ridgeline across steep, loose dirt and burnt, broken trees. Progress was painful and slow. 2 hours to base of climb.
Found an orange choss wall with a corner (but no cairn) and decided this must be the climb. It was not.
Pitch 1 (me): Got on the slab around the left of the corner, because the corner shattered every time I touched it. Some reasonable sling thread-throughs.
Pitch 2 (zuni): Leftwards traverse across yawning chasm. Finding holds that don't explode in your hands is the crux. Footholds held together by hope. Tree belay.
Pitch 3 (zuni): Chimney with good pro in crack in corner. Some tricky moves on smooth but bomber rock. At top of crack, traverse right while feet disintegrate below you. Some gear for anchor to the right of sandy cave.
Pitch 4 (zuni): You are now truly lost. Traverse leftwards to good-looking tree. Small jump-mantle onto bomber ironstone. Crawl along narrow scree ridge with little protection for 10m to place a couple of hopeful cams. Up and over to tree belay.
Pitch 5 (me): Rap down to tree belay at end of pitch 2 and try traversing left instead. Look back towards the tree to see yawning chasm that will eat you if you fall. Tugged a nut behind a rock here which exploded off a fist-sized piece of ironstone. Clench your butthole and mantle up to the goodcrack for some pro and continue upwards to tree.
From here, we retreated. 55m rap from Pitch 2 tree back to ground. 2 hour walk out.
If you love watching rock explode, this is the adventure for you.
Incredibly hard to find the start of the trail, disguised fallen Cairn on side of dirt road with faint trail heading up the hill. Long walk to bag drop (45mins), then another long walk to the base of the route, trail undefined and well overgrown. Found the base finally (marked by an another average cairn) and was excited to start climbing. Excitement soon faded as we started. Very little actual rock climbing, albeit 1 or 2 nice moves, the rest was a scramble over loose rock, sand & thick scrub.
A nice day out with great views and solitude, but fairly poor climb - discontinuous, short pitches (~10m) interspersed with scrubby ledges and boulder scrambling, lots of loose rock and dead branches.
Highlights: Run-out slab to start P4 was nice albeit scary, best moves were the 4m of arete on P5. P7 has a hard under-cut bouldery start for grade 14. Crux P8 maybe only grade 15, straightforward 3D chimney.
- with
Zuni Dierk
Found the hiking trial easily enough and got down to the cliffline. Countoured around the ridgeline across steep, loose dirt and burnt, broken trees. Progress was painful and slow. 2 hours to base of climb.
Found an orange choss wall with a corner (but no cairn) and decided this must be the climb. It was not.
Pitch 1 (me): Got on the slab around the left of the corner, because the corner shattered every time I touched it. Some reasonable sling thread-throughs.
Pitch 2 (zuni): Leftwards traverse across yawning chasm. Finding holds that don't explode in your hands is the crux. Footholds held together by hope. Tree belay.
Pitch 3 (zuni): Chimney with good pro in crack in corner. Some tricky moves on smooth but bomber rock. At top of crack, traverse right while feet disintegrate below you. Some gear for anchor to the right of sandy cave.
Pitch 4 (zuni): You are now truly lost. Traverse leftwards to good-looking tree. Small jump-mantle onto bomber ironstone. Crawl along narrow scree ridge with little protection for 10m to place a couple of hopeful cams. Up and over to tree belay.
Pitch 5 (me): Rap down to tree belay at end of pitch 2 and try traversing left instead. Look back towards the tree to see yawning chasm that will eat you if you fall. Tugged a nut behind a rock here which exploded off a fist-sized piece of ironstone. Clench your butthole and mantle up to the good crack for some pro and continue upwards to tree.
From here, we retreated. 55m rap from Pitch 2 tree back to ground. 2 hour walk out.
If you love watching rock explode, this is the adventure for you.