Ascents in New South Wales and ACT as Tick by Brendan Heywood

Re-sent first go, remember this being a bit of a head game a long time ago

I thought this would be easy but the start turned out to be quite hard up the direct line I was expecting as well as sharp. Ben found a hold way round left. I also did the 'head jam' move same as Ben to get the finish

Upgrading this, it's on par with pseudo, and long over due giving these a name

Warmup

Was gassed after a good session. Got it again second go

I'd had a bunch of goes on this between all of other stuff. Carol sent it first quite different to how I'd been working it in her typical high heels style which wouldn't work for me. I was ready to move on and had a couple more goes feeling super juiced, really feeling the strain in both bicep tendons from compressing pretty hard. Then one subtle swap in the order of the slaps and it all went down and felt somewhat easy. Super psyched to send this! Probably a dozen goes

Gets your abs going, ticked it with a dynamic right toe hook kick holding me in while I dyno'ed. Spicy

"It's like ... I was made for this" - Hulk

Kinda right up my alley

Crux is a high fingery start then good jam practice. Perfect spot for top roping crack practice

After a good rest day we were much better prepped and had a proper alpine start for this. Had a tourist chopper buzz us at some point. On the start of the 3rd pitch stemming over the mini waterfall my foot blew on dodgy rock and I tumbled about 5m back to the belay. In hind sight it is probably the worst fall I've ever had but luckily I was barely hurt with just a bruised forearm which has yellowed up nicely since. 'With care' is an understatement of the start of pitch 3. Pitch 5 has a fantastic airy crux and is the jewel in this route. We topped out with plenty of light and back on the ground at dusk, then hoofed it back to the car and home

We arrived at Balor close to midnight the night before so had a slightly relaxed start. Finding the start seemed fairly ok and I started climbing at 11. I was feeling rusty so let Ben have the first two money pitches, which mean I ended up spending a lot of time chilling out literally while he went on a wild off-route-finding spree. By the time I joined Ben at the rap it was 2:30 and I'd ended up aiding some moves through the mystery pitons and was deep in type II fun: some combination of too cold / too hot / dehydrated / wind chill / cramping badly. We did discuss bailing from the rap but we forged on prepared to climb at night and I estimated it would be a midnight finish. After a couple pitches the type II fun gradually eased back into type I fun. I "led" the top pitch just so I could say I actually placed a single piece of gear somewhere. As we scrambled over the lip we met hectic arctic winds off the summit. I arrived back at Balor on the dot of midnight Best summarized as we had a 'choose your own adventure'.

So good have such a long and varied sequence

Nice start but a little gravelly and grassy topout

Quick dusk top rope

The moves on this are actually ok, it just looks quite dirty in places. I had done this before 12 years ago

Pure epic fun. Has some exposed bits and we took ropes but never used them. Amazing rock architecture and formations in places

Headed for here as it was probably the only dry problem nearby. Raining properly now but worked and resent it in a couple goes. Decided to leave the pads here to get headlamps and come back and see if there was any problems underground in the cave, then got distracted by cold pizza in the car, then by crawling through storm drains, and then the crew turned up for a caving trip and it was only once I was home that I discovered we'd left the pads there! Ben Vincent to the rescue

Another lap as a light drizzle started

Possibly my fav problem this easter

Lap in sneakers

Lap in sneakers

A couple goes to get my balance, reminded me of Angela's mantle at Yarrowyck (but much easier)

Fun!

More fun!

Sick roof problem, one of the best at the grade in all of gara

Initially daunting but quite fun

Had 2 goes

Quite good, not too obvious

Top quality, if only it had a sit start or more moves

Fun dyno, exciting top out

Lots of pumpy fun, needs some brute force or sneaky heel hooks

My back was feeling pretty broken by this stage, gave up went scouting. Came back for one last try or two and three and then caught it.

Sharp but good, first go

First go, redid it a couple times using as many knee bars as possible, I think 4

Warmup first try

Noice

Came back with Ben and we both did it from the sit start

Got this but not from sit start, maybe V4

Got it second go from stand start