Ascents in Lake Taupō by John Pitcairn

Bloody good, and pretty clean given it hadn't been climbed for years. Managed to park a big nut where my finger lock should go, did some fat ring lock to work around that. Could have done with another 0.5. Solid 18 and rattly fingers for the lower half, then eases a smidge and widens to hands above. Mantle up then top out through the gorse, bolted anchor is behind. Take 3x #0.5 and 2x #2.

On the soft side of 19, unless the left arete isn't in.

Nervy finish. Pretty sure I have done this before, but.

Better than it looks, also a bit harder.

Short but good, good pro, and clean enough. Balancy mid section makes gear placement a bit delicate, got a tad run out. A fun fight.

Nice line, could use a brush.

The crack tends to collect dirt and leaf litter but currently still OK. The crux straight off the deck is fun, decent gear most of the way, top dihedral a little tricky, top out a bit dirty. Got off just as the sun started to hit around 1pm, well planned solar management.

Nice cleaning job Gareth. LH start, good moves on the arete, similar feeling to P1 of After The Sunset. 19 is a bit of a stretch I think, LH is 18. Incoming rain drove us back to camp.

Gareth had a small touch-up scrub. The roof isn't the crux if you use a little brain.

Crux is the overhangs down low. Really good gear. Don't miss the halfway anchors on the way down!

Sandbagged Allan into leading this as his first trad in ages, bloody good job mate. 3 climbers and double-rope abseil to avoid the ridiculous traffic jam at the halfway anchors next door. Back to camp just after sunset.

Out here for urgent track safety work. Great long route, let down by a dirty top third (take a brush). Lowered Jonno then brought G up, time flew by.

Nice easy trad, decent gear, a good beginners' lead

Quite dirty, gave it a scrape out and garden on descent, looks much better now.

A nice ramble. Cleaned on abseil, left 4 bomber pieces in for Gareth's freshman trad lead.

Checking out Gareth's gear. He'll do.

Might as well...

Access for cleaning.

Lugged the trad gear out, warmup. Crack pretty clean.

A very tight squeeze indeed, after an epic FA by Gareth. Had to park my helmet, didn't quite need to unbuckle my harness, thrutched out the top in light rain. Won't forget this for a while.

Absolutely outstanding, a must-do. Had been saving the onsight attempt for a couple of visits now, stoked to get it. Not as hard as I expected, there are a number of no-hands rests and face holds apart from the crack. Taping up is a good idea to take full advantage of the many great fist and hand jams. Eats hexes!

Ran into Gerard Tarr on the way down, who had been up completing new pitches above, Hecklers multipitch, woo!

Probably the hardest thing I have seconded, probably just as hard to second as to lead. Tape gloves would have helped. Terrific onsight fight from Grant.

Wow. I forgot how good this is. Lichen on the RH face doesn't detract much (but could use a clean), bomber and plentiful gear, really fun crux jam sequence above the roof. We were both absolutely fizzing at the top, got down and wanted to jump straight back on lead. Four stars in a 3 star system.

Superb climbing, bomber jams, plenty of no-hands rests if you look for them. Started to rain just after Gareth began seconding. Lowered him, waited it out with raincoat, pulled a second rope up and rap-cleaned it by down-jammimg with one hand (RH face a bit wet and mossy). Sloped off back to camp through wet bush.

Bloody great. Right face could really use a scrub. Gareth seconded clean, good effort. We could see and hear Katie and Joe up at the crux on the Odyssey.

This is so good. Took quite an effort after no climbing for 2 months. A clean of the right face would help find more rests.

Pretty good, nicely long, took 3 hours to climb. Perhaps spoiled a bit by the hand line section. P1 is quite delicate, P3 traverse is nice, P4 is soft unless you are short, P5 is great and the crux would make a terrific photo, lots of air under you. Screwed up right at the end and sketchily traversed left to the top of what is probably Fraggle Rock because I couldn't see the anchor above the ledge. Walked off up and along the ridge and back to camp by noon.

Hand still coping. 3 on a rope, a fun ramble with a nice view of a crux plummet. Gareth got the money pitches. We had left gear at the bottom so abseiled off, which took 1.5 hours for 4 raps on a single 60m rope and was a fairly suboptimal experience with a cramped first anchor and plenty of trees to get the rope stuck in on the way down - definitely walk off.

A Saturday evening faff around gaining access to the tops of Super Natural and Bi Curious George to fix ropes for cleaning. Linked P1-2 only, considerable rope drag at the dirty top out. Replaced the old hand line snaplink above Super Natural with a stainless maillon. Ran out of time and did no actual cleaning.

Access for cleaning.

Gave Pete a lead belay. P1 is very nice as a route in itself, as it was originally.

A fun outing in good company. Had a windy chilly time at the crux pitch belay with little communication possible while events unfolded below. Walked off.

Had an epic. After the Sunset finishing after the sunset on New Year's day, for a 10-pitch day? What a great plan. Got out there at 6pm, still bastard hot, but got on as two ropes of two, following a pitch behind. Cooked like prawns up P1-2, and the P2 topout is now very dirty and uninspiring. By sunset we were mostly all at the bottom of the crux pitch, but Greg had mistakenly gone right after bolt 2 into the Mexican Americans crux, was falling repeatedly and knackered. After discussing the unappealing bail options, I swapped into leading the crux pitch by head torch, then settled in for top belay while Jonno seconded, Greg and Gareth jugged up. Topped out just before midnight, then soon lost the ridge track in windfall. After an hour of nervous random bush bashing near cliffs, we failed to pick up the track again, took a phone topo map bearing toward the kinloch track and bashed over to that for another hour behind Gareth the Sweary Bulldozer, then slunk down to camp, getting in at 2.40am on the 2nd. Camp-to-camp time: an appalling 9 hours 10 minutes. Swim, beer, snacks, more swearing, bed, rest day. More could be written. Type 2 fun.

Warmup. The first of the two good pitches for the route (P5 is the other). Bloody nice.

Just P1-2, getting back up for cleaning session #2 on Super Natural. Richard wanted to climb this and linked 1-2, I had no hope of seconding the low overhang with a pack and cleaning gear on me but gave it a shot, nope. Then got my foot trapped trying to aid the crux, was hanging around inverted swearing for a while. Extracted myself and skipped the indignity of being hauled by nipping around into Super Natural and back onto the Fraggle slab, which is nice.

Really good slab moves reminiscent of Arapiles, quite small gear and a bit run out in places. Mossy at the top. 15 might be a slight sandbag. Would do again.

Very dirty and now annoyingly retro bolted for the lower slab section. Did a little scraping of footholds on lead, tackled the crux above the world's dodgiest looking tricam, scraped out the crux crack on descent (it takes a very sane #5 brass offset). Needs a good scrub. Still really good, classic if cleaner.

Climbs a bit easier after last month's clean, did a bit more on the way down, still a lot of lichen in bottom section. Will revisit, it's a great route.

A little more cleaning on lead. The crux crack is starting to stay more open, but the face is going to take a while, and the lichenous bottom will be last.

Cleaning session #3, 15 hours so far, still work to do. Lowered to the bottom and rope soloed on a grigri in walk off shoes to check the state of it. Still way too much lichen at the bottom, and need to clean further left at the crux. It's clean from well below the crux now and the log of death is gone (admire it at the bottom). Managed to just barely abseil off on the 40m cleaning rope. Shagged out, long walk back with heavy pack, enough.

Fixing a rope for cleaning. Bottom 15m still very dirty and sketchy after previous cleaning sessions rained crap down on it. Excellent belay by Rosie.

Up to anchor on rescuesender and roll'n'lock, for full top-down brush then cleaning the lower half on grigri. Cleaned for 5 hours.

Cleaned furiously for 7 hours. It's done, will need to settle and have a dust in autumn. Too hot and shagged to lead it today.

After 27 hours of cleaning, it's a whole different climb. Plenty of holds and good gear (take cams 0.3 to #2, a double set of nuts, plus RPs or small offsets to avoid runouts). I had 20 pieces in. Long, absorbing, and probably not for beginner trad leaders. Get on it.

Needs a bit of a garden again, probably once a year.

Sun broke out halfway which prompted quite a speedup. Staying clean enough, though you'll always have to dig out the thin crack a little around the crux.

Always good. Still pretty clean, present me thanks past me.

I still bloody love this even after a visit to Arapiles. Still clean enough. Scrape the thin crack out a little for gear at the crux.

Nice long slabby route, good moves, great exposure on the arete. Recommended.

Better than High Hopes. Could use a clean but not too bad, maybe 18 as is. Nice view of parties on cruxes of After The Sunset and The Odyssey.

Place gear in layback? Sure ;-)

The bottom retrobolt is not too bad apart from the first bolt. Took the cave access chains off, a fall from the first crux would be through those and they are excessive anyway. The crack and corner above is great with a couple of cruxes, but VERY dirty right now, was more or less a ground-up again, will be back to clean it after winter. A must-do when clean.

Hard to believe I've never done this, it's great. The name is all the beta you need. Pitch 2 is a wee ripper, dancing up the overhanging wall on decent jugs.