Ascensiones en Oceania como Tick o First ascent

Awesome day out with a few thought provoking sections. Was glad to have brought a rope. Full traverse took a little under 4h, add the time to bush bash and walk out on top of that

Clean to the bolt above the "Bryden Allen move" as a warmup, then lowered. Apart from the stupid runout between the 2nd and 3rd bolt, this all felt pretty chill, and super fun. I forgot how good this is.

Fun day out with Pheebs. Had an explore and lead into unmapped territory just for fun. I lead the first pitch of chameleon and then pheebs set off in the direction of good gear, heading out left. Interesting slab pitch, with some good moves! Then I set off, being about level with the belay for salamander, did a fun traversing pitch left, past a bolt (?) On slabby terrain with good pockets! Hoping to come back and try it again some time!!! Finished up salamander and walked back down in my socks. I fell over and scratched my arm up quite badly because of that.

Still classy

Always a pleasure

Warm up lap in approach shoes

Second bolt spicy 🔥 but good holds

Really nice line! Beautiful crimps

5 star review for Jack Rowell's School of Climbing.

Veered off right to tree and rapped.

this sent me straight to lumbridge

One lap (not clean), messed up the crux section.

simul climbed up it in 10 minutes and 11 seconds

Fingerry as ever!

3 weeks ago, a proposition was laid down to climb the biggest route the mountains could offer us. Yesterday, that proposition inevitably led to a certain will-never-forget outing. Due to our lack of two cars allowing for the traditional Mt Banks approach from Perry’s lookdown, we opted to camp at the Pierces Pass Carpark. It was here that we left the car at 4.35am and walked down through the pass into the Grose Valley. We made good time, arriving at the presumed river crossing for the uphill bush slog by about 6am. Despite not being able to find any form of a track, the faint morning glow allowed us to admire Mt Banks and determine a direction to head for. This uphill battle for the ridge was anything but enjoyable, although morale was boosted when we surprisingly stumbled perfectly onto the base of the climb, albeit feeling critically juiced.

A quick break saw us setting off on the climb by 7.40am, with smooth sailing up into the eighth pitch. As I made the traverse to the start of the ninth pitch, it was looking like we’d breeze into the 11’o’clock pitch by the time target. But disaster struck when Ross dropped his only belay device. Although ‘skillfully’ he’d directed it straight onto a ledge somewhere on pitch 7. After lowering him down to retrieve it, we were back on track, departing the eighth belay at 11am on the dot. Less than an hour later, I’d say I experienced the finest moment of the day. This was watching Ross step off the edge of the world from the ninth belay and power up the choss scoop, with class, to our designated lunch spot.

The climbing proceeded and the sun joined us momentarily for some sandy slab and grovel. Pitch 14 saw me softly deck onto the ledge from ‘the move’. Upon pulling past this, it became apparent that I hadn’t brought any more carrot plates or even the set of wires up on this pitch. So, I wrapped a sling around a carrot and gingerly continued. Every pitch so far had seen both of us breaking ironstone footers left, right and centre… a fact that I reflected on as I saw the sling subsequently fall off the carrot below me. Willing myself to avoid yet another intimate encounter with the ledge below (only this time from more than twice as high up), I gained the final fixed hanger and gave a belay.

At this stage, we were well and truly marvelling at our height in the valley, soaring way above the rather small Pierces Pass in comparison. However, the wonder soon turned to gassing-out after choosing to link the offwidth pitch 16 and the seeping jungle bash of pitch 17. After, Ross set off on pitch 18, for which the face section had turned a little waterfallish. Pitching it out, he brought me up to the most horrid frozen, windy belay I think I have ever been on. Trying to get us off as fast as possible, I found I couldn’t climb the slab directly above. Confused and slightly concerned, I opted to step out over the void for the hanging crack of which is most definitely the route. It just looked too outrageous to comprehend at first. Freeing the initial moves up the crack on a blindly placed cam was an interesting experience. We topped out just before total darkness at 5:30pm… frozen, bloodied and sore.

At the top we discovered no track whatsoever and set off into extremely thick bush. This. Was. Horrendous. Eveeentually, we came upon the Mt Banks summit walking track and took a breather. From here, we pumped the Valley Uprising soundtrack and Led Zepplin, hitting somewhat of a walking flow state. Made it back to the car at 7:45pm. What a hell of a day!