Ascents by Ashley Felton

A pleasure to climb and super-easy to protect. A great warm-up. What's not to love?

A decent enough trad route, with one very committing gear placement for the crux. Was very happy to be told exactly what size cam to deploy.

Good holds, excellent placements. Pure fun.

Hey, I remember: trad is scary on lead. Calling this one a retro-flash.

A fun route that I really enjoyed returning to after a few years. Bomber gear and comfortable belay positions.

Easily protected and good fun, stemming up the chimney.

A good, satisfying trad lead.

Just so I can say that I soloed something at Eaglestone.

Channeling my inner Honnold. Also I was bored.

Soloed it. Couldn't have hurt myself if I'd tried. We don't get much off-width around Perth. This gets a star, purely for uniqueness.

Totally sandbagged! Should be 3 at the very least.

Solo in running shoes, showing off to the family.

The lazy man's way back to the top.

Only because Kym dared me to. I'm going back to bouldering.

No gear placements, no rope drag. Superb rock and an atmospheric line. Sublime.

Idle hands can be dangerous.

Good, but I don't think I'll ever feel the urge to do this again.

Very cool adventure climbing, in a gorgeous location. The lengthy approach is well worth the effort.

A really cool adventure route, in a (relatively) accessible location, with fun moves, great exposure, good (for Bluff Knoll) protection and an easy walk-off. What's not to love?

Always a pleasure, climbing someone else's (good) cam placements.

Another trad lead experience, again making shameless use of Kym's gear. Top half: faaaaark, it's pretty thin holds. Better trust your feet and those stopper placements. Felt like a 19 today.

Crimpy and fairly challenging, requires careful foot placement. Too much for me on this visit.

Muddy, chossy and hard to protect. I got partway and bailed off a nearby bolt. No redeeming features here - don't bother.

Solo it, to work on your head game.

Well (over?) protected and enjoyable multi-pitch slab climbing, though without many distinguishing features. A fun day out.

Short, unmemorable, no loweroffs. Next.

Pretty cruisey, but I'm glad that we did it.

Clean as you like.

A good intro to Blue Mountains rock.

A good route with a variety of moves needed to finish. I should have had it clean the second try, but lost concentration and dogged it. Another day.

Good confidence-booster to come back to this and lead it cleanly.

First foray back to outdoor lead after a break. Suitably humbling. Good sequences - will come back to this one.

Getting a grip on the leading edge of the overhang (start of second pitch) feels pretty hairy. Decent for practicing multi-pitch.

The first pitch is fairly straightforward, the second is a lot more challenging (hats off to Kym). Second carrot on the 2nd pitch (after the hanger) is in a butt-clenchingly high spot.

Good climb (for slab).

Nice, easy warm up.

Good clean fun, climbing up over the jagged flakes of gouging. Well-protected, but don't slip.

Good fun, though pretty damn tough for the grade. Needs a couple of hangers on the ledge at the natural top of pitch one. The sequence on the pitch two arete felt harder than 19, but I dogged through it eventually.

A messy dog of an ascent on top rope. At least I made it all the way up this time.

Couple of boulder problems, some delicate slab, some technical face climbing. The whole package. Wish I was a stronger climber.

Working the hard first sequence, to properly tire myself out. Worked!

Extremely strenuous and sustained climb; heck of a workout for the arms. Note there is a ledge you could play tennis on for a rest, half way.

Surprisingly easy for the grade, though pumpy. A big, lovely, overhang jug haul.

Very good climb. Some delicate footwork required to perch on thin crimps.

A pleasant enough warm-up.

Eh. Quicker way to get up than walking around the path.

This is a great climb; a variety of interesting moves are required to make it up. Unlike some, it's of a fairly consistent difficulty the whole climb.

Tried the lead, had an awesome long fall and got freaked out. Went back on top rope to practice that 2nd crux sequence a bit more. Getting better.

Still a grovel at the top, but progress nonetheless.

Got this dialed. Very close to a clean ascent today, just some carelessness on the undercling move. I should probably stop putting off the lead and get this done.

Hit the roof of the top overhang, and had absolutely no answer for it.

Learning the moves.

Two tries on top rope, neither clean but both better than last time. Let's get a clean shot, then try the lead.

Gah, not all all the glorious pinkpoint that I saw in my head. Took a big fall past at the middle ledge and decided to swear off lead climbing for life.