Ascents as Tick, Lead, First ascent, First free ascent or Solo as sport by Cory Shearwin

Beautiful climbing in a beautiful location. First pitch felt about 23 and everything else felt a grade or 2 higher because of the massive winds. The wind made every pitch take forever and we had to climb the last pitch in the dark. Will definitely get there earlier and on a less windy day next time.

Far out, what a massive day out!

It took a total of 16 hours from car to car. We started hiking at 5am and got to the rappel station at about 7:15. Chilled out, had some food and went down to the base for an 8:30 start. We expected to top out by about 4pm but life had other plans and we ended up topping out at 5:45. Seeing the sunset from the top of Mount Barney was so beautiful but hiking back down in the dark was not ideal. We got back to the car at 9:15 after about 3 hours of hiking (and getting lost a couple of times).

We were exhausted and sore but filled to the brim with stoke. Simply amazing.

The climbing:

The crux pitch was definitely the walk-in. Hiking up with 10kg of gear and water each was a struggle. We linked pitches 2-3, 4-5, 8-9, 10-11, 12-13, and 14-15. We only had trouble linking 2-3 because I ran out of draws just 2 bolts below the anchor. 16 draws just wasn't quite enough. Linking pitches 10-11 was necessary due to one of the quicklinks at the top of pitch 10 having a hole rusted through it. There was no way I'd set up a belay on that.

The rock was ok for the most part, but some bad rock caused me to have a mad whipper while seconding on pitch 7. I called for some slack and climbed up into the overhang. I was sorting out my feet to get a sick drop knee and reach over the lip to get ready to mantle. All of a sudden, the hold keeping me into the wall exploded and I launched off, with all the slack leaving me hanging upside down with my head in a bush. Luckily I wasn't injured and I was able to make the mantle without that hold. I was a bit shaken and let Bros lead the next couple of pitches while I settled down. That was the most excitement I've ever had on a top rope, that's for sure!

Other than that, there was some beautiful climbing to be done all throughout. Lots of slab, lots of sharp crimps, plenty of exposure and some amazing boulder moves mixed in. The standouts for me were the pitch 5 traverse with its great views and exposure, and pitch 11 with its super cool traversing moves over the void. I think pitch 14 would have been spectacular climbing, except the entire corner leading up to the third bolt was soaking wet. It took a tough bit of French aiding to get past that but then it was a sprint to the top on the last pitch. I reached the anchor and immediately felt such relief that we'd actually done it! The stoke is unmatched but the pain will keep me away, at least for a little while.

Much better climbing for our second route of the day. The wetness that made rubicon so unenjoyable seemed to subside a little bit once we were in the shade. This route has such cool moves and sequences. It’s always a good time.

What a rude start to the day. It was hot and humid, trying to throw burly moves on slippery glass. All in all it was just gross. Would not recommend.

Good god, what a mistake it was to try the third route. It was probably (definitely) the number one dumbest thing we’ve ever done.

We started this one way too late and had not anticipated it getting dark while we were still on the wall. The sun set while I was seconding the 3rd pitch and no head torch made finding holds almost impossible. As amazing as this route is, I would absolutely not recommend trying to climb in pitch darkness. It was only thanks to some makeshift phone torch engineering (dangling it from a carabiner clipped to the helmet strap), plus familiarity with the last pitch, that we were able to get to the top.

We then had to crawl through the bush at a snail’s pace to get to the rap station. Luckily there were no mishaps or injuries on the way down and we made it out relatively unscathed. Lessons learned.

After doing troposphere a few times, we wanted a bit more of a challenge. This lived up to the hype! Easy adventuring first pitch, great bouldery 2nd pitch. Long and pumpy 3rd pitch but with great rest spots then another bouldery 4th pitch with some awkward mantles. So good!