Ascents as sport by Will Vidler having Distinct route

Don't be a yellow bellied landlubber, get some citrus into ya bod and drag yourself and a fellow seadog down to Perry's to battle your Vitamin C deficiency and embark on a voyage of (self) discovery up through this sea of orange.

Definitely one of the better days of rock climbing I have had. At 11pm the night before I asked Elliot if he wanted to go rock climbing and he said "yeah maybe" which wasn't a very promising response I thought. Then half an hour later he messaged back saying he was psyched and asking if maybe we could do something "he wouldn't normally do". We spoke about Pierces but Elliot was setting till 12 so I figured the sun might be a bit much and then I said "how about Stiletto?" which brought forth a wave of froth over the airwaves. In the conversation that followed I briefly mentioned sourcing a stick clip and heading up Scurvy but that idea was mostly discounted.

The next morning I had a delightful sleep in and Elliot pottered over to mine just after midday. We faffed with gear for half an hour or so and then went to Coles to grab some muesli bars and head torch batteries. When we got back to the car Elliot said something like "fuck yeah! lets go do Scurvy" and I thought something like "fuck me we are really going for it" and suggested we try and get that stick clip. I messaged Liz but when she didn't reply straight away (she has a proper job with real responsibility and can't be on her phone always at work (or writing long winded trip reports on the crag)) I thought that really stick clips are aid and would detract from the vibe of the thing. So we fucked that idea right off and headed to the car park.

We rapped in as for DWD to preserve our onsight (hah) and at the base stuck our head round the corner to look at the route. After ditching our gear I took a moment to show Elliot the Perry's Crack which seemed to be an experience of near religious awe for him and, upon returning to the base of the route, we saw a static line descending from the heavens. After much conjecture about who or what it may be we decided that we should stop faffing and actually do some rock climbing so I put my harness back on and started up the first pitch.

Pitch one is a pretty cool arete, I found the first three or four bolts of climbing to be quite scary and perhaps a bit dangerous, especially getting to bolts two and three. I got up this without too much trouble though and only a small amount of fear driven hesitation. Elliot came up and we were met by Matt and Jake on the belay. They went up the second pitch of Stiletto and we waited before following them. Pitch two was really fkn hard off the belay, the moves were manageable but it seemed very staunch for 26 and then there was another hard boulder above a ledge at the end which is maybe okay once you have it sussed but felt desperate for us. It had also well and truly started raining by this point for extra engagement points. Pitch three was fucking classic and one of my finer onsighting efforts with no chalk in the rain. I had some healthy encouragement from the peanut gallery as I shook my way through the slab crux a body length above my last bolt. Exciting stuff. Pitch four was wildly good, Elliot put in an absolutely brilliant effort on runout hard steep adventurous terrain. Mega classic! Pitch five saw us experience some difficulties. I couldn't figure out the boulder to turn the lip at the start and so handed the reigns to Elliot. He put in the most valiant effort getting to the very end of the pitch before a cryptic runout section stumped him and after some decent whips he came down.

Whilst we were prepared to rap and walk out if we had to bail, Jake graciously agreed to leave his fixed line in place and so at 7.30pm we did a pretty classic traverse across the face to his rap line and jugged/rope soloed out that, topping out just as it got dark. And thus ended one of the most classic days on rock I have ever had. Approaching a route like this from the ground is surely one of the raddest ways to climb and we should all do shit like this more often!!

Two goes. One foot move I didn't do (off the mono) but otherwise managed the other bits. Pretty cool.

Did the moves. The start is very gross and wet currently. Fun but not particularly inspiring.

Didn’t love this. Found the start wet boulder unpleasant and didn’t quite do it, then no dramas with anything up to the top where i had a play and then just came down. Maybe if I can be bothered suffering on the opening moves I could be interested, but probably not.

Three goes. Some good links. Tried so hard on the top after i caught the pinch and my thumb came off that i bit a chunk out of my lip. Classic!!!

Two goes. Felt a bit weak and shit but that's okay. Jump is ever more consistent.

Superb for a boulder problem. Did all the moves first go and tried to link some sections second shot but that is quite a lot harder to do it turns out. Jett reckons 29 but who knows. Was worth going down just to belay him on Public Enemy though! So fkn good.

Still didn't do the jump, very frustrating. Went from the third bolt to the clip at the crux which is such a classic bit of climbing in its own right. (x2)

Quite 'ard and tricky and committing. Just to below the roof as a (very) poor warm up.

Went to not quite the very top. Pretty rad and harder than I expected on the final moves.