Begehungen in Tonduron

Stuck at the access gate I think a lot of us were debating whether this was worth the hassle. After getting permission from parks, we sent it down the firetrail and had some fun times on the 4wd track chasing the bottom of the mountain and spotting the wildlife along the way. Short scramble to the base and the climbing began. Following the line of least resistance at the start really depends on what you can't seem to resist. Jack went up the sketchy slab, Greg up the exposed right side, and myself up the most vegetated and dirty chimney I've ever seen. This kind of pattern continued for the rest of the ascent, everyone chosing their own adventure in places. There were some extremely exposed sections where the moves were not at all obvious and objectively far above grade 5. But this paid off in sections with some actual great climbing. A proper chimney, twin cracks with bomber hand and foot jams, and slab that you could run up. Topping out felt like you'd cheated death just a little bit and had everyone in brilliant spirits after fighting the southerly winds the whole way.

less than 30 second into the descent Jack does the sharpest 180 I've ever seen: "hold up, I spy a finger crack" to then have us taking turns at the 3m tall ~v2/3 crack boulder of which Yim got the FA and named it "unicorn chaser" The descent was surprisingly chill, we used the fixed rope which was fine. Bush bash to the car and repeat the fun drive out headed to Kaputar.

Encore lap for the boys. A wildlife tour along the backroads of the bumbles to get to the tondy carpark it was! Apparently it was.. i missed all the emus for writing crag logs. After a very welcome skinny dip, we pulled up close to the correct spot and inadvertantly set a trap for will with an upside down, open hommus container which he dumped into the back of the car. Yim and i dived in with wrap-mops and slurped up every dusty lick of it. His boots never been cleaner. Found the right spot eventually and waited for yim to put 1 gaitor on to test it wtf? We finally resorted to bush bashing and eventually sketchy scrambling to find the start of the route as pictured on thecrag but we got there in the end. Then the sketchiness continued all the way up! In perfect quantities.. nothing too bad, constantly thoughtful moves and route finding that involved the 4 of us working together to bumble our way up and eventually pour drivle into another analog logbook. On the way down a ringlock crack caught our attention. Yim beat me to the FA so boulderers of the bumbles might finally have something to do! Good luck getting the pads up there. The way down was much the same as the way up.. spades of traversing whack wet slabs and route finding faff. Eventually greg flopped out the half rope to get down the last bit of the descent. As gay and lighthearted as our late mate eric dark described it in the day. Not as grade 5 though.

Suprisingly Fun climbing, great day out. It's a "warrumbungles 5". Trick is getting off the tower that's for sure.

This was one heluva climb. Atmospheric and wild. It took quite a bushbash to find the route (you can no longer drive to described parking, so we parked directly SW). The arete is more SE than S. It took an hour to walk directly in (we located the base of the climb the day before), started at sunrise (530) and were back at the car ~2-3pm (with some stops along the way). The climb is harder than a grade 5, I'd suggest 8-10. It's not hard but there were a few small spicey moves (a mini roof, a ledge that you traverse out and around a boulder) - unless I went offroute?! But the most intimidating is the descent. There was some sketchy downclimbs and we used the dodgy rope still hanging in the south gully, and finally slung a tree for the last 30m. Overall, the climb is classic but take care on descent.

It was hot, but spectacular. We need a nicer finish as P4 was not pleasant.

Started at high point on vegetated ridge and went up left of blocks with windows for 35 m through overlaps. Then up lichenous slabs for 60 m, then up left into low angle dihedral with good cams and the actual “ climbing” and Short chimney finish for 40m. Scramble right and up to summit blocks. Dave’s birthday.

If it wasn’t so lichenous, this was brilliant, esp P3

We started on this route and followed a superb line through to a logical conclusion in 5 pitches, but it bears no resemblance to the description after pitch 2. The body chimney of pitch 1 has around 10 m+ of unprotected climbing unless you take a big bro. Nice lead by Dave. P2 seemed to follow description. Then I linked 3 +4 starting into a beautiful left facing flake and going up ribs in 60 m. Never found a chockstone. Our Pitch 5 went up a left facing corner for 15 m, then traversed airily right for another 20m before an easy scramble and then walk to top. Descended sw gully.Generally good rock, a bit lichenous due to lack of traffic. Only 4 other people been here since our last ascent in July. 5 climbers on summit today.

The climbing is mostly on vegetated gullies, with a few wet and mossy moves with some consequence, and moments of exposure on good rock. Descended same way ( tested the memory). One Fixed rope only at present, Bunnings special with the anchor being 2 unequalised pitons, one only half in. Needless to say, did not touch it, though neither piton budged, I wouldn’t like to have 100kg person bounce testing it. Walked in from gunnemooroo camp via the creek as the road at present needs a decent clearance 4 wd. Took about 2 hours to base of west ridge from camp.

Accidentally FA’d first few pitches whilst looking to free Starlight Express ...

More pitches to follow hopefully...

Ooops... bit of confusion meant that I’d racked up for the rather easy looking first pitch it was easier to just solo up an easy ramp to set the first belay...

Oh well I guess I get what would have been the second pitch ...

Oops... looks like I headed up the wrong crack ..... an accidental FA... and start of new project ... will be back for round two on both routes ...

Got a bit high on the way to the East Face so figured we would continue to the top then downclimb the South Gully ...

Of course we had our packs with double rack and double ropes, etc and I was in mountain boots ... great fun, great views ...

A few options for shorter harder trad around too ...

Adventurous bushwalk with a couple of very short roped sections. Fun couple of hours & great to summit such an impressive monolith (as seen from Crater Bluff), but if you're after good climbing... go elsewhere.

We spotted the fixed ropes after descending the west ridge and returning to the base of the south arete, so then climbed Tonduron a 2nd time, basically curious to see how far the ropes went!