Ascents in The Point by John Pitcairn

Rope soloed on a shunt and backup knots after an epic hot cleaning session. Still a bit gritty yet, needs some rain. Gonna be good to lead, might be 19.

Up for a 3-fairy all day cleaning session on this, Natural Selection and Safety In Numbers. Much cleaner now.

Back to get it, a hell of a fight. Suckers you by starting easy then getting slowly harder until you're packed into a strenuous jam/undercling with very high feet out at the crux. The step around/down (maybe there is another option here) to the vertical crack needed a lot of willpower, then took an age to protect it while wrecked. The "trad belay" seems dodgy due to a hollow sounding block and limited options, kept going to anchors with solid rope drag, belayed with poor comms. Harder than Hecklers I reckon, need more opinions.

Straightforward enough once you burn it into non-volatile memory.

Took a long time and a couple of takes to find the right sequence after 3rd bolt.

Nice line, could use a brush.

Out here for urgent track safety work. Great long route, let down by a dirty top third (take a brush). Lowered Jonno then brought G up, time flew by.

Better than High Hopes. Could use a clean but not too bad, maybe 18 as is. Nice view of parties on cruxes of After The Sunset and The Odyssey.

I still bloody love this even after a visit to Arapiles. Still clean enough. Scrape the thin crack out a little for gear at the crux.

Consistent all the way. A lot of lichen makes it hard to spot the feet and at times you are on lichen slopers. High priority for a clean. Topped out through some dead bushy stuff I didn't remember being there, couldn't find the anchor, then discovered a tree had died and fallen right onto it. Considerable swearing while balanced on more lichen. Got anchored then spent a while wrenching the tree off and sent it down. Rap cleaned. This will be bloody great after a good brush.

Unexpectedly slipped off onto the first bolt, lowered and pulled the rope for another go. Should have warmed up on something. Strayed too far right after that, hard to get back left. Might remember next time. Got up and off with just a few spots of rain, sheltered from the NE.

This is so good. Took quite an effort after no climbing for 2 months. A clean of the right face would help find more rests.

Always good. Still pretty clean, present me thanks past me.

Warmup. The first of the two good pitches for the route (P5 is the other). Bloody nice.

Also bloody good. Started in a post-lunch coma but woke up pretty fast. Great slabby moves, fairly sustained at 20+ most of the way. Possibly 3 stars if it was cleaner, though it's clean enough if you trust the occasional lichen smear. Should have led it dammit, will be back for that.

Bloody good, highly recommended. Much cleaner than I was expecting too. An easy warmup cruise up most of Raw Umber lulls you into a false sense of security, then get your runout trousers on for the tricky arete crack (or take a couple of finger size cams). Then it's time for the main game, up the black-streaked corner. You can step across left to a good rest, but getting back right will be tricky if that's where you want to go. Spent a good long while figuring out how to keep moving up on the left and didn't want to leave the rest, but it's all there at the grade. Easier to the top, then best rap down is to the Raw Umber anchor.

Bloody great. Right face could really use a scrub. Gareth seconded clean, good effort. We could see and hear Katie and Joe up at the crux on the Odyssey.

Sun broke out halfway which prompted quite a speedup. Staying clean enough, though you'll always have to dig out the thin crack a little around the crux.

Gareth had a small touch-up scrub. The roof isn't the crux if you use a little brain.

Lugged the trad gear out, warmup. Crack pretty clean.

Hard to believe I've never done this, it's great. The name is all the beta you need. Pitch 2 is a wee ripper, dancing up the overhanging wall on decent jugs.

Still like it. It could be cleaner at the top. Some interesting complaints from G.

Had an epic. After the Sunset finishing after the sunset on New Year's day, for a 10-pitch day? What a great plan. Got out there at 6pm, still bastard hot, but got on as two ropes of two, following a pitch behind. Cooked like prawns up P1-2, and the P2 topout is now very dirty and uninspiring. By sunset we were mostly all at the bottom of the crux pitch, but Greg had mistakenly gone right after bolt 2 into the Mexican Americans crux, was falling repeatedly and knackered. After discussing the unappealing bail options, I swapped into leading the crux pitch by head torch, then settled in for top belay while Jonno seconded, Greg and Gareth jugged up. Topped out just before midnight, then soon lost the ridge track in windfall. After an hour of nervous random bush bashing near cliffs, we failed to pick up the track again, took a phone topo map bearing toward the kinloch track and bashed over to that for another hour behind Gareth the Sweary Bulldozer, then slunk down to camp, getting in at 2.40am on the 2nd. Camp-to-camp time: an appalling 9 hours 10 minutes. Swim, beer, snacks, more swearing, bed, rest day. More could be written. Type 2 fun.

Got out there early before the hordes arrive and start queueing. 5 years since I last led this and every move seemed new. One long pitch is the way to go, but if so your seconds need to be aware of the rope stretch at the low crux (which is not 16).

A fun outing in good company. Had a windy chilly time at the crux pitch belay with little communication possible while events unfolded below. Walked off.

Gareth pruned on lead and it's now looking a lot less vegetated. Really quite cool 3D climbing, reminiscent of Kestrel at Arapiles, but less plentiful protection and some fragile rock in places. A really good exercise in gear/rope-drag management, and perhaps an acquired taste, but I still rate it as a good long thinking trad lead.

Superb climbing, bomber jams, plenty of no-hands rests if you look for them. Started to rain just after Gareth began seconding. Lowered him, waited it out with raincoat, pulled a second rope up and rap-cleaned it by down-jammimg with one hand (RH face a bit wet and mossy). Sloped off back to camp through wet bush.

Gave Pete a lead belay. P1 is very nice as a route in itself, as it was originally.

Needs a bit of a garden again, probably once a year.

Nice cleaning job Gareth. LH start, good moves on the arete, similar feeling to P1 of After The Sunset. 19 is a bit of a stretch I think, LH is 18. Incoming rain drove us back to camp.

Absorbing traverse with good gear. Took a sit before the crux to sort my head out, then committed to the high compressed undercling moves. Getting gear in around the corner had me going a bit after that. Top pitch is maybe a bit stiff for 16, in the same way High Hopes is. Ran both pitches together with acceptable drag, but resulted in poor communication.

Wow. I forgot how good this is. Lichen on the RH face doesn't detract much (but could use a clean), bomber and plentiful gear, really fun crux jam sequence above the roof. We were both absolutely fizzing at the top, got down and wanted to jump straight back on lead. Four stars in a 3 star system.

After 27 hours of cleaning, it's a whole different climb. Plenty of holds and good gear (take cams 0.3 to #2, a double set of nuts, plus RPs or small offsets to avoid runouts). I had 20 pieces in. Long, absorbing, and probably not for beginner trad leaders. Get on it.

Cleaned furiously for 7 hours. It's done, will need to settle and have a dust in autumn. Too hot and shagged to lead it today.

Up to anchor on rescuesender and roll'n'lock, for full top-down brush then cleaning the lower half on grigri. Cleaned for 5 hours.

Fixing a rope for cleaning. Bottom 15m still very dirty and sketchy after previous cleaning sessions rained crap down on it. Excellent belay by Rosie.

Cleaning session #3, 15 hours so far, still work to do. Lowered to the bottom and rope soloed on a grigri in walk off shoes to check the state of it. Still way too much lichen at the bottom, and need to clean further left at the crux. It's clean from well below the crux now and the log of death is gone (admire it at the bottom). Managed to just barely abseil off on the 40m cleaning rope. Shagged out, long walk back with heavy pack, enough.

Just P1-2, getting back up for cleaning session #2 on Super Natural. Richard wanted to climb this and linked 1-2, I had no hope of seconding the low overhang with a pack and cleaning gear on me but gave it a shot, nope. Then got my foot trapped trying to aid the crux, was hanging around inverted swearing for a while. Extracted myself and skipped the indignity of being hauled by nipping around into Super Natural and back onto the Fraggle slab, which is nice.

Access for cleaning.

Access for cleaning.

A Saturday evening faff around gaining access to the tops of Super Natural and Bi Curious George to fix ropes for cleaning. Linked P1-2 only, considerable rope drag at the dirty top out. Replaced the old hand line snaplink above Super Natural with a stainless maillon. Ran out of time and did no actual cleaning.

Hand still coping. 3 on a rope, a fun ramble with a nice view of a crux plummet. Gareth got the money pitches. We had left gear at the bottom so abseiled off, which took 1.5 hours for 4 raps on a single 60m rope and was a fairly suboptimal experience with a cramped first anchor and plenty of trees to get the rope stuck in on the way down - definitely walk off.

The crack tends to collect dirt and leaf litter but currently still OK. The crux straight off the deck is fun, decent gear most of the way, top dihedral a little tricky, top out a bit dirty. Got off just as the sun started to hit around 1pm, well planned solar management.

A nervy flash lead from Grant, given the amount of lichen and crack dirt. We should have cleaned it on the way down off Human Intervention. I think this will be really good if clean, another one for the list.

Really nice route with a thoughtful crux around 2/3 height, easier up until then.

Short but good, good pro, and clean enough. Balancy mid section makes gear placement a bit delicate, got a tad run out. A fun fight.

Might as well...

The bottom retrobolt is not too bad apart from the first bolt. Took the cave access chains off, a fall from the first crux would be through those and they are excessive anyway. The crack and corner above is great with a couple of cruxes, but VERY dirty right now, was more or less a ground-up again, will be back to clean it after winter. A must-do when clean.