Ascents in World by Paul Frothy Thomson having sport-cpr or ascent-date

Just the one TRS lap. Very technical slabbing. More arete-y than I expected. Rock is a mixed bag of quality.

Did all the moves (with lots of falls) to the last bolt, and I think I could link this much on lead within a sesh or two...

But I never made any upwards progress in the 1.5m from the last bolt to the anchor, and didn't really have an idea for how to do it at the grade.

3 attempts -never even got close to touching the brief (but gnarly) crux sequence. Could do all the rest clean at 26/27, but wouldn't ever have a hope in hell of putting it all together for a tick.

Great rock, and awesome, steep climbing up a series of linked features. A bit more "conventionally grovelly" than most of the harder routes at Bungonia (which might explain why I could actually do most of it).

Repeat attempt, not clean today. Just the one lap for fitness and to re-remember the beta for Match . I was pretty happy to put together the entirety of the upper crux section with minimal hassle, years after I was last on this. Amazing climbing from about the 5th bolt up!

The logical line up the feature, even if its a nuisense to clean. I had to powerscream like a maniac for this one.

Gentleman's Sit Flash. Flashed with a "gentleman's sit" at a no-hands rest near the top. Mitch's draws and beta (super key for the start) with little/no chalk on the route.

Wow... Just... wow! Like Subliminal, but for climbing connoisseurs. This thing is destined to be a classic, especially given the relatively easy approach. Probably 23/24 after the first 10m, but it simply never lets up its entire 70m length. Even the top "Grey rock" headwall is tricky and awesome.

Best of all: it completely makes sense given the fact that there isn't really a "stance" to rebelay until you're almost at the top. Rope drag was fine as well.

An utter joy to climb.

The climbing is upper echelon "Very Good", but the bolting is so unceasingly garbage that I can't give this better than "Good".

P2 was quite sustained, with consistently rad moves up the arete (and a funky gritstone finale) but seemed rather easy at the grade (though I can see it being nails if you're short). Regardless, I was pretty stoked to onsight it in good style.

The crux of the day were the moves to the 2nd bolt on P3, which was a solid V4 for me. I'm wondering if the recent storms have caused the block you start on to slide down the ledge, or whether perhaps there used to be a cairn there? I'm keen to hear others' opinions who repeat this after me.

Most pitches were good. The crazy roof on P5 was super unlikely, and the spine chiller traverse was great!

Regarding my criticism of the bolting:

• Runouts with near constant ledgefall potential.

• Terrible bolt placements -over-recessed (biner snappers) and constantly out of reach even at my height.

• Irrational belay stances -Bolts too high, or far too low, or a hanging belay instead of on a big ledge?

Prospective multipitch new routers should climb this if only to learn what not to do.

Continuous climbing up a steep, zig-zagging crack feature, with a funky bouldery finale where the crack ends. I was on this for a looooong time to score the onsight (no chalk on the final crux made it brutal to figure out).

Yiew!

Gets progressively harder all the way, and I had to delve deep into the bag of tricks to stick the top with no beta.

Not as good as the other routes here.

What a journey! Surprise send, after spending the morning on Simmo's route, and only tackling this at the end of the day with a view to sorting out the "send logistics" (with a route this long, steep, and wandery... It's fair to say that it's involved).

There's just so much here to remember, and with it being so steep, you're always on a timer to get it done. Steep, gymnastic, and sometimes quite technical. Would be megaclassic, but the rock is only about as good as Sunny Side Bell, so far from the best the Blueys has to offer. It's almost too hard to sum it up at an experience, even with the copious amounts of hyperbole I can command

2 Full days working the bottom 26/27 arete, and the effort I originally put in to climb Gaze a Gazely Stare (as well as a few repeated laps for fitness and training). On the send, I committed to constant 5m+ runouts to avoid dealing with rope drag.

3rd shot over 2 visits, placing draws. Other than the nails direct start, this is about gr22ish to the roof boulder. The roof boulder itself is gnarly sequence, with a pumpy, committing finish.

The finale is brilliant, and way easier than it looks despite some rather outrageous steepness. Exciting on the onsight with no chalk on the top half of this.

Probably only 24?

Full disclosure: not a true onsight, as a I broke a wet jug off on the headwall before I could actually clip the anchor. But, whatever.

5 days of effort in total to free both pitches. It takes a lot for exposure to scare me, but this route managed it. Super obscure, but stunning.

Wild, gymnastic traversing, with huge falls into space. I got in the habit of climbing this with my grigri pre-set just behind my knot, and my Jumaar ready for rapid deployment.

On one of my laps on P2 I took a really bad fall, to the point I thought I'd broken my foot. I managed the Send on my final real shot of the trip.

The Aid move on P1 probably goes free if you've a bigger standing reach than me. The one on P2 definitely goes free, but it adds at least 3 more grades to the pitch. Feel free to go for the true FFA!

Cool! had to try pretty hard for a few moves, and thought I was off at the top for sure. Essentially: 3 boulder problems of increasing difficulty, separated by good stances. The middle boulder proved particularly tough and committing with a curious complete lack of chalk on it.

Wild! Actually thought we were climbing a totally different route... it seemed kinda hard (considering we were expecting gr23 ).

Totally worthwile, and very much "of the era". Old school, weird bits of necessary gear, antique bash-in carrots in hideous locations... but still awesome.

Linked the first 2 pitches together.

A tad crunchy, but really pleasant moves. Seemed rather easy at the grade, but I have no idea how to grade anymore.

4 days of effort, but proper chuffed with the result. 3 distinct cruxes, but no true rest inbetween. I fell off the final move to the anchors 3 times on link. Slab style, though on a slightly steep wall, makes "rockovers" a dynamic affair.

Clean repeat. Sweet! It's been a decade since I was last on this (when I ticked it) and it was rad to get on it today and just do it straight up, placing draws, without too much difficulty.

One of the best technical, sustained, and consistently clean face climbs in NSW.

About bloody time. 2nd redpoint burn of the day, scrapping the whole way up. Was basically "mid fall" on the entire top crux, but just kept lunging and somehow got there.

Objectively this route is gr28 (hence its actual grade I've put on it on TheCrag) but my subjective experience (encompassing all the ropecraft factors) was gr29. Similar composition to Hairline, but 2.5x longer, but the 2-rope faff and all the other admin factors make it a proper mission to climb.

Clean Repeat. Revenge! Had to work at the top, but still managed to punch this straight out today. So much fun.

Repeat attempt, not clean today. No real problems to the top boulder, but -absent chalk- it took me a bit to piece it together. Essentially, three boulders (each getting harder than the other) with easier climbing and good rests inbetween. The top headwall is super rad.

Sweet. This was my goal for this trip, and got it done! With not a drop of chalk on it, it was a tricky, sequency number, but totally suited my style of climbing. Even in the full sun, it was fun!

Nothing physically harder than grade 23, but lots of technique and committment called for. I climbed the arete direct all the way to the top. Almost a classic (but for the poxy start, and the overall shortness).

Backlogging due to my previous logged tick being lost by TheCrag.

Pretty chuffed with this onsight at the end of the day, because this route was obviously unchalked, untrafficked, and a touch unloved.

Good, balancy arete climbing. More scary than hard (due to the bolt position). Definitely only gr24.

What a journey! I've wanted to do this for years (we've all seen that photo of Greg Child on the roof cut-loose and mantle), especially because I've never heard of anyone ever doing it (even asking many of the local legends). If it ever gets rebolted and a bit of TLC, this would be a genuine multipitch classic!

I linked P1 and P2 into a giant 40m Onsight, then set up an improvised belay just below the roof (using 2 bolts and a #1 cam) so I could reduce the roof and mantle to a manageable boulder problem. These pitches are beautiful, sustained face climbing on great rock. P2 in particular follows a super-cool vague-flake thing with tricky feet, and finishes with an old-school "padding" traverse.

Ticking the roof and mantle took me a bunch of shots (initially cause I was using totally wack beta) and at one point involved such a massive sideways fall that I broke a biner. Once I sorted my beta and rested up, it went down surprisingly easy. I'd probably call the mantle a V3?

Pitch three is quite easy, but has a proper gripping traverse at the grade. I'm glad I didn't fall off.

Coming back to try and clean up the pitches I didn't get clean last time.

Unfortunately, the ropes I brought weren't long enough to get to the belay below P3, so for now that pitch will have to remain un-sent.

It was bloody hot out here today, but the route was still great.

4 laps. Didn't have the time to try and send this bold puppy on lead, but was hoping to manage the clean top rope. Alas, no dice... managed to get it down to two halves, but this late in the trip, I didnt have the endurance to put it together.

After leaving the slab and campusing the rail, it's all on to the top, with some of the raddest pocket moves I did this trip. 1-pad mono steep cranking... awwww yeah!

Happy with the onsight, given how cryptic, technical, committing and unchalked this was. Follows an interesting seam feature up a prow. A good end to Day 2 in Frankenjura

5 days of effort to this point.

Pretty chuffed to get both this and Titan done free within the span of a month.

As with Titan, I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do this. I wasn't planning on doing it until next season, but had an unscheduled day, and decided to check it out... and I was immediately hooked on the challenge.

As to the route:

If the rock wasn't choss -even if it was just your run-of-the-mill Blueys Sandstone, I'd call this the single best crack climbing I've been on in the entire world (and I don't think my resume is lacking when it comes to crack climbing) for position, sustainedness, and purity. It would also be a super-duper obvious contender to climb as a giant pitch.

Alas, it is choss, so while I still regard it as classic, that is very much a subjective opinion, and I think prospective repeat ascensionists should really consider whether this will be their cup-of-tea or not.

P1 - is amazingly varied and technical climbing. Personally, I probably found this physically harder than P2 (in that, its more cruxy) and in some ways scarier (due to insecure cruxes). The opening finger-locking is aesthetic and great, and the insecure laybacking through the middle lends itself to complex footwork.

P2 - Looser than P1 for sure (the start of the pitch is horrible!), but quite stacked. This has a lot of hard moves with no super chill rest. I found the last moves to the anchor to be the crux, there there was about 5 sections I could genuinely have fallen off on.

P3 - To be honest, I didn't like this pitch at all. Loose, hard to protect short crack section, followed by a sandy traverse on eroding edges to gain the topout ledge.

Less sandy/chossy than you might expect in some ways... More sandy/chossy than you might expect in others. There's an "unpredictability" to the rock here that most other chossy routes I've climbed don't quite have.

The gear is also pretty good, provided you're smart about where you place, and remember that spreading fall-load over a larger surface area is better than the alternative (read: passive pro, dammit!).

Don't trust the fixed gear, though

5 days of effort in total to put this all together. I pink-pointed the top 2 pitches, and had the first 2m of gear pre-clipped on P3. I broke 4 fixed pegs, and 1 hourglass carrot during this process. I also took 5 falls -one of which was a sideways whip onto an hourglass carrot, that somehow held my fall!

I wanted to climb something hard on Dogface to prove to myself that I could -I've always believed that I could, but the time had come to prove it.

I found this a conflicting experience. I liked the climbing on the crux pitches, and -surprisingly- didn't end up finding the bad rock/gear as terrifying as I expected. However, because every single lap the route gets harder (breakages, holds become sandier, others become more rounded, fixed gear breaks, etc) my whole experience was stressful due to the knowledge that sooner or later it would be too hard for me to climb. I've never really climbed with this type of time-constraint before (wherein, every failed lap is punished by adding .1 of a grade to the pitch).

Interestingly, the bottom 2 pitches are quite moderate, and actually surprisingly good (the rock isn't too bad, the gear is pretty good, and the climbing is fun!). These pitches are probably worth doing in their own right. After that, it gets rather sandy, and kinda hard

P3 had a wildly technical thin stepped corner (on good gear) to start it off (it took me quite a while to figure out the beta), followed by easy, loose, runout rambling.

P4 had a very cool seam-crack crux, followed by interesting, technical, runout slab climbing on deteriorating rock.

Great! Not too hard at the grade, but bloody awesome. The low crux is just fun, but everything above it is mega at about gr23. Great rock, and pretty sustained. Might be my favourite route here.

2nd shot. I only carried 2 draws through the crux, so climbed the top 20m clipping only 2 bolts.

A funky (but incongruous) start crux leads to a magnificient gr21ish headwall up cool grooves and scoops.

FFA. Sweet! Finally got it done despite the proper arctic conditions! Having fallen off the move to match the lip of the roof 5 times, it was an awesome feeling to keep it all together for the send.

A bit sharp, sure, but its a lot of time climbing completely horizontal at a relatively tame grade. And the boulder to gain the lip is all time rad.

6th shot. Took me 4 laps to ever come up with a consistent sequence for the crux. 5th lap I went through the crux, and fell off the first stemming move... 6th lap for the win.

6th shot total, and 4 core-shotting falls at the lower crux.

Wow! A sustained, complex face climb with classic moves and rock, to a no-hands rest, before a gnarly V6 boulder finale through the top roof. The upper slab is not to be underestimated!

Though I could do the moves of the boulder, I didn't feel that I could put both parts of the climb together in the 2 days I had to try it, so instead I traversed over to the finale of Velvet Morning immediately before the no-hands rest at the top roof, and finished up that (hence not claiming the full grade). Sure, it's the piker's McDougall, but it makes the climb even more sustained, and just as classic as most of the other routes here IMO! Hopefully next time I'll send it properly.

Full disclosure: I also started with the first 3 bolts pre-clipped.

At the start I use a compression/arete-slapping/heel-hooking sequence rather than the crimp boulder. Was heaps of fun figuring it out.

TRS Sussing lap on the bottom pitch, and the cheeky pink-point psuedo-FFA on the top pitch.

An enjoyable, easy start, leads to a brutal, thin and technical finale. Exciting for a slab.

FFA. Backlogging the FA. Sent this packing on my last possible shot before heading off to America, thanks muchly to the entourage of belayers who hung out on the ledge with me throughout this process. Old school, wandery, super-thin, reachy face-climbing which -as a full package- is a tonne of effort, but rewarding in the end. I'd argue that this is one of the best examples of this particular style in the Blueys, but theres a chance I'm just a liiiiiiiiiiitle bit biased. Maybe avoid it if its windy, though.

2 Laps - just to the last bolt (24 to here) clean, as the last moves were dripping wet. Managed to punch this one out, sans chalk, placing draws, no worries whatsoever. Pretty chuffed with this, given that I haven't steep climbed in the 7 months since my accident. My core and calves felt it the next morning, though!

This is my favourite of all the routes on the upper ledge.

Third shot. Almost managed it second shot, but bungled a key footer right at the very end. Onsight to the last bolt, but the final runout, cryptic finale took some effort (and finding some balls) before I could wholly commit to it.

A super logical linkup, but the end is quite incongruous in difficulty and boldness.

4th shot FA in a day. On my 3rd shot I bungled the moves above the crux! Mostly fairly moderate, but the crux is hard, morpho, knee-destroying heel-hooking.

3rd shot today (and a bunch of laps over many years). Psyched to get this done. For me the crux is the streno slab moves off the no-hands rest, with everything above it to the top being super funky.

EOD and 3rd day on, I was stoked to pull this send out of nowhere.