Ascensiones en Victoria por Sam May

Nice rock, nice climbing in a sunny sheltered spot. A bit short.

Kind of a mirror image of Flake Crack at Mt Piddington. Pretty cool. I'd use the downclimb descent next time, as pulling the rope after rapping off the bollard was hard work with lots of friction.

A very frustrating flash attempt blown at the top after sticking the hardest moved.

Old school, no mat, stand start after wiping shoes on a rag!

Climbing heaven! But, I did find the belay anchor tricky and decided to belay off my harness while braced. Bollard options are not great and small cams would have been helpful. The downclimb off the back is also pretty exposed.

Just great, fun rock climbing. Follows wide cracks, but elegant bridging and plentiful holds avoid any need to get dirty.

Brilliant journey, though a bit ledgy. Probably rap off next time, the scramble to the top is scungy.

Totally excellent!

Nice, but a bit wide. The shade and grey quartzite gives it a Tassie feel? Belayed a bit early and on the left, off of bollards.

Scared myself a little, as my Arapiles wire fiddling and route finding skills were not up to par. Kept looking for cams in breaks like a typical Blueys climber.

Most radical chimney ever.

Brilliant. Couldn't believe this face would go relatively safely all on gear. Excellent lead by Nick.

The beehive has been exterminated but the hole is still greasy and smelly from the petrol.

More great stuff. Set out at 2pm with Tom and Luke and double ropes and and timed it perfectly. I got the third pitch and it was very fun.

The only concession I had to make with my "no queueing" policy this week. Not as bad as it could have been.

What a great route. Little underwhelming though with the Bluffs and Pharos in the background. Led barefoot.

Aww yeah. Surprisingly hard into the corner, then rock star climbing. One of the routes that made me an Arapiles believer.

The bird crap and scunge in the corner detracts though.

This is apparently nails if you can't jam, but I can, so it was pretty straightforward. Good hexes.

Another proud belay tick. James stepped up for the battle - and it was a long one!

Keeps a lot of adventure for such a well travelled route (lots of bird poo and historic loose blocks). The third pitch is pretty out there and I remember thinking "damn if this is what they call a 12 in Victoria I don't I wanna know about the 21s"

This is a gnarly little route. Stonking onsight attempt by Bulti who actually managed to place lots of good gear all the way to the roof until he had to take.

Then I pulled the rope, clipped all of his stuff and...ran it out to the top, which was kind of dumb but damn it is tricky to protect up the top.

First route at Arapiles, at night straight after we arrived. Took like an hour of bush-bashing to find the base (!?) and we finished at 11:30pm and lost a cam. Had no idea where I was the entire time and could only see about 2m in any direction by headlamp.

Leading off from behind the pinnacle I got off route, belayed in the middle of nowhere off of a single bollard, climbed something waaaay harder than 5 and quite runout with bad gear. Good times. With Pok, Bulti, and Jared.

This time I managed to clean all of Ro's nuts without weighting the rope or crying. Was a close-run thing though, with a little deja vu!

Led the slab traverse.

SLAB. GASM.

Surely this has been done before? It was about 30m from our tents...but we did break off the obvious footer, and scrape and brush away a lot of moss that would be hard to avoid.

Great little offwidth problem, and will now be mandatory for every stay at Catani.

Brilliant, varied and exposed all the way to the hard-won summit. In three pitches, one lead each.

We were making fun of a shaking James, until we tried to to second it! Tricky and hard to protect! And excellent!

At sunset. Aw man it was great.

Rest day slabbin'. Crux is not falling into a hole in the jumbled boulders at the "base".

Rest day antics. I thought we were top-roping!?

Put a good #3 and/or #4 camalot in the ramp at the start.

Aided over two days. First grade V. An adventure!

Buffalo aid weekend 2013. Only one flared manky cam placement above a bomber #1 camalot in the pocket at the top of the initial crack. All smiles after that, even placed a hook for fun.

Buffalo aid weekend 2013. Seconding Ben on jugs for aid practice.

Buffalo aid weekend 2013, Macca belaying. "Crack jugging on cams to practice your aid sequence" suuuure, excellent sandbag guys!

After falling onto a tipped-out #5 camalot I returned with a #6 and big bro, still about three meters of thrutching out of the aiders to finish the job.

First day at Buffalo in 2011 I rapped into the Gorge after Pez and pulled the rope. The hanging slab was excellently positioned, and terrifying.

Seconding Pez in 2011. I remember he also climbed the dirtier right-hand crack (for fun?).

In 2011, scene of an infamous bloody-knuckled screaming breakdown as I failed to clean nuts on the crux first pitch. The rest of the climb was brilliant though. Seconded Simon and Pez.

I remember desperate high stepping on crystals. In 2011.

Good photo op but I don't remember the climbing. Pez was attacked by ants while leading? In 2011.

Tricky on second back in 2011. Finished up the Pintle. Pez leading.

Chewed up my ankles. In 2011.

First Buffalo slab. In 2011.

Simon got the Elvis legs like nothing else leading this! In 2011.