We failed to reach Ararat's and Stawell's Safeway supermarkets before closing time so we had to drive the extra 50km to Horsham to be majorly denied on the reduced to clear bargains. We picked up a few items, but nothing like the gourmet dining that Ararat provides.
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Adam checks out the reduced to clear savings! |
The Quarry Campground at Mt Staplyton provided our bed for the night and we were asleep by midnight. I awoke, very keen, at around 7am and decided to begin new routing without the other slackers who were very enthused to keep sleeping. So, in the dark I shouldered my gigantic haul bag containing&endash; 60m rope, powerdrill, complete rack, handrill kit, 20 ringbolts, hammer, crowbar, wire brush and assorted other new routing devices. I decided to hike over the top of Staplyton to reach my crag, so began by walking up to underneath Sandanista and then climbing up onto the Hollow Mountain ridge. I soloed along the top, climbing up and down many ravines and arrived tiredly at the summit at around 8.30am.
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Rock pools on the summit. |
After snapping off some photos of the cool rock pools I descended down the west side to my new crag, tentatively named The Plaza Strip. Quickly, I set up a fixed rope and shunted my first obvious new line. After dispensing with the moves and working out the bolt placements I placed the protection rings and lowered to the ground, meeting Nick at the bottom. We led a funny hand traverse pitch up high to get situated in the cave above a steep orange wall and placed two U-bolts so we could top rope the wall later on in the day. Nick was keen to have a crack at Professor Hidiech Smidich (26) on Taipan Wall so we started walking back. On the way we stumbled upon one of the best of the 'new' bouldering areas developed recently in the Grampians. It consisted of a large cave perched high up a slabby face that had literally hundreds of perfect pockets in a roof. The big link-up problem was about 15m long and was very sustained upside down climbing. We played around shortly but soon moved to our roped climbing objective on Taipan Wall.
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Nick boulders in the awesome cave on the right side of Taipan Wall. |
Nick's first attempt was typical of him. He dogged up, getting scared on a couple of the clips and pronouncing it was too hard for him. I quickly pointed out that he had no problems with any of the moves and the climb had three really good no hands rests in thirty metres. I jumped on the climb on second and also dispatched with the moves quite easily, but had several rests. The climb was defiantly a three star route with many big jugs and crux slopers. Nick's second go was much better, he only took two stupid falls slipping off footholds at the crux. He did the finish easily and came down very confident on a redpoint the next day. We left the draws on the route and moved back to The Plaza Strip for me to have a go on my new route.
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Nick on Professor HS (26), on Taipan Wall. |
My attempts were not so great since I was still recovering from my massive pump on Professor Hidich Smidich. The crux turned out to be a very hard pull on a small crimp with a big high step. I could do the move when totally rested, but couldn't link it together with the bouldery dynamic start. Nick had a go top-roping the routes we placed anchors on at the orange wall, but he was tired and the crimps started destroying his fingers. We then placed a few rings on the blunt gritstone like arete right of my project and went back to camp, tired and exhausted.
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Neil on the FFA of Bass Rush (23), The Plaza Strip |
After a good solid ten hours sleep we were back at Taipan Wall ready for Nicks redpoint of Professor HS. He waltzed up the route, making it look like a grade 20, and we cheered as he clipped the anchor with strength to spare. That effort fired me up, so I charged over to my project and fired it on my first shot, thinking it was about grade 24. The routes thin crimps were really positive in the freezing conditions. Adam then played on the bolted arete, getting all the moves, but not being able to link them together. Nick, Demmert and Adam all worked a good highball boulder problem, with Nick getting the highest up it&endash; the fall being very nasty onto a pyramid of rock. We then worked the routes on the orange wall, marking placements for bolts and confirming that they will be excellent climbs. We retired to the car and the tedious drive home. Sadly, on return to my house, we discovered Adam's car had been stolen from parked outside the house! The police helpfully told us that they had pulled over some guys driving it on Sunday but didn't arrested them as they didn't realise the car was stolen.
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Adam works a hard project @ The Plaza Strip
Demmert boulders @ The Plaza Strip
Nick works his future 26+ route @ The Plaza Strip
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