Well I spent the weekend brushing up on the aiding game. Firstly I went to Mt Cole, about 150km from Melbourne on the way to the Grampians. This little granite area is very cool. Small tors similar to Mt Erica or Black Hill, yet there are plentiful crack lines! It was just what I needed to practice placing pitons, birdbeaks and copperheads. So I spent the morning aidng three routes on what I dubbed 'Aids Boulder'. Its about 7m high yet has five distinct routes on it. Two A1 finger cracks (which havn't been freed), two thin flake routes requiring cam hooks, birdbeaks and skyhook and bathook placements for the end. One route, def A3 feeling, required two hook moves above a scungy birdbeak placement with a ground fall from 6m a certainty.

Ater doing these aid routes I moved onto the free climbig in the area. Therr are some steller cracks which would be super trade routes if at Bufallo. I soloed two of them, a 14 and an 18. My confidence in jamming is soaring at the moment. There is quite a bit of new route potential on the faces and aretes around the cracks. I am going to buy some bolts and do some of them next week.

On sunday I went to the big 'adventure' cliff of Redmans Bluff in the Grampians and spent all most an entire day aiding a crazy 60m rope stretcher pitch. The description goes something like this... The first move is off a sketchy RP then a tendor moment placing an upside down pin. Step up and the next piece is a half placement wire. Finally a good cam is gained. Motor up a thin always overhanging corner system with mostly A1 gear to under a roof. Traverse right on hooks, pins and skanky mini cams to get under the huge 6m+ ceiling. This is what I came for. Motor across this on A1 cams in small slots to a hard 2 cam placement on the lip. Finish up with some dicy thin cracks with numerous camhooks, pins and skyhooks. It felt A3 and was very technical. The hardest bit by far was cleaning the roof after I had finished. For the gear in the roof I re-aided until directly under the roof at its longest point. I was hanging off one cam upside down in the ceiling. The only way I could get off was to pull up quickly on the cam and at the same time pull the trigger. I took a huge swing out from the under the roof, sligthy slowed down by a tensioned line below. It was a crazy feeling. I had to do a similar thing when trying to remove a pin at the start of the traverse in to under the roof. This time I hung on a skyhook whilt I removed the pin. I then hopped up and let the skyhook fall off its edge sending me plummeting into space again. I think the route has been done before in the 70s by Roland Paougalink (sp!) since there were intials at the base. The area is the aiding capital of the gramps I reckon. I counted at least five seperate lines, none that looked freeable and only one that had several 'cheater' bolts. It ws all good practice for Yosemite. I am very happy placing pins now...