Blue Mountain's Escalade 99

Week of the 10th April 1999

I left Melbourne at the extremely early time of five pm. The coming week was my first climbing holiday in more than a year. Having failed to convince any Victorians to accompany me I had a solo 900km drive to look forward to to. I was planning to attend the Escalade Climbing Festival in the Blue Mountains. After an hour of standstill rush hour traffic I was on the Hume and heading for Sydney at the fastest legal speed. The Hume has to be one of the best roads in Australia. Its entire length is completely flat and only broken by the midway town of Albury. I can understand why is has such a large road toll. It is a 'set and forget' style of motoring!

A couple of hundred kilometres past Albury I opted for a small sleep and crashed by the side of the road. The familiar sound of cows pounding the walls of parked cattle trucks awoke me early. The following three hours got me to the mountain haven of the Blue Mountains. I was due to meet up with a friend of mine, Marten, who lives in Sydney at around midday. I was way ahead of my self so ate breakfast on the mist covered picnic area above the Three Sisters. The weather was typical Blue Mountains - misty, cold and zero visibility. Finally the clouds lifted and I headed to Katoomba's Mountains Designs to pass the time. Soon enough I was equipped with the latest sport climbing guidebook and was following the directions down to a popular bouldering. The approaches in the Bluies are very different to most Australian crags. The access is almost always from the top of the cliff with steep decent down small gullies and thick lush forest. The walk down to this area was no exception. The criss crossing maze of paths below the Hydro Majestic Hotel led to a smallish cave. At the bottom of the cave was a well chalked traverse line which looked fantastic. Much like a smaller version of West Linfield in Sydney, the problems were subtly steep and juggy. It was the standard Blue Mountains fair and I was soon pumped beyond belief and my body was crying out for the sleep it failed to get the previous night. I noted several glue reinforced holds on this wall - the first signs of the very different ethics of New South Wales. I slogged back up the hill and made my way to the very small town of Bell to await Martens arrival. He was an hour late so I caught up on some sleep on my thermasrest on the train stations platform.

We were to spend the weekend in the Wolgan Valley with a few Sydney climbers. One of them, Wade Stevens, I had met mid last year. We followed Wades written directions into the start of the valley. We took a wrong turn early in the drive and were soon lost in a maze of rocky outcrops known as Black Hand Rocks (or something like that!) We thought we were on route so drove down a hellish rutted road for twenty kilometres until we eventually asked someone where we were. Sheepishly we headed back the way we had came, over the same water bars and gravel. On the drive in I had doubted this was the correct road as the only cars we passed were big souped up bush basher 4WD's. They must have wondered what my 'Camry Family Wagon' was doing this far bush. It was fairly late in the day and I was desperate for a climb so we stopped at one of the outcrops right next to the road. It had several bolted routes on rough rock. The first line I jumped on was very ambitious. It started with a large sentry box roof and a thin face above. I could count at least ten bolts from the ground within twenty metres and probably more above out of sight. I grovelled up the start and began the moves in the roof. It was so overbolted I clipped three bolts from the one stance! All were crap carrots, but placed recently by the looks of it. The sentry box moves were ugly and hard so I lowered off. It was a shocking start to my climbing holiday. Marty led a reasonable grade 18 wall route which I also got onsight. The hardware store ring bolts at the top were very uninspiring.

After that brief climbing interlude we continued onwards to the campsite at the end of the road in the Wolgan Valley. I had heard much about his area from Darrin but was not very inspired on the drive in. The walls were impressive in stature but lacked the solidity of my home crags of the Grampians. Perhaps first impressions can lie? The area near the campsite was for a time early this century a teaming town known as Newnes which had an extensive shale oil mine in the valley. This dried up in the forties so the townsfolk packed up and left a ghost town in their wake. The area still has an old disused pub, numerous oil refinery gadgets and lots of broken chimneys.

We met Wade and he pointed us to the nearest climbing area, Old Baldy. It was around 4.30pm by this time so with light quickly fading we sprinted up the steep hill to the base of the wall. This area is one of the oldest in the Blue Mountains. Most of the climbs were first done in either the mid sixties by John Ewbank or during the mid seventies by Mike Law and crew. With climb names such as Diarrhoea Chimney, Garbage Guts Gully and Crapulence and with descriptions such as 'this route may have fallen down' I was not expecting much. In the extremely limited time we had we didn't spot much that was inspiring. Most of the rock was fairly poor quality and the routes looked dirty and very unclimbed. In desperation I chose to do a three pitch grade 14 called Mango. The start looked like steep bridging up a broken corner then the top was an angled slabby corner crack. Time was not on our side so I racked up and was climbing within a matter of minutes. The guide described the length of the route as sixty metres, but I thought it looked considerably shorter. My mission was to try and link the three pitches into one big pitch. The start had some fairly technical moves and some shoddy pro which eventually relented to the slabby corner. By the time I was halfway up the sun was gone and I was climbing by the last dregs of light. The crack near the top turned offwidth size so I veered off too the left and crimped up a dirty face aiming for a high tree. It was pitch black and I had to feel each hold with care to make sure it wasn't detached. With a good fifteen metre runout I latched the belay tree and tied in.

By the time Marty finished seconding the climb with the aid of his headlamp it was truely night. After a quick hunt in a gully on our left we rapped down to another tree. Another rap and we reached the ground. Being so dark I had to actually search around to make sure it was the ground not a really big ledge. It was quite amusing continuing to rap backwards and discovering I was just walking back into the bush! We headed in a direct fashion towards the campsite below aiming for the faint light of campfires. Our arrival at camp at about eight o'clock was greeted with some amazement. I still haven't gotten around this no daylight saving thing. I retired to my tent whilst Marty decided to bivi outside.

I awoke to the heavy pattering of rain. My first thoughts went to Marty outside. I expected him to come crashing through the tents doors any minute but he never did. My inquisitive nature go the better of me and I peeked out. A wet bundle of sleeping bag and home made canvas bivi bag greeted me. Marty was staying it put it seemed! The rain dried up within the hour and all us sensible ones emerged from our tents. Marty came crawling out of his sack complaining bitterly about his uncomfortable nights sleep. He didn't get any sympathy from us! The days adventures were centred around canyoning in the Wolgan Valley. I had never done this pursuit as it obviously requires the canyons themselves, which are non - existent in Queensland and Victoria. I appeared to be the most prepared, with a wet suit and a dry bag. The canyon was called Starlight and was written up as a 'dry' canyon, which meant it didn't require swimming. Four of us set out for the whole day it would require to descend this canyon. The walk to the top was rather hellish for Marty and I as we are only used to short bursts of walking up to crags. The two hour walk was a tad more than our usual cardio vascular exercise. In true Victorian fashion, by the time I reached the top I was running around in shorts complaining about the heat when everyone else were in full gortex's. The view from the top was stunning. A grand panoramic vista of the Wolgan Valley and all of it associated cliffs and gorges. There must be thousands of these canyons in the area. We hiked along the plateau for awhile and finally started heading down. Very quickly the open scrub turned into lush forest and the creek we were following started etching into the ground - the start of the canyon! The green lichen covered sandstone walls grew on either side as we started to descend. It was soon clear that this would be a cold dark day within these walls. Quite the opposite of the exposure you get from climbing, these canyons resemble the more subterranean adventure of caving. Water pools started forming and we took the plunge and started wading. I soon donned by wet suit, dry bagged my clothes and joined the crew at the first major obstacle. It was a two metre drop off into a small pool of water. the walls on either side were slimy and overhung - the only way onwards was to jump in. The others had forsaken the wet suit option so were rather disturbed by this 'dry canyon' obstacle so early on in the piece. We all took the plunge jumping into the pit of water and getting fully submerged, This process is on eof the Bluies of canyoning. The pool you aim for is so tiny yet very deep. We continued downwards for a further couple of hundred metres down a gentle stream. From out of no where appeared a deep pit in the ground. This was the entrance shaft into the depths of the Starlight section of the canyon. I was first down the twenty five metre absiel into the depths below. The small hole you rap into was only about five metres in diameter and when you stood at the bottom it was just a shaft of light above. It is quite a committing feeling pulling your ropes from one of these abseils - there is no way of climbing back up from whence you have come. We unearthed our head torches form our sodden bags and proceeded into the canyon. The rock walls snake down, textured by the everflowing water. Nothing I have ever seen previously comes close to the beauty and lushness of this area. We were soon in the complete darkness and occasionally turned our torches off to experience the 'starlights' at work. The stars were in fact hundreds of glow worms that inhabited this subterraen world. The walls of the slender canyon were covered in the things. We squeezed and chimneyed our way down until we emerged back into daylight again. It was so good we all wanted to turn around and do it all again! Time was not on our side however so we hurriedly picked up the pace and started rock hopping down the gorge in front.

The transition from dark hole to sunny open gorge was quite abrupt. It was easy walking and some small amounts of wading for a further kilometre to the next abseil point. By this time we had all started to feel the cold and the others were suffering somewhat from a lack of wetsuits. The next rap was another twenty five metres down a waterfall. The rock surface was extremely slippery with slime and I really had to concentrate to keep upright. A dreary trudge out along some disused fire trails got us back to camp just before dark. We packed our cars and drove back towards the township of Mt Victoria for a dinner at the Mt Vic Cafe. The burgers at this place are the best I have ever eaten. I highly recommend the chickpea burger for deluxe value for money nutrition. Marty and the rest of the Sydney crew headed home to Sydney whilst I drove and hiked my camping gear down to the Sundeck Cave at Mt Piddignton. It was a fair mission. It was pitch black, raining lightly and I hadn't been on this track for three years. I took some wrong turns, dropped my food box a few times and eventually arrived at the cave. The festy double bed mattress that Marty, Ana and I had slept on those three years ago was still there! After peering around in the depths of the cave and finding no one else around I laid claim to the comforts of the mattress. I had dragged a doona from home along as well as my sleeping bag. Sleep hit me quickly.

Dawn in the Sundeck Cave is a treasured moment. The mists rise from the valley far below, the creek gurgles softly and the sun streams across the ridge opposite the cave. My sleeping position was right on the edge of a small five metre high cliff. This gives a grandstand view of the surrounding area. The cave fits about ten people abreast and has an excellent bouldering / solo wall just outside the far entrance. This wall was scene to my infamous drunken soloing rampage those three years ago. It is a most satisfying feeling waking up and the first thing you do is solo a few short wall routes. Great for the mind and great for the body I think. After refamiliarising myself with the area I trekked back up to the car. It is a good solid ten minute hike to the car so this discourages the local rednecks from using the camping cave.

My plan was a ten crags in ten days adventure. This day I was to achieve five crags. My first stop was Atlantis, a newly developed sport crag north of Blackheath. Using my newly acquired sport climbing guide I quickly found the start of the access track. On the way down this fifteen minute track I was taken aback by the abundance of huge rock cairns every fifty metres or so. The track was well formed so there was no chance of getting lost, yet these cairns stood waist height on average. It must have been a huge task to construct these 'Atlantis' monuments. The track finally turned to a short rock scramble down slabs. The cliff developers had installed double rings with static rope to aid descent of these slabs. It seemed like such an overkill to me. I easily scrambled down without the aid of these fixed lines. The cliff is deep down within a lush valley and perched precariously on a steep hillside. My first impressions were of some of the smaller Thailand crags. Lots of ringbolts, lots of chalk and a rainforested base. Again the crag developers had created an engineering feat. They had placed several ladder rungs in a wall and attached two large wooden ladders to these to aid access to an upper tier. On this tier more man made construction abounded. Several static ropes crisscrossed the way across ledges and the most substantial construction came into view. At first I thought it was a bizarre way of aiding the start of an 'impossible' climb but I soon realised the glue in ladder rungs disappearing up a wall and around a corner were to get to yet another part of the crag. The wall they went up was 45 degrees overhung and situated above a vegetated dirty cliff. I soloed up several rungs and started hand traversing around only to be stopped by a lack of rungs and a very small ledge. The numerous ringbolts littering this 'climb' suggested you would have to rope up to do it safely. I backclimbed down. The cliff itself seemed like someones little project to create a French cliff in Australia. Lots of steep ringbolted walls and one big cave with several very hard projects.

Marty models Atlantis constructions!

I then moved onto my next cliff, Logan Brae. It is a fair bit further south from the Shipley climbing area in Blackheath. This is a great little cliff, one of the best sport crags I have been to in the Blue Mountains. The walk in is very easy and the views are simply magnificent. The crag is perched above a larger cliff on a buttress jutting out into the valley. The ledge below the crag is ample, about ten metres wide, but its still worth tying the belayer in. The view from this ledge is across to the town of Medlow Bath and the famous Hydro Majestic Hotel perched on the edge of a rambly cliff. There is so much rock in the Blue Mountains! Logan Brae is about twenty metres high and overhangs at about twenty degrees in the lower section. Unlike the over consumered Atlantis, the cliff has no fixed ropes and quite spaced ringbolts. The rock is some of the best in he Bluies. Hard dark red polished rock that tends to get a bit greasy. Quite a lot like Nowra or the Grampians. I met two guys at the crag who I had socialised with at Arapiles several months previously. Scott, one of the guys cranks fairly hard and was dogging his way up a 25. I managed to scab a belay from them and I ticked a fantastic little 23 called Elastic Analysis on my second shot. Lots of slopers guaranteed a super pump. When you lower off these routes you are hanging away from the ledge over the void below. This gives a great opportunity for rope swing action! You run along the ledge and launch out over the lower cliff. Awesome theme park action. Scott then worked a 24 called Surprise Package which I also had a play on. The top roof is so juggy and strangely shaped you can get a good chimney no hands rest on the lip. I was already beginning to tune into the Blue Mtns climbing style. Big moves between good solid dinner plate jugs is the standard fare.

Two views of Scott on Suprise Package (24), Logan Brae.

Scott and his friend left to do a multipitch for the arvo so I continued my crag hunting. Next stop was another newly developed sport crag called Big Top in the valley below Blackheath. It is a very odd cliff. Lots of big lines and awesome looking walls but the rock isn't perfect. The bolting is again overdone to the extreme. The cliff had some wicked cracks and horizontals but but all were bolted. Is New South Wales turning into Europe?? The bolts were gigantic rings, twice the size of normal ones. This cliff only had about fifteen established climbs so isn't high on my return visit list. On the walk in it did however have an awesome perfect crack in a pillar. It started out as a finger crack and slowly grew to offwidth size at fifteen metres height. A good one for crack technique.

Finally, feeling very exhausted, I headed for my last cliff of the day. This ones on the way to Mt York near Mt Victoria and is named New York. It has had a fair bit of new route development from those ex Queenslanders Saul Squires and Phil Lawler. This is another majority sport crag. I found this area very reminisant of Saul's old home crag Brooyar in Queensland. The cliff never reached more than fifteen metres in height and most of the lines average about ten metres high. The rock is of poor quality and most of the routes looked completely pox. If you want to climb six metre high grade 22's with three ring bolts on crap dirty rock this is the crag for you! I tried my hardest to give the cliff a chance by walking to the far ends of both walls but nothing really stood out as classic. A few of the three stars climbs looked okay but would only rate as one star routes on other cliffs. Overall, this area was a big disappointment. The amount of wear and tear at the base seems to show this area gets a fair bit of use -proberly by abseling instruction groups. I returned to Sundeck for another night. I was to meet up with Scott early the next morning for a big day of climbing at Echo Point.

After a quick breakfast I headed down to another sport crag on Mt Boyce. Again, this area wasn't very impressive. Fairly standard coarse Blue Mountains rock with lots of ringbolts. Nick Sutter has a grade 28 route on the far left of this cliff which looked really hard. It is very short, about eight metres high, and most of the holds have been reinforced with glue. Not the greatest looking line in the world! I met up with Scott in Katoomba and we racked up for the big multipitch and headed down the Giant Staircase on the Three Sisters. With gear strapped all over us we got the required stares and remarks from the hoards of tourists puffing and panting their way up the ladders. 'ooooo rock climbers' was the standard remark. We hiked along the tourist track heading towards the scenic railway. The Echo Point cliffs loomed above us and we desperately peered through the trees trying to spot our line. We found no tracks up to the base so I decided in typical Neil fashion to bush bash up to the rock. Fifteen minutes of intense scrub bashing and rock hopping later we emerged at the base of a gigantic wall of choss. The guide was very vague. It described the start as a 'very obvious right facing corner'. From our vantage point we had spotted several of these obvious corners. The next hour was spent walking either direction from our base camp in the hope of locating the climb. It was a lost cause we decided at around midday. We slumped against the cliff and degecdadly ate the last of our food. The walk back up the Giant Staircase was not something I was looking forward too. It was already past midday and our chances of climbing a five pitch route before the dark and cold was fairly slim. I got up, shouldered my pack and turned to walk back down the track. It was then that I noticed we had been eating lunch in front of a nice looking small corner. In a last ditch effort I scrambled up the start of this and peered up into the distance in the hope of spotting something. I saw it! A shiny bolt glinted in the sun about thirty metres up. This was the climb. I studied the line from the distance and matched it with the guidebook description. We would have our chance to climb after all.

By the time Scott had his harness on I was already starting up the first pitch, a fifteen metre grade 17. It went easily enough on small wires and I set up a hanging belay with gear in some big horizontals. Scott is the stronger climber so he got to do the crux second pitch. The pitch is forty five metres long, grade 22 and has a mixture of bolt and trad protection. The rock on this pitch was immaculate iron hard stuff with plenty of horizontal breaks. It reminded me of the climb Intermission at the First Dial in the Grampians. Scott climbed smoothly, and I watched enviously as he cranked through some tough moves lower down. After climbing thirty metres of solid face the route darts left onto a true gritstone like arete. Scott disappeared out of sight and I relaxed on my stance and took in the views of the valley. Suddenly the ropes snapped tight and Scott plummeted into view. He had fallen from the technical crux right near the top. He worked these moves a few times and eventually cracked the sequence and pulled through to the belay. Scott has an amazing lip reading talent. I knew that he had less than perfect hearing so I always made sure I spoke to him clearly. He could understand everything I mumbled even when I was way up a climb. It wasn't until after the climb that I asked if he could hear me. He told me he was completely deaf and had lip read me the entire time. I couldn't believe it. There's no keeping secrets from this guy! Anyway, I seconded this crux pitch finding the going tough. It had plenty of big jugs on it but it was subtlety overhung and unrelenting. By the time I got to the crux I was stuffed. It is one of those desperate friction hugging moves which requires balance and co-ordination. I had none at the time and I fell promptly off. It took me several tries before I got the move and pulled up to the belay. It was the best pitch I had ever been on in New South Wales. It deserves three stars unquestionably.

I led up the next grade 17 pitch. It was on less than perfect shale banded rock but the exposure made sure it was memorable. A few small wires protected this pitch. I emerged on a shale ledge and clipped the single bolt for the belay and got in some other shitty natural gear. The rock had turned into complete choss at this point. I was very glad I wasn't leading the next pitch, it looked awful. I fifteen metre yellow sandy corner led upwards and was stopped by a large roof. Scott didn't balk and was soon scampering up the first moves. I was hanging directly below him and felt very exposed to his falling body or massive rockfall. He placed a crap cam and a wire which feel out and swung out onto an arete on the right. The whole time I was pleading with him to place gear. Funnily enough, I didn't realize he couldn't hear me! He found a small ledge and again disappeared out of view. Fifteen minutes later the faint cry of 'safe' wafted down. The corner was surprisingly solid and I actually felt quite relaxed when seconding it. From the hidden ledge a superb hand crack emerged and led off up the wall. I followed this pulling Scott's gear out of the crack. The seam was a good hand crack size but there were ample large jugs on either side. My style of crack climbing!

The hanging belay on this stance accentuated the big wall atmosphere. We had climbed one hundred and twenty metres in about three hours. The last pitch was a continuation of the hand crack. The angle had drifted back to slabby and the pitch blasted straight up a fifty metre rope stretching wall. The climbing was fantastic. I zenned out on the exposure and happily cranked up the entirely naturally protected wall. BY the time I reached the top I was out of quickdraws and had horrendous rope drag. The last moves grovelling up a grassy hill with the rope in my mouth must have freaked out the tourists on the lookout above! It was a clean one hundred and seventy metres to the valley below. Scott arrived at the top around four oclock and we trudged back to the car. It was a most excellent day out. The climb is called Ice. Bakery treats and milkshakes were eaten in Katoomba before Scott made his way home and I headed back to the cave.

Wednesday morning was taken up with some good soloing and bouldering on the wall outside Sundeck. I then checked out two other cliffs in the area. The first, Victorialand, is an area developed by Wade Stevens. The access wasn't great and the guidebook didn't help much but the cliff itself looked impressive. The main wall looked reminiscent of Taipan - a huge buttress of smooth orange stone with subtle weaknesses up it. The only problem with these routes is that the start is completely vegetated and you have to rap into them. It is defiantly worth a look in the future. The other cliff was a small sport area called Celebrity Crag above Porters Pass. Tucked away in a pocket of rainforest high up in the mountains this is a fantastic little area. Several waterfalls abound and the climbing is moderate sport stuff. There is heaps of potential here for harder climbs. I stripped off and had a short swim under a waterfall before continuing my exploration. One section of this cliff had some of the worst bolting I have ever seen (anyone noticing a theme??). A thirty degree overhung wall with hammered in non stainless screws as protection. I could tell they were screws because they were jutting out of the rock that much. Deadly.

A huge ringbolt at Mt Boyce sport crag. What an overkill!

Classic Blue Moutains re-bolting. Just leave the old bolt behind.

Anyone lining up to do this tagged project? Yes, thats a screw hammered in as a carrot bolt.

I returned to Mt Victoria and met Marty at the train station. He was up for the rest of he week. We decided to head to Atlantis for a quick afternoon climb. I got Marty to pose in front of the various Atlantis structures for my journalist photos. Marty warmed up on a slab route called Driving the Fat Farang (20) which was pleasant in a very overbolted sort of way. We then spent the next couple of hours cranking on the steep wall above. Marty and I ticked onsights of Eurotic (22), I redpointed on my second shot Twenty Something (23), Marty dogged Same But Different (22) and finally I onsighted Wingman Anytime (21). Out of all the routes we did my favourite was the unstarred Wingman Anytime. It was really sustained pocket pulling up a steep wall. The rock on this cliff was a mixture of coarse sandstone and smooth ironstone. I enjoyed our afternoon at this consumer crag. We left the cliff at dark and made our way back to camp. Marty had purchased a good sleeping bag and thermarest so was set for the week in the Bluies. The cave was looking very homely now. We had food lining the 'shelves', candles lighting the 'dining area' and bedding littering the 'floor'. At around seven pm Gareth Lewellyn stumbled into the cave. He had driven down from Brisbane that day with a Darren ?. He opted to car camp as he was very tired and hiked back up the hill.

The first stop on Wednesday was Logan Brae. Gareth and I onsighted Dead Man Walking (21), a classic steep face which was very technical. I got second shot redpoints of two 22's, Room with a View and Side Effect. Side Effect would have to be one of the biggest sandbags around. I thought it was solid 24 and required some very technical moves to get through a bulge. I was mighty disappointed when I looked in the guide and saw it was 22! Whilst we were happily doing these routes a group of other climbing came down to the cliff. Gareth knew a few of them from Araps , but we all recognised Lyn Hill. After a few introductions we continued climbing. Lyn did the normal thing and onsighted a 24 and a 25 easily. She has a fantastic smooth style and we later learnt she had earlier that day ticked The Equaliser 29 on her second shot. I chatted with her for awhile about what she had been doing in Australia. For a climber who gets mobbed by fans in Europe she is amazingly down to earth. I think she was really enjoying the stress free Australian climbing scene. We decided to entertain ourselves in the afternoon with some adventure climbing. It certainly turned out an adventure bush bashing session for me. The crag we chose was Mt Boyce and we spotted several good climbs in the guide. True to the crappy Upper Blue Mountains Guidebook we got completely lost and never found any of the climbs. OK, here is my guidebook gripe. It has to be one of the worst produced guides in Australia. For such a fantastic area it only has two very similar photos, limited badly drawn topos, crap route descriptions, no history section, poor access descriptions blah blah blah and they charge $40 for it. Victorians should feel lucky to have the skills of Tempest, Mentz and Baxter to keep our guidebooks accurate and amusing. We did drag ourselves up some interesting slabby walls on Mt Boyce. I misread the guidebook and climbed three metres right of an established bolted route on all natural gear. It wasn't until I was about thirty metres up and with no good gear that I decided I must be off route. For the record the two climbs we did were Set, Piece, Battle (14) and Another Mans Juliet (17). They were nothing special. We then headed to Mt Victoria for the first of the Escalade films. Stone Monkey was introduced by the original monkey man himself Johnny Dawes. The film was a quirky English '80's climbing flick showcasing Johnny's amazing technical routes. Some of his routes have to be seen to be believed. Sideways bridging and double fist jam dynos were some his crazier moves. After the film we all headed to the pub to do some socialising. Beers with my good pals Johhny, Lyn and Steve Schiedner ensured an interesting night. Steve showed us his recent frost bite from Patigonia whilst owning up to enlarging piton scars for free climb attempts. Johhny rambled shit for hours whilst we sat back stunned and Lyn just mellowed along. Lyn is very short, but funnily enough Johhny is exactly the same size. Short climbers climb hard seemed to be the rule at Escalade.

Gareth ticks the onsight of Dead Man Walking (21), Logan Brae. Darrin does Set, Piece, Battle (14) at Mt Boyce.

Over the next three days we saw every big name climber in Australia, watched hours of excellent climbing films and cheered throughout the competitions. The best three films I saw were, Hard Grit (deathy grade 30 leg breaking action), Sea Cliff Soloing (those crazy Brits again) and Wild Buffalo (an ozy film on HB's speed ascents of the North Wall). Amongst all the action and thousands of climbers I also managed to climb at Boronia Point and Mt York. I ticked a three star 23 at Boronia on my second shot and soloed about five grade 15 crack routes at Mt York. It was a most enjoyable holiday.

The crowd at Escalade

The wall

Garth Miller onsights the Open Mens comp.