Black Ian

Weekend of the 29th of August 1998

After moving at work I jumped in the car, picked up Danish Paul and we burned off to the Grampians. Petrol has suddenlly dropped 10 cents a litre down here, its now 62c when just last week I paid 73c. It must be super cheap up in tax free QLD. Anyway that was a pleasent start to our long drive.We left Melbourne rather late, around 9ish and got to Ararat at exactly midnight expecting its Safeway supermarket to be open 24 hours. Sadly if closed its doors the minute we stepped out of our car so we where left with no food for the weekend and no dinner.

We investigated the only open shop, a BP servo across the road. We convinced them to sell us a loaf of bread from their kitchen and they in a frenzy of friendliness gave us free about 20 of those little sachet's of vegemite, peanut paste & jam. They even tried to give us a big container of butter but we told them we didn't eat butter but they insisted we took it. Wierd people in the country!

We drove on to camp at Lunar Crag at around 12.30am. We awaoke to the all familar sound of rain. What a pity, another weekend of crappy weather. This was heavier than normal so we decided to bail the Grampains all together and check out Black Ians Rocks, an outlier crag betwen Arapiles and the Grampians. We arrived at around 9am in perfect weather (behind us in the Grampians it was still bucketing down) We managed to stock up on food items at Halls gap at double the normal prices.

The cliff itself (to quote from the guide):

'This cliff is alittle gem. Averaging only fifteen metres in hieght, it has a small camping cave and requires only a five-minute wal in'

All very cool me thinks. The cliff itself is a georgeus orange bulging butress about half the width of Frog and filled with cracks and pockets. The walk in was super easy. I carried my big car mattress on my head tothe camping cave and we set up an awesome camp in the great cave. It has (supposidly) aborginal paintings in it and was very weather proof.

The first route we did was a great 18 hand crack, Objection Sustained, that got steeper and harder the higher you got. Danish paul hasn't done much crack stuff so he had some troubles working out the jams. The rock itself is quite slick, much like the best Arapiles rock. Next I onsighted a wicked 21, Malicious Intent, which climbs an easy corner then a small roof then a bloody hard overhung corner with almost no footholds. A really tough move on incuts gets you to the top. Again all natural gear on supurb rock. Paul then ticked, just, a mega handcrack 18, Prosecutor, which I fell off on second!!!!! Bloody slippery overhung jams! Next I eyed a fine looking closed seam called OK, I Confess 23. It starts up an angled crack then the crack disapears and the climbs kicks back slightly overhanging up a serius spaced holds. It looked awesome and very un contrived, a blank holdless wall was on either side. The guidebook rekoned that is had good pro even though the middel blank section looked blank. I stupidly trusted the guidebook and set out on an onsight attempt. I cranked the first few moves up the crack with deft footwork, placed my first runner a #1 cam in the last obvious placment and puled up onto the blank wall. The holds were really small and I saw no protection for a least 4m. Oh shit I thought. I saw a very small crack a bit higher and reached for my wires. Damn the rock 1 dosn't fit and I have no RP's. Oh well... I downclimbed the start so I didn't blow the onsight. I found my rack of little wires and set back up the route.

Poul cranks Objection Sustained.

I climbed back to my high point and started fiddling. Oh shite, it only fits a RP 1. oh well I guess thats it! This piece is about a metre above the cam which is only about 6m off the ground. I reached up, pulled some funky moves on awesme littlke edges and managed to catch a fairly good jug. I fumbled with my pro trying to get a cam in (about 2m above the RP) and pumped off. It was a nice clean fall and the RP held! Yay!!

I got back on and finished the route very very pumped. The top moves were quite spaced on slopers. Paul seconded it clean and pulled the gear out. I had a good rest then tried the route again and easily got the redpoint. Its a fantasic route, really sequency and no crack jamming shit what so ever! I havn't climbed so smoothly or as well since maybe Debutees and Centipeedes at Araps in January. It was sooo easy, yet very tricky and on dodgy gear. I wish I climbed that well all the time!

Anyway enough of that climb.

To finsih the day Paul led Subpoena 17, a slick hand crack which was super hard for the grade. A def sand bag which I almost fell on second. The routes at Balck ians are def. my first proper crack routes I have done in Victoria. The are up there with some of Frog's best. It was about this time that we realized we hadn't brought any water with us. Opps! We only had about 600ml left and we needed to cook and drink the next day. I went for a scout and all I could find was a 1m wide rock pool on the top of the cliff. We filled up a bottle with this mosquito filled liquid to use for cooking. Dinner was excellent, we had both stoves firing and I had my polartec blanket, sleeping bag, pillow and proper mattress to lie on. We had all the mod cons as my camping box (thanks Dad!) is super fitted out for weekend adventures. We had a boulder through the cave roof above us (several routes takle this roof) and then feel asleep.

12 hours later we awoke, desperatly thirsty. We were forced to leave and find some water in the nearby area. We finally found a off-season sheep shearing shed and found a tank to fill the bottles. Of course just as we jumped the fence the farmer decided to drive past. Doh! We explaned we wern't trying to molest his sheep (even though Paul is a NZ citizen!) and he let us fill the bottles up.

Climbing was also good on Sunday. I took the challange and takled a Tempest 24 called Down By Law first thing. It has four bolts and a few cams and wires. the top half climbs through a wierd cave like roof which spits you out onto a thin face. the crux is a crazy bridging move on a thin undercling right on the lip. A fantasic route, but a little spaced on the protection. The top 3m was very wet so I couldn't top out and finish the route :-( Anyway I did almost get the onsight.

Some other climbers turned up from Melbourne and we chatted for awhile. It turned out they had planned to do exactly the same route on Mt Rosea that we were going to do on the weekend. Talk about coincidence! Paul had a crack at Malicuos Intent but pumped off the top. I then onsight led a short but sustained 20, Mitigating Circumstances then attempted a roof route, The Long Arm of the Law 21

The start is 10m of unprotected grade 17 moves (whoppee!) to under a daunting roof. The guide said you needed big cams so I brought my 4 and 3. Sadly both were two small. I placed a marginal 2 cam and a wire low down and swung out on the lip to position. Seeing no further protection I reversed the moves and pondered my options. The other climbers were near by so I asked if they had BIG cams. To my astonishment they pulled out three size 5 cams. I hauled them up the rope (remeber there was no pro in the first half of the route!) and plonked them into place. I swung back to the lip, placed a big cam, started to get pumped and reveresed the moves back to the good stance below the roof. I did this more than seven times trying to work out the moves and eventually took a fall from the lip stripping two of the three big cams! Packing shit I bailed off to the left and scrambled up a shitty gully.

That was about it for the rest of the day, apart from me toproping a good looking new route on a overhung face near the camping cave. Should be around 25 and requires a big dyno to a crimp.On the drive home we stopped in at Ararat for some dinner. Sadly yet agin every thing was shutting. But amazingly enough another local takeaway owner gave us heaps of free food as he was going to throw it out anyway. We paid $5 for two meat pies, a chicken burger, a kilo of chips, an orange juice and some dim sims (which we threw out). We then drove home and went to sleep. That was my weekend.