Standing at the base of Bard belaying
Doug up the slightly run-out slab that comprises about a third of
pitch one, I thought to myself how easy it would be to maim or kill
yourself climbing. Of course, we do (or try to) everything we can to
reduce the risk of injury or death when climbing, but, in some ways
the spectre of bodily harm, particularly on traditional climbs is
always there. This, I think is likely the appeal of sport climbing.
On modern sport climbs, adequate and solid bomber protection means
that falling has little consequence. I've fallen off sport climbs
before and never sustained so much as a bruise. On trad climbs
however, I'm always thinking about where and when to place gear, how
to protect myself from nasty falls onto ledges, low angle terrain or
other protrusions, and, most importantly, whether or not the gear
will actually hold a fall. Like most (all?) smart trad climbers, I'm
placing protection but I'm also determined that I am not going to
fall onto that protection.
Doug racked and ready to lead Bard
But, back to Bard. Doug speedily
finished the first pitch and I followed him up to the belay at the
top of the easy juggy ramp that ends pitch one. We swapped gear
around, realised that we didn't have our mobile phone with us - we
suddenly felt a bit more out there - and Doug led off on the infamous
traverse pitch. This is a bit of a funny pitch - 12 metres of
climbing, but you end up just a few metres above the last belay.
From below, all I could see was Doug's butt hanging out over space
and a lot of muttering about how difficult it was to see his feet.
Soon enough, however, he was building a belay on a small ledge
perched right on the arete of Bard Buttress. I was a bit worried
about the traverse pitch as I really do not like seconding traverses.
No matter how well the leader protects the second, it always feels
as if a pendulum fall is imminent. I need not have worried too much
as the climbing is not difficult, just hellishly awkward and Doug had
placed lots of solid protection. Like Doug, I soon found my head
jammed under the overhanging wall above my head as I inched my feet
across, and, once your head is jammed under that overhang, it is
surprisingly hard to extricate.
Head jamming the traverse pitch
Pitches three to five are just great
Arapiles climbing, nothing too hard, in fact, Bard feels a bit
over-rated by Arapiles standards to us. Pitch three has a slightly
balancy traverse to the right, and then you climb up a good corner to
a deep crack that has a couple of slightly strenuous moves as you
pull onto the next ledge. Pitch four is classic Arapiles jug hauling
and leads to the spacious Bard Terrace where we had a drink of water.
Finally, pitch five starts out very steeply (you can also climb the
awkward looking chimney) and gradually eases a little to the top.
Doug on Bard Terrace
The descent off Bard requires
downclimbing into Ali Baba's cave - the most obvious way to do this
is to slither down a slippery ramp to a big boulder and then make a
stretchy (at least for short person) move into the bottom of the
cave. It would be unfortunate to fall here - as is so often the case
on Arapiles descents - as you could easily fall into a rock
"crevasse" and break many bones in your body. Crawl
through the cave and then join the standard Alis descent down chains.
Last time we did this, we rappelled off another parties double ropes
and got all the way to the bottom. As we had only one rope, and the
rappel is over 30 metres, we clipped ourselves into the chains and
lowered ourselves down the highly polished "grade 3" (ha!)
descent. The chains run out before the bottom, but, luckily the last
downclimb is not polished and is nice and juggy. It's probably goes
at a YDS 5.3 (not class 3 as the conversion chart in the guidebook
would imply).
Doug in Ali Baba's cave
Once we were down, Doug commented on
how much more sense it would have made to simply add one more rappel
station so that parties could rappel with a standard 50 or 60 metre
rope. Way less hardware (there must have been a dozen bolts on the
chain line) and way safer. But, such is the Australian way - mired
as the climbing community is in ridiculous controversy about simple
safety upgrades. Ironically, but not for the party involved, a
climber was killed a few hours later descending another one of
Arapiles "standard descent routes". In this instance, the
descent requires downclimbing (most of them do) a slab (exact grade
unknown but it's not unusual for the "descent downclimbs"
to be YDS 5.7). The climber obviously felt unable to safely
downclimb and had slung a big boulder with his rope to use as a
handline. The boulder failed, the climber fell (only 3 to 4 metres)
but, the boulder also fell, unluckily on top of the climber, and he
succumbed to fatal head injuries. A couple of rappel bolts could
save all that anguish.
Protection is a little sparser than normal on pitch one of Bard
The day after Bard, I picked a couple
of routes in the Harlequin Cracks area. Right now I'm feeling pretty
solid leading 8's but I want to push that up to 10 or 11. This might
seem a lowly goal - and it probably is a lowly goal, but bear in
mind, I'm over 50, I've never been a really brilliant leader or
climber, and I haven't done any significant climbing since moving to
Australia two years ago.
According to the conversion chart
inside the cover of the Arapiles guide, grade 10 is 5.4, but, anyone
from North America knows that is nonsense, just as grade 3 is not
class 3. Grade 10 is probably around 5.7 here at Arapiles, and grade
13 feels like about 5.9. When I was climbing well, I could lead
5.10a's and the occasional 10b on bolts, but, I only ever led to
about 5.7 with perhaps the odd move or two of 5.8 on gear. I suffer
from a real lack of bravery when it comes to leading on gear.
Me leading the diagonal crack on Tale of Woe
In any case, I'm now picking routes
that have some pitches of 9 to lead, and, Tale of Woe, had a nice
range of grades on the route and I would lead it all. I started by
leading BA Mosquito (5) which is just a tad run-out. I had only one
very manky chock to make the crux moves and the piece below that was
so far down I would have hit the ground from 20 metres up if I fell.
I've been experimenting with only placing gear where I feel I need
it, instead of obsessively sewing up grade 6 routes. This works well
until the route suddenly gets harder and you have no possible gear
placements and your last piece is a long way down. Trad climbing is
a balancing act between placing so much gear you move slowly and pump
out, and placing so little gear that you risk a death fall.
Eyeing the crux on the grade 9 pitch
Tale of Woe starts from the top of BA
Mosquito and goes up a nice looking diagonal crack (grade 8). I
enjoyed leading this pitch although I inexplicably felt a bit nervous
- must be all the morbid thoughts I've been having lately. I kept
calm however, and just focused on placing solid gear. Ironically,
one of my chocks pulled when I moved past so clearly my gear was not
as solid as I thought. At the top of pitch one, Tale of Woe joins
Beau Geste. My third pitch was grade 9, and had that de ja vu, I've
been here before feeling as all I could get to start up the crux
moves was a manky chock and my last piece was way down below and off
to the side. Luckily, a couple of juggy moves later I got a good
cam.
I was using all double length runners
to reduce rope drag which left my rope hanging well below where I had
climbed and as I moved past it got caught in a crack under a flake.
Both Doug and I engaged in some frantic flipping to try and extricate
it - not that comfortable on a tiny steep ledge - but it kept
catching itself back in. Just when I had given up and figured I'd
just have to go for it and hope for the best, Doug managed to flip it
free and kept it free. You'd never believe it, but, I've twice in
the past had ropes jam in cracks when I was leading and both times
the ropes jammed in so solidly that I actually had to untie and keep
climbing. Luckily, I was climbing on double ropes both times and
only one rope jammed so I was not completely soloing (happened on the
rope eating cracks at Red Rocks, Nevada).
Finally, the last pitch on Tale of
Woe/Beau Geste is a bit of a let down as there is about 8 metres of
good climbing up horizontal breaks before the pitch deteriorates into
an easy ramble. I ran the rope all the way up to the top, but you
could easily just solo the last section. I was happy to have led all
the pitches and Doug enjoyed his day being "guided."
It was starting to feel pretty hot when
we finished, although it was only about noon, but, I thought I could
squeeze in one more pitch before the heat became intolerable. So,
after walking off (long but easy) we went over to the shady side of
Mitre Rock and I led the grade 7 first pitch of The Baptism. I've
led most of the other easy shady routes at Mitre Rock and it was way
too hot to climb in the sun. Doug started to lead pitch two (a grade
13 hand jam), but the opening moves were hard to protect and a fall
would have landed him onto the big belay ledge so he wisely climbed
back down and led Wee Skerrick (also grade 13) instead. I totally
butchered this route as I was not expecting it to be as hard as it
was, and ended up dogging on the rope. Personally, I thought is was
way harder than some of the 15's and 16's we've climbed at Arapiles
but Doug didn't agree so maybe I was doing something horribly wrong.
Which brings me to today's rest day - forecast to be 40 Celsius and
way, way too hot to climb.
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