Caves and Climbing

There’s a new book out with the ambitious aim of reducing rock climbing accidents mostly based upon the writers experience at Portland’s busiest crag, Ozone. Every town and city in every country in the world has an Ozone. There may be more accidents at the Ozone’s across the world but some of that is simply a reflection of the number of people climbing at the world’s Ozones. My first thought was the new book will add little to a topic which is already more thoroughly covered in other books. The Mountaineers, of course, have their excellent series on rock climbing, and other authors such as Andy Kirkpatrick have covered any other details likely to be missing. But perhaps, a new book is just what is needed to assist gym climbers transition to outdoor climbers.

Years ago, we climbed a route called Takakkaw Falls in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. We were a party of three climbing with a friend who had climbed the route recently and knew all the different route variations. There was a party above us, coincidentally people we knew from our time in the Calgary Section of the Canadian Alpine Club (CAC) and they were a little slower than us so we had to wait at some belay stations. At the 8^th pitch of this 10 pitch route, a big bulky body builder type bloke wearing only shorts (no shirt, no pack) leading two timid and similarly scantily clad women on one rope approached from below. He was linking pitches and climbing fast. Which is actually no surprise as the entire party must have been very cold as the appeal of the route (it’s certainly not the climbing which is easy and loose, very, very loose) is that it ascends a wall right beside the thundering Takakkaw Falls and is frequently misted by water from the falls.

The top of the route has a cave which you crawl and squirm through to stand right beside the falls. At almost 400 metres high and fed by the Peyto Glacier, the falls are the second highest in Canada and impressive especially up close. After viewing the falls we crawled back through and discovered a new traffic jam at the top of the route. Our bodybuilding friend was tethered into the only bolt on the final pitch of the route (25 metres, 5.5) because he had run out of rope trying to link pitches. Our CAC friends who had been exiting the tunnel when we were entering were waiting to rappel the route. So we all waited because Sly (we had started calling our hulkster friend, Sylvester Stallone) had decided to climb the route in clothes more appropriate for the beach than a Canadian Mountain while linking pitches that were not necessarily able to be linked with the rope he had.

Finally, Sly and friends, cleared the middle of the pitch and we rappelled all ten pitches as a party of six. This worked really well as we had two sets of ropes so could leap-frog down with one party of three setting the new ropes while the other party cleaned the previous pitch. Just as we hit the scree at the base of the wall, a brewing thunderstorm finally broke with thunder, lightening and torrential rain. Luckily, we had only to scrabble down the loose scree to the tourist trail and back to our car, but, for years afterwards I wondered what had happened to Sly and his friends, dressed as they were and with only one rope to descend 10 pitches with only one (allegedly) experienced climber in a group of three. I searched the American Alpine Club’s database and they don’t appear there, although there are other accidents from Takakkaw Falls.

There are two rather obscure points to this story, one is that accidents are frequent in popular areas where no amount of “education” will result in a zero accident rate, the other is the tunnel, which is a lead-in to crawling through the Gosangs Tunnel on the Beecroft Peninsula near Currarong. We had been climbing at Nowra the day before and drove out to Currarong to hike out to Gosangs Tunnel and around Coomies walk. Gosangs Tunnel was closed for years but finally the steel pylons put in to “enhance safety” are complete and the tunnel is open again. It was strangely reminiscent of crawling through the tunnel on Takakkaw Falls route but, of course, at a much lower elevation and you look out over short but steep sea-side cliffs instead of waterfalls and pine trees.

The whole circuit walk is worth doing with all the little side trails to Mermaid Inlet, Beecroft Lookdown, Moores Inlet – the best view is probably from Moores Inlet – and back via Merimbula Trig and the cleverly hidden lookout platform in the trees which despite its modest elevation does show both sides of the Beecroft Peninsula.