Yuku free message boards

Phil's pics
www.pbase.com/phil_box/qu...m_festival

My pics
qurank.smugmug.com/gallery/8845

Simon's pics
www.pbase.com/simon_vos/r...e&page=all

I was writing an email to a mate about the weekend and thought it could serve as the basis for a bit of a trip report. Obviously there were heaps of people there so I couldn't include everyone's exploits. In fact, this is fairly me-centric so for that I apologise.

We had a successful first weekend of the season out at Redcliffs. It was a spectacle. 17 people and five 4WD vehicles made the 1.5 bush bash in there. My mate Neil (who I went to the States with) came up from Melbourne and it was his first trip out there. Simon Vos had put the word out to the Uni clubs, hence the crazy number of people. This time, the creek was flowing at the bottom of the gorge, so the outlook was a bit less 'dry' than usual.

The entire first day for me was spent cleaning new routes, drilling, and bolting. I was also taking the odd picture. Neil climbed about five of the classic routes this day, along with cleaning and bolting his own new route. His warmup was the 4m roof of Pendulus (23) which he fell off and took a big swing into space before getting back on and nailing it second shot. Cameron and James were hard at work trundling massive blocks off their new routes. At the end of the day, I dropped a rope over this prow.

The big prow has got my sport route Revenant (25) on it, which tops out about 5m right of where I'm standing in the pic. The proposed new route tops out where I'm standing. I rapped down the line and gave it a clean. Very overhanging and scary too, because I found natural gear placements on it, so I couldn't in good conscience put whopping ringbolts in it.

That night I ate barbequed Red Emperor with Phil and Neil and I did a movie showing from TV in the back of Phil?s truck. We started with my Blue Mountains video (5 mins), then Neil's Baffin Island climbing documentary (30 mins) and finished with Salt, Sea & Slopers - my Point Perpendicular video (5 mins). It went down very well.

On the second day I actually did some climbing. Neil sent his new route at 18. Neil wanted to take some piccies, so I took off my helmet and jumped on one of my new routes which is 30m long and traverses out to a very exposed position on an undercut arête. As soon as I made it out onto the arête, Phil (who was above me on a rope) dislodged a fist-sized rock which hit a ledge and flew diagonally down and smashed me in the head, drawing blood. That'll teach me for climbing without a helmet. Thankfully I didn't fall off, and topped out on the new route grading it 21. I also managed to get up Shark's Fin second shot, a nice 23 of Cameron's which Neil onsighted with ease. Simon pretty much onsighted it as well. Cameron and James climbed their new short routes at 17, 22 and 23. Neil did the sport-climbing thing, and rapped down Revenant (25), tickmarked the holds, placed the draws and then proceeded to flash it. Not bad for the hardest route on the cliff. It's amazing what a difference pre-inspection makes. What a dog!

At the end of the day I got Phil to give me a top rope on my proposed new prow route. I did climb it cleanly, but it was pretty hard, with four big heelhooks. The prospect of doing it on natural gear scared me.

A lot of people left on the second day, so there was only eight of us left on day three. I woke up early thinking about the new route. I grabbed Phil and headed down to the prow. A top rope would be a good warm up and would hopefully settle my nerves, and allow me to suss out the protection one final time. The top rope went smoothly so I was now ready to go, tied into two ropes with the gear all perfectly racked on my harness.

I started up the route Orange Overhang, a scantily protected 17. Three pieces of protection in 15m got me to beneath the roof and a sitdown rest. I then put two big cams in biscuit-like strata and equalised them with a webolette. They got clipped to my second rope. Standing up, I put in three yellow aliens. Two of these were equalised and the top one was clipped singly to the second rope. With five pieces in at this stance, I dropped my first rope and was committed to the overhang above. Pulling through the lip with a heelhook gives a welcome pocket and a big move to a juggy ledge. From the ledge I reached down a plunged my new purple alien (#1.5 friend-sized) into the pocket I'd just used. Another heelhook on the ledge with a small undercling allowed me to throw in a high #1 friend in a crack. This would be my last pro for the route. A couple of technical moves led to a fin which you layoff and pinch to get another heelhook up high and a very long reach to a good hold before the top. The well rehearsed moves came off nicely and I topped out very happy. It was my own little personal Hard Grit challenge. At this stage, I was very happy I hadn't placed any bolts. Parthian Shout (23) is now Redcliffs' hardest trad route.

After climbing a few other existing routes I hadn't done, I took some pics of Simon and Jerome having attempts on Revenant. To his credit, Simon attempet the onsight, placing the draws. Neither of the guys got the route cleanly, but I am certain they will on their next attempts.

The weekend was a huge success. Redcliffs now has 58 routes, and I'm sure there is a few more to go.

A belay ring? Where? At the base? That would be ugly, especially if there were two.