A Trip Report by ET

Role Call:

It began for me at 5:30am in the morning. Having no one to chauffeur me from my place to the crag, I was forced to wake up at this ungodly hour and walk to the station to get to the Ledge… only to miss the train I was aiming for. When I make it to the Ledge I find most the group already there, some looking better than others but for the most part looking like battle weary prisoners of war as opposed to the happy cheery group of bumblies that can’t contain the anticipation of doing their first lead. Mike’s birthday being the night before (and the drinks that came with it) may had something to do with it. I too was at the party, though I did leave a little early since there was climbing to be done at Medlow Bath, place I’ve never been to before, but I digress.

We all dump all luggage and gear into our respective vehicles and make our way to Blackheath. I ended up in Will’s car with Nick and Anauld, whose legs were clearly too long in the back yet he managed to sleep all the way. There was the usual chit-chat on the car, but I was half asleep since it was still the early hours of the day, however I did start paying attention as we went past Medlow Bath in an attempt to see the crag where we had agreed to climb for the day. Of course once we got to Blackheath, the Double D (DD looks like a bra size for some reason…) decides to change the venue to Mt York at the last minute… I definitely wasn’t impressed by this decision but the rest of the group didn’t really care at that point. So off we go to Mt York when suddenly, about 5 minutes to the crags parking lot, the Double D pulls over for no apparent reason. Being to the crag before and knowing that we haven’t reached it yet, there was some confusion in our car… which was soon answered by a door flying open and Kate lurching out and demonstrating complex fluid dynamics in biological systems with previous nights Long Islands, Moscato and vodka in what appeared to be a sacrificial offering to the dirt patch by the road. After Kate’s detoxification we continued to find out that Mt York has been practically taken over by “adventure” groups.

Things were looking grim in terms of the crowd, but thankfully sector 7 was devoid of human lifeforms other than ourselves. So the instructing began, the Double D showing the ropes (no pun intended) of leading to the bumblies. After the usual spiel on the many ways in which one may prevent injuries (or at least reduce the severity) and/or their demise, it was up to the rest of the crew to invent new ways of hurting themselves… and have fun leading of course. Seeing that there was a lack of bolt plates I was forced to climb a “contrived” line with no name, but thankfully was bolted by someone civilized with ring bolts. In fact, I’m sure this was one of the few climbs in the area where the person can hold onto decent holds and actually be able to comfortably reach the bolts. As for the rest of the area, most of the bolts were carrots placed frustratingly out of reach of a person of normal height from the last set of decent holds. Thus one would have to:

1. venture from the good holds on to some sketchy ones that should only be in transition between good holds
2. reach into their chalk bags for their bolt plates
3. place the bolt plate over the carrot
4. reach for their quickdraw from their gear loop
5. thread the quickdraw into the bolt plate
6. hesitate about whether they should call for slack when pumping out on a sketchy hold
7. call for slack
8. haul the slack up with the aid of their teeth
9. attempt to clip the stupid rope with arms so pumped that the could be mistaken for gorilla arms
10. and finally do one of the following
    1. fail and take a big whipper
    2. back clip the rope because the large amount of slack required confuses the new leader

Its bad enough that the person who did most of these bolts was either a friggin giant or abseiled down and didn’t consider where a normal person would be comfortable reaching for their quickdraws, but whoever bolted the place did it with primarily carrots. I mean who was the “genius” who came up with the concept of threading bolt plates on to carrots, which potentially be the wrong size, whilst you’re pumping out the part of the rock face as featureless as Victoria Beckham’s chest… it’s no wonder why we keep losing bolt plates. In fact, a couple who were climbing at the crag with us on the day found out that a single bolt on the route I Know Boats (17) was of different size to the others and none of the bolt plates they had would fit on it, admittedly to my amusement as I was cleaning the route Stinkeye (15) right next to it (Schadenfreude, People taking pleasure in your pain!). But again I digress.

The Mezzaluna (16) proved to be a popular climb for all, its main quality being the potential new facebook profile picture… For the most part the day however, was relatively uneventful (a good thing) and its definitely a positive to note that we didn’t leave any craters. However, there wouldn’t be any need to write a trip report if nothing happened. There were the two big whippers whilst clipping resulting in Aline twisting her ankle on the contrived route and Sean coming close to decapitating himself as he swung into a mini cave on Mezzaluna. Kudos to the belayers (I believe they were David M with Aline’s whipper and Lachlan with Sean’s) for holding on and preventing further, more serious injuries. Lachlan taking one for the team when the heavy Sean fell 5m+, burning his hands in the process. In addition to these, there was also Anauld’s first attempt at cleaning (on Noodle (15)). The good thing was he remembered everything that was said about cleaning… the bad thing was he forgot to leave a large enough tail when redoing his figure of 8 knot. Always remember to leave a hand span length of tail when using a figure of eight. One moment Anauld is relaxing, taking pictures as he’s being lowered, the next he’s panicking, urging me to lower him faster and holding onto the rope in an attempt to prevent his tie in knot disintegrating. When he reached the ground, his figure of eight was no longer doubled back the entire way and was probably not going to hold his weight. Luck was probably the only thing that made him notice that his knot was undoing itself when he was taking pictures with his camera… There was also the `hippie’ ladies which were telling Steve off for throwing rocks… but I missed the entire dressing down and had a civilised conversation with them before hand, so I’m not sure what to make of that.

Anyway at the end of the day Nick, Will and Rob left early. Aline with the sore ankle crawled out on all fours, refusing aid for a lot of the way. The Double D, Kate and I were left to sort the gear, finding out we’re missing half the bolt plates. The three us plus Sean and Fiona then headed to the bar at Blackheath for some grub. You’d think the rest of the trip was uneventful, but for some reason trouble always seems to find us… When we finally arrive back to the university, Fiona drives into the Physics building carpark where we dump the gear. I decide to carry the quickdraws and slings around my shoulders when Fiona points out that the slings are dragging along the ground. Thinking that this was only going to be a quick trip anyway, I ignore that fact, open the doors to the Annex only be choked by the cordellete as the slings caught the corner of the door. We then proceed to my office, where we notice the automatic lights to the floor is on and that a door near my office is open, to which Kate remarks loudly “What loser would be working at 9 on a weekend.” By the way, Roman asked me on the following Monday morning if that was me making the huge fuss outside his office that night… I’m glad his English isn’t fluent, but next time Kate, keep in mind that these people work on the same floor as me and by elimination determine who is making the kerfuffle before declaring to the world that they must be losers for working on weekends.

Finally the pictures of the day… you guys can add it yourself from the comments since I didn’t take any photos…

Anyway if anyone wants to add anything, add it to the comments below. Don’t like my report, write one yourself :p

ET