TR: Mt Buffalo, I hope this inspires many more memorable adventures for the rest of the year.

Attendees: Mike and James.

To me adventurous climbing is where its at. It doesn’t have to be dangerous or hard. Just a full day out in a spectacular location where you can get up high. To me that’s real rock climbing. Summer brings longer days and potential for longer climbs, but the enjoyment goes down when I get cooked. Also I don’t think I look so good in red.

I’m eager to poke around the Warrumbungles but a trip in summer would probably leave me wrinkly sun-dried. Buffalo provides a cooler alpine option and granite slabbing is something I don’t get to do much. Mike had time to go on the Australia day long weekend but wasn’t able to make the trip when others had planned to go at the beginning of February, so I agreed to join him.

We left Sydney at around 4:30pm on Friday and arrived at the river near Porepunkah at about 1am. Mike slept in the car and I stretched out next to the river. With a dead rat just up the road and a lot of low ground cover I thought I might have a few furry friends that night but they didn’t come to visit.

The view from the park entrance

We drove up the mount to Lake Catani for breakfast then headed out to the Cathedral for a bit of climbing. In the afternoon we had planned to scope out the gorge and Where Angels Fear to Tread (17) before making a run at it the next day, my main reason for coming this far. I was skeptical but Mike assured me we would be back to the car for lunch so I postponed my need to unblock myself and didn’t bring much water or food up to the crag. Big mistake.

We got there and took a few moments getting our bearings and working out where to go. For our first climb at Buffalo I picked out something low grade (13?) thinking it would be a nice introduction. Turns out this was the first in a series of sandbags. The first few meters were an easy ramble up to a corner. The left wall of the corner was slightly less than vertical and the right wall vertical or very slightly overhanging. In the corner itself was a wide crack on the right and a small shallow crack on the left. I procrastinated a little at the bottom of the crack trying to work out what to do. In the end I just pulled on because hey, its only a 13. On the walk down it looked innocuous, just a ramble up a corner. I started out laybacking off the slopey wide crack on the right and struggled up a few meters. It quickly became clear that I was doing something wrong. I switched to laybacking the small shallow left crack. Hmmm I was still doing something wrong. I hadn’t yet worked out the whole smearing business and was torquing both feet in the wide crack thus putting a lot of weight on my hands. Half way up I was pumped, exhausted and although I could hold on and maintain my position a couldn’t seem to work up the energy to keep pushing on, so I shoved in a big cam and reluctantly called down for Mike to take. At this point I was a little bit stunned and didn’t really know what to think. I’m not super strong but I should be able to manage a 13 no problems shouldn’t I? Oh, and did I mention I popped the two pieces of gear below the cam I was hanging on? This wasn’t a good start. After growling my way up a few more meters and hanging again I decided some smears were on. But damn, it was sketchy. Somehow I reached the top of this pokey little climb alive but seriously questioning myself. I slung a bush and wiggled in a bodgy hex and nut for an anchor. Mike came up clean but not without effort. We were both knocked down a few pegs from that one.

A friendly old fella was accompanying a couple of young lasses up Maharajah (17), a crag classic which we had also planned to do. They were making slow progress and Mike was in his usual unenthusiastic state so we decided to wait around for a while. Mike didn’t look like he intended to do much for a long time, and he didn’t. I pretty seriously wanted to visit the toilet and immediately regretted my decision not to find one earlier and to leave the food and water at the car. I amused myself with a bit of scrambling, looking in awe at the slabby hard routes, the various solo first ascents, watching one bloke get pissed off at his partner for not tying in on a traverse pitch before he had pulled the rope away from him, playing with the camera and some resting in the shade.

Mike is sleeping

After a few hours Mike finally decided he had worked up enough energy to get on Mahurajah. It was his lead so he took the first pitch. The start was a bit of an off width and as we were both very much learning granite, Mike had a few false starts and a hang (another sandbag?). My bigger hands probably made it easier for me. I took the second and best pitch and it forced me in a good way to reluctantly put heavy weight on my smears and learn the technique. We finished the climb after 5pm. I packed up quick, waited for Mike and hurried back down to the car. Thankfully that building we had parked near was a toilet. My guts soon stopped groaning at me.

Coming down from Mahurajah

Since we had spent most of the day not doing an awful lot there wasn’t enough time to properly scope out Angels Buttress so we just headed back to The Gorge for a rest, dinner and the night. Wandering over to the lookout for my first view of the gorge I remember peering down and very happily thinking ‘Oh, this is big. Yes, I like this. This is real climbing, haha.’. It really is a beautiful sight and an inspiring location. Driving away from the Cathedrals, after being hammered on the first climb I was a little concerned about our chances with Angels, but looking at the gorge now I was super psyched. While Mike had another sleep I wandered around, found the hang glider ramp and resisted the urge to walk down it and peer over the edge (its steep and slippery!).

Exciting jump off the hangliding ramp

The Gorge. Angels Buttress is the slabby looking buttress on the left, middle-ground

After dinner a couple of blokes turned up in a Porsche 4wd with a long static and slept in the hut with Mike. The allure of a night under a clear starry sky with a 360 degree view was much more appealing to me so I slept on the lookout. It was a fantastic night staring up into the heavens with a nice cool breeze blowing over me. I awoke in the morning with the sun and was perfectly positioned to watch it rise. At about 7am I heard car doors slamming so I hurriedly put some clothes on and got up. Turns out it was only Mike and the Porsche drivers. I wasn’t going to be part of any amusing tourist photos.

Orion was high in the sky

After another brekky at the lake watching the ducks play we headed out to The Horn, the highest point at about 1700m. Today was also the day of a cycle race up the mountain. Poor buggers, they didn’t look happy. We climbed Pintle (16) which was very nice. At the end of the second pitch the guide book says scramble down left and chimney right to the start of the last pitch. Ok, sure. Down we go. Peering in, not really a chimney as its horizontal but definitely a squeeze. I got a few meters in and up to the end blocked by a small unmovable (yes I tried) boulder. I untied the rope backpack, wriggled my helmet off and tossed it through. It smelt like people used it as a toilet and my shoulders wouldn’t fit through. What the hell? Not what I was expecting. How do people do this? At this point the fixed sling at the top of the second pitch made more sense, just rap down 5m to the right instead of crawling through urine and getting stuck. I backed out and decided to do the rap. Mike rates himself on the squeeze boulder at Araps so he wanted to give it a go. I quickly scrambled back up and rapped down to the squeeze exit with camera ready. Mike didn’t fit either. Another definite guidebook sandbag, only a pigmy is going to get through there, seriously. To get the best camera shot I had rapped down into a widening bridge as far as I could stretch my hammies. I paused for a moment pondering how to extricate myself with all my skin. It was only 1.5m to the ground so I put the camera away and tried to lower my butt to the nearest boulder. My right foot slipped and I spun and slammed into the rock on my right. First blood to the lovely coarse granite .

The very pretty Lake Catani

You can't fit through that

First Blood

We were greeted at the top of the last pitch by a few very interested tourists and some very pretty butterflies who I had to battle with to get a decent photo (the butterflies, not the tourists).

We headed back to The Gorge for lunch, watched some hang gliders take off and Mike had yet another sleep (old man territory now). To prep for Angels we checked out Burston’s Crevasse, the exit scramble from the top of Angels Buttress and trundled down the start of the walk-in to mushroom rock. We made some tape gloves. Mike omitted fist jam protection from his model and later regretted it. They took a while to put together but I was happy with mine and they make you feel hardcore because all the normal tourists stare at you. Bare knuckle fights in the carpark at sundown. Be there .

Tape armour

The gear

We assembled a rack including a total of 19 cams, a hefty rack indeed. Mike dissuaded me from hauling up the no. 6. . As it turns out we didn’t need it. I prefer not to climb with a monkey on my back so at the last minute I downsized from carrying 3L of water to 2L and decided to thoroughly hydrate myself tonight and in the morning before we left. For dinner we both carbo loaded by forcing down a pile of pasta.

The entire weekend we had been strategising on what our approach should be to maximise our enjoyment. The Angels buttress is lower in the mountains than some of the other climbing areas and is essentially in sun the entire day so it has the potential to get hot. We thought a 4:30am start would allow us to walk down in the dark and start the climb at first light.

My decision to skull water the night before came back to bite me. Too much liquid, within an hour of curling up in the hut I pulled my pants back on and trundled to the toilet. Walking to the toilet shirtless I noticed how warm it was, an ominous sign, not cold at all. Being a naked sleeper I stayed inside my inner sheet but wished I was out at the lookout again in a bit of privacy where I could lie in all my natural glory in the breeze under the stars. After hours of sphincter clenching and my stupid self thinking ‘its nearly time to get up, just hold it’, my rooster alarm gave us the go and I rolled out of bed and into the toilet to drain my main vein. Relief.  We suited up in tape armour and fuelled ourselves with banana.

The end of The Gorge at Sunrise. Just stunning.

Time to go. The reason I had come. The Gorge. The adventure. The experience.  Following the track down at sunrise we were focused on making good time but kept the eyes on what is a beautiful location. The line of the first few pitches looked fantastic, a pure jam crack and by the time we got to the bottom I was raring to go. However we had already decided that Mike would take the first pitch where the crack was slightly thinner and my bigger hands would enjoy the width a little higher up.

Mike started up the first pitch but found it tough going.  He was looking pretty desperate and insecure and needed a number of hangs and rests to make the end of the first pitch. I was a little concerned that the first pitch had taken so long but I had expected the first couple of pitches to be tricky and for it to take some time for us to get the rhythm. The start of the climb is fairly steep, just under vertical before slabbing out a bit roughly 10m up. The crack flares outward and if you are prepared to get up close and personal you can jamb it how you like, hands, wide hands, fists and forearms. Despite his displeasure I couldn’t help grinning to myself. I knew I was going to enjoy this. I made use of all sections of my lower arms to make my way up to join Mike at the first belay. I was cursing the double ropes in the crack which were continuingly thwarting my attempts to get some flowing jamb moves. Next time I want the lead. I took a quick sip to focus myself and racked up. Seeing Mike struggle so hard with the first lead I was a little apprehensive but the first pitch was within my limits and I had enjoyed it. After manipulating myself to get above the anchor in the crack I was feeling quite comfortable and confident. I worked my way up nice and steady along the wide crack to its end. It was good physical climbing, some interesting bridging moves between cracks, plenty of jamming, smearing, heel toe, offwidthing. All good stuff. At the top I cautiously smeared left four or five meters on a no hands traverse to switch cracks and plop down to rest at our second belay.  I had read tales of the climb and thought the no.5 BD cam might be useful on my pitch but I hadn’t needed it. Since I had dragged roughly all half kilo of it up I used it for the anchor along with a couple of small finger sized cams, which really demonstrates how nice a crack it is and the potential for what you can get up to inside it. By now the sun was beating down and I settled in for a stint on belay to bring Mike up and then swing leads.

As Mike drew closer toward me I noticed the grunting and groaning were more excessive than Mike’s normal surly sailor, I hadn’t heard him make noises like that before, a sort of groaning whimper. At some point he popped off and came into view with a face that said ‘let it stop’. After some more hanging and resting he arrived at a stance and stopped to recuperate. Mike told me he was struggling with the physicality and getting decent smears. He looked exhausted. I was baking away in direct sun and the rock was radiating heat. I offered to keep leading because we needed to keep the pace up and though I was hot I was otherwise fine and preferred to lead. After a bit of a break and the seeing that the angle was easing Mike declined and set off up. It wasn’t long until his exhaustion got the better of him and he rested on the rope. A move or two later he took a small fall. Comparatively the climbing was easy so it wasn’t looking good. I could see Mike was in discomfort, but I was quite sure with enough determination he could at least second to the top. To much amusement of others, I also have considerable experience in hauling, but that is another series of stories… . Back to the climb at hand, I thought we could make it and really wanted to get to the top and I offered to lower him down and do the leading. He suggested bailing. I didn’t want to but climbing happens as a pair and I couldn’t force him to go on, it could have been dangerous if he really couldn’t cope. Anyhow I had wanted an adventure and my first bail counts for that.

As far as we got. Down off this bush

I lowered him, cleaned his gear and set an abseil off a shrub, backed up by a small shrub lower down. Mike went down first. The rope didn’t quite reach a large shrub and Mike didn’t like the look of the smaller ones. He set a medium hex (belonging to him!) for the abseil backed up by a small shrub and down we went to the bottom.

On the way down Mike had mentioned someone had told him you don’t want to do the walk in more than once and now that he was doing it he agreed. Ironic? By the time we got back to the top of the gorge I think Mike had had enough and wanted to go home, so we came home a day early.

Having come home a day early and not having any other plans I have spent my Australia Day writing this trip report, watch a marathon of Poker Stars and the cricket. Just looking at my knees now I have two bruises one on the inside of each knee. Bruises are something I haven’t had for some time. Its good to have them back.