16 October, 2006 

Four ropes were dropped over Wages of Fear (24), Cucumber Castle (23), Moonlight Fantasia (18) and By Ignorance (13). It was going to be a night of hard climbing, my fingers are still sore while typing this report. We had a good turn out: Chris, Frank, Trav, Fraser, Faz, Tom, Chris (Tom’s friend) and myself.

The Grass Anchor

More hard moves on Wages saw me come off trying to pull off a layback move. As I fell the top rope setup above whipped up the loose particles near the anchors. Looking up I could see debris on its way down. Worse was the sight of a black rope falling from above too. I cowered while I was showered with the debris. The belayers were also peppered by small rocks. Once it was over I looked back up to find the black rope was half way down the cliff and the end of it wrapped around a clump of grass! My first thought was that Faz anchored the excess rope around a clump of grass. The shock load that was transmitted to the anchors during the fall was the cause of the whipping frenzy that moved a lot of loose objects off the scree slope. The fact that the climbing rope is a bungie did not help stablize the whipping effect. Faz you need to decommission this rope (seriously)!

Wages’ crux remained unconquered. I barely made it to the crux. Fraser, Frank and Faz not far behind. And Chris not far behind them. That’s how hard these climbs are, each move up is a minor victory!

Trivial Pursuits (Climbing Edition)

"Did we do this last week?", Faz asks me as he stands in front of Cucumber. "It looks familiar."

Last week we were on the Rasp. Different climb, opposite end of the carpark, a heel hook start, and different grade.

Faz was serious too, despite claiming there was a hint of sarcasm. I think Alzheimer’s is setting in dude. It boggles my mind you are a teacher , you don’t remember shit except for very important trivia like this conversation last night:

"Dark chocolate is a highly addictive substance. White chocolate is okay, its just full of sugar", Faz proclaims.

"So I’m not a gay girlie guy then for liking chocolate?", says Frank sounding relieved.

"But it still goes straight to your hips Frankie!", Trav exclaims.

Climbing is either not important enough or the fabled Teachers Manual does exist. Remind me never to play Trivial Pursuit with the Faz, unless its the Climbing Edition.

Like Wages, Cucumbers crux also remained unconquered. The contrived start had many victims and claimed Tom and Chris but no one cleaned the starting moves. Faz and I managed to get to the crux but could not work out the sequence to defeat it.

While I was working out the crux, I yelled to Faz who was on belay, "What do you think is the next move?"

Instead of a reply from Faz, I hear "Just put your hands up!" from what must have been a 4 year old. Thanks for the advice kid. Trash talking me at that age. Sheeesh.

Moonlighting the Mantle

Most people spent some time figuring out the mantle moves on the crux of Moonlight. Chris, Fraser, Frank, Trav (cleaned it) and Tom all got to the top. This climb did get a bit of traffic mainly due to its grade and good rock: nice face wall start and then a decent arete before hitting the high crux position.

The Wedgie Epic

By Ignorance was climbed by Tom, Trav, the two Chris’ (we need nicknames) and Matt. A world record for the longest time spent on an 18m single pitch climb was broken by Matt. It was like watching instant replay at the big ledge before the head wall: Raise arms up to small holds. Right knee up. Right knee down. Move arms back down. In between each move, wait 5 minutes. And repeat the whole sequence again. While Matt was trapped in his own Groundhog Day he had a belay relay happening down below: Tom (30 minutes), me (15 minutes) and Trav took the graveyard shift (10 minutes). It wasn’t until Fraser reached Matt via Moonlight that Fraser resorted to an unorthodox technique to get Matt off that nice comfortable big ledge: The Wedgie Lift. Grab hold of the harness from behind and give an almighty lift! It took two wedgies until Matt got off that ledge. The thought of a third wedgie might have had something to do with the incentive to get up See its all a mind game. Matt did have another climb and cruised up to the ledge again, but decided to keep his time up there short.

Next week we will be repeating the same climbs. Each of us have a nemesis to battle with!

Nic, bring along that special stopwatch. Not for Matt’s 2nd attempt at the world record, but for the belay relay team time splits. We will need 200 belayers.

Oh, and it was a good night for walking