This little guy was waiting for us in the parking lot after we topped out. He's called a crimson rosella. How can you not love a country that has these instead of pigeons? (Well - actually, they have pigeons, too...) By the way, you know what this guy's thinking, don't you: "Freakin' morons - you call that FUN??" |
Oh, did I mention the chalet on top? It's not cheap (although not outrageous either), but if you have the disposable income, you owe it to yourself to stay here the night after doing battle with Angels. Five minutes walk from the trailhead for the Angels approach, and about the same from the route's topout - can't ask for better than that! |
The climbing goes well. I grunt and gasp like an ancient asthmatic, but that's normal. Pitch 3 in particular involves sliding along my number 3 Camalot for fifteen or twenty meters, with only a couple of pieces dropped in along the way, when the crack changes size to match my remaining gear. Rope drag makes it a war: move, move, heave up rope, grab slack in teeth, slide up piece, repeat over and over, with suitable sound effects (grunt, gasp). Col, despite his cold, climbs quietly and efficiently. He runs pitches four and five (as counted by the chockstone guide) together, thus scarfing the nominal crux of the route. We both agree in retrospect, however, that we found pitch 1 and the "hard offwidth" of our pitch 6 (chockstone's 7) tougher. The only miscue is stuck ropes perpetrated by me on lead on our pitch 5. I build an anchor, Col ties in short and calmly solos the moves to the jam. I put him on belay on his short tie-in and bring him up to a good stance, then cannibalize my anchor and resume the lead. |
Meanwhile, the belayer's view of the North Wall does not suck. (If you're curious, check out this trip report of a North Wall climb.) |
I blew out of the office mid-afternoon Friday, November 19, headed direct for the plane. The following morning, ten and a half hours on my butt (two hours' sleep and two and a half movies) later, I touched down at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. Col was waiting patiently on the far side of customs. ("Nothing to declare, officer - except for this honking great bottle of duty-free Hennessy Champagne VSOP!") By mid-morning, we were rolling northeast for the granite of Mt. Buffalo, and around four hours later, the gear was in the dirt as we saddled up for a quick warmup. If you look closely at my butt bag in the snap below, you may be able to make out some black scribbling near the Lowe Alpine logo. That's the autograph of Yuji Hirayama , one of my climbing heros, which I picked up at a Nissan X-Terra publicity event at a mall in Yokohama. Got to shake his hand, introduce my kids and chat, and even got to run up a couple of routes on the portable wall they had set up. All this despite being there nominally on a family expedition, shopping for bunkbeds for the girls. Great to have an understanding wife. (Thanks Kaori!) Can't say my brush with greatness made me a better climber - in fact, I still pretty much can't climb for beans - but maybe it brought us luck, because we had stellar weather and no major snafus all week long. |
Australia - 2004 |
"I've been in Japan too long - Porter, wheel me to the airport!!" |
Yup, it's road trip time again, and this time it's destination Australia! My partner for the trip is Colin, a Melbourne native and IT expert, who showed up in my Tokyo office four or five years ago, needing to set up a Japanese subsidiary for his employer, an Australian Internet company. During one of those business-relationship building lunches that both of us love so much (yeah, right!), I asked him what he did when he wasn't working. The answer came back, "Climbing!" Not much further business was discussed... A couple of years of climbing partnership later, when Col's stint in Japan ended and he headed back to Melbourne, we daydreamed about a roadtrip down under. Now it's time to make it happen. |
I blew out of the office mid-afternoon Friday, November 19, headed direct for the plane. The following morning, ten and a half hours on my butt (two hours' sleep and two and a half movies) later, I touched down at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. Col was waiting patiently on the far side of customs. ("Nothing to declare, officer - except for this honking great bottle of duty-free Hennessy Champagne VSOP!") By mid-morning, we were rolling northeast for the granite of Mt. Buffalo, and around four hours later, the gear was in the dirt as we saddled up for a quick warmup. If you look closely at my butt bag in the snap below, you may be able to make out some black scribbling near the Lowe Alpine logo. That's the autograph of Yuji Hirayama , one of my climbing heros, which I picked up at a Nissan X-Terra publicity event at a mall in Yokohama. Got to shake his hand, introduce my kids and chat, and even got to run up a couple of routes on the portable wall they had set up. All this despite being there nominally on a family expedition, shopping for bunkbeds for the girls. Great to have an understanding wife. (Thanks Kaori!) Can't say my brush with greatness made me a better climber - in fact, I still pretty much can't climb for beans - but maybe it brought us luck, because we had stellar weather and no major snafus all week long. |
Here, Col casts off on the first pitch of The Pintle. |
Here's a shot of Col climbing the run out (but easy) final segment of the second pitch. And below is kind of a fun shot down off the side of our blunt arete, with the afternoon sun casting our shadows on the rocks far below. |
For our warmup, we picked a three pitch route named The Pintle on the highest, and one of the most distinct formations on the Mt. Buffalo Plateau: the Horn. I found various definitions on the Web for the word "pintle", but the one I like has it as a vertical metal pin attached to the leading edge of a rudder. When fitted into a metal ring or "gudgeon" on the sternpost of a vessel, the pintle allows the rudder to pivot and alter the vessel's course. The Pintle is a three pitch Aussie grade 13, but if you choose the left hand variation to the second pitch (as we did, and as the guidebook recommends), it boosts it to a very enjoyable 16 (U.S. 5.8). |
On the left, Col leads the third pitch, and below he brings me up. Let's have no cracks about color coordinated helmet and sweatshirt combinations, by the way, eh? This is, after all, the land down under, "where women glow and men thunder". |
One odd thing about the Horn is that it's got an observation platform on the top. Access to the Pintle (among other routes) is actually by stringing your rope around the railing's steel support beams and rappeling in. And if you're lucky, you get to climb your final pitch under the gaze, and humorous comments, of the friendly gapers. |
Can't say I blame them for making the walk up, however. the view from the platform does not suck. (The shot below is looking east (I think) from the platform at another formation called the Cathedral, which Col tells me has many quality one pitch routes - maybe next trip!) |
We ended up in a motel for the night, knowing that we wanted an early start the next morning, and not eager to mess around with striking a real camp. Our much anticipated long -route goal for the trip was waiting. |
Mt. Buffalo Warmup: The Pintle |
Where Angels Fear to Tread |
Imagine you're riding home on the train from a day's cold weather cragging south of Tokyo, fingers a little sore, and head well-warmed with beer and brandy. Your partner starts telling tales of nearly 300 meters of flesh-eating wide crack and offwidth down in darkest Oz. We're talking eight or nine pitches of perfect, gear protected, carnivorous granite with an old fashioned chalet at the top of the route. And graded within reach of us weekend warriors. He's never climbed it, he says, but someday... If you're an appropriately sick puppy, there's only one proper response to that, of course. You say: "Let's go get that sucker!" |
The route is Where Angels Fear to Tread (Direct Finish) Aussie grade 16/17, and the alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m. Colin has come down with a cold the previous evening, but doesn't hesitate for a minute to decide we're doing the route regardless. Angels climbs a buttress to the top of the Mt. Buffalo plateau, and the approach involves walking down from the top, before climbing the route back up again. We have an hour's drive up the plateau - Colin brakes fast to miss a wallaby that scoots across the road through the glow of our headlights. We saddle up in chilly conditions and are walking around 6:00. At right: those Australians are so hospitable - they've even equipped the approach trail with a picture of me!! |
The setting is pretty impressive. We wind our way down into the Gorge. Ahead of us is the unbelievable North Wall. No: girlymen like me do not climb the North Wall. There are routes there, but they're either aid or very, very hard. The upper portion of the Angels buttess is the sundrenched lower angle rock in the foreground. More than enough for the likes of me. |
We get to the base with only minor casting about for a hard-to-spot portion of the trail. Flake ropes and rack up. Tape gloves are the order of the day to protect our hands from the notoriously toothy granite, and I've brought along my Sportiva Mega shoes - board lasted clodhoppers that I'm hoping will protect my feet from the eternity of foot jamming that lies ahead. Launch time is around 7:00, and the first pitch, a splitter hand and fist crack that starts steep, then eases off, is all mine. The routefinding is unambiguous. Straight up the crack to the big freakin' tree. I grunt and struggle. Yes, it's true: I suck at crack climbing. As usual, I spend absurd and unecessary amounts of energy, and end up hanging twice to de-pump. Nonetheless the pitch goes down with reasonable speed, and I'm pretty satisfied. At right: Col saddled up for an early lead on Angels (maybe pitch two?). Got gear, much? |
Relatively low angle wide cracks mean vegetation. Col gets more than his share on this segment of pitch 2. Here, I think he's waiting for me to send up the hedge clippers. |
Meanwhile, the belayer's view of the North Wall does not suck. (If you're curious, check out this trip report of a North Wall climb.) |
The climbing goes well. I grunt and gasp like an ancient asthmatic, but that's normal. Pitch 3 in particular involves sliding along my number 3 Camalot for fifteen or twenty meters, with only a couple of pieces dropped in along the way, when the crack changes size to match my remaining gear. Rope drag makes it a war: move, move, heave up rope, grab slack in teeth, slide up piece, repeat over and over, with suitable sound effects (grunt, gasp). Col, despite his cold, climbs quietly and efficiently. He runs pitches four and five (as counted by the chockstone guide) together, thus scarfing the nominal crux of the route. We both agree in retrospect, however, that we found pitch 1 and the "hard offwidth" of our pitch 6 (chockstone's 7) tougher. The only miscue is stuck ropes perpetrated by me on lead on our pitch 5. I build an anchor, Col ties in short and calmly solos the moves to the jam. I put him on belay on his short tie-in and bring him up to a good stance, then cannibalize my anchor and resume the lead. |
Somewhere in there, Col takes my camera, the only one we have along for this route, and shoots some nice pics of me. (Thanks, mate!) I'm an egomaniac, so here are a bunch of them. At left. The offwidth that ate my head. |
I think this is the nominal crux pitch, which Colin cruised on lead. If I'm right, this is me just approaching the thin fingers section, which actually came as a bit of a relief for both of us, because for a few short meters we could actually stop with the freakin' foot jams! |
Another shot from the same pitch. |
And just past the hard off-width section on pitch 6, with a solid stem finally established. It looks like I'm smiling, but actually I'm suckin' wind. |
Col on top. |
Oh, did I mention the chalet on top? It's not cheap (although not outrageous either), but if you have the disposable income, you owe it to yourself to stay here the night after doing battle with Angels. Five minutes walk from the trailhead for the Angels approach, and about the same from the route's topout - can't ask for better than that! |
This little guy was waiting for us in the parking lot after we topped out. He's called a crimson rosella. How can you not love a country that has these instead of pigeons? (Well - actually, they have pigeons, too...) By the way, you know what this guy's thinking, don't you: "Freakin' morons - you call that FUN??" |
We're on the road again tomorrow, but tonight it's beers, food and sleep. Ahhhh! |
