Ascents as Red point or Ground up red point as trad by Will Vidler

Lucky last on the birthday link up with Bluff Mountain and Crater Bluff - 15 hours and 55 minutes car to car. Also better than I remembered. We managed to find the base in the light which was nice as the scrambling was more involved than I remembered. Climbed the whole route in the dark and then rapped down etc etc yay we are done. Walked back to the car and ate some left over pasta my dad had made. Then we got in the car and left. A fun 21 hours in the Warrumbungles with 3 hours of sleeping and 18 hours of walking, eating, faffing, and rock climbing. I always say birthdays are for suffering but this one was really just silly and fun. Thanks for skippin’ school Haz.

Number Two on the birthday link up with Bluff Mountain and Belougery - 15 hours 55 minutes car to car. Soloed to the base of the crux pitch then simuled to the top in one block. Even better than i remembered. This thing is all time! Descending Green Glacier took longer than the route and is kinda shit (but very pretty).

Birthday link up with Belougery and Crater Bluff - 15 hours and 55 minutes car to car . I got quite lost on the first pitch because i’m an idiot and ended up 15m below the abseil anchor with no rope left. Harry came up and sorted us out like the weapon he is. Simuled the rest of the route in about an hour twenty. We topped out, asked some walkers where the descent was, and then wandered down and made ourselves sandwiches.

TR pre inspection.

One two three with Adrian, Brittany, and me.

Ground up over seven days and then we camped on top and hiked down on the eighth day. We pre-hauled to Hollow Flake Ledge, took two rest days, and then went up the route. Some nice Germans fixed the lines off Heart to above the Hollow Flake for us so we didn’t climb those pitches on our pre-hauling day and preserved our ground up as much as we could. We also didn’t do the Free Blast before our ground up attempt which was cool and definitely added to the experience. I top roped the Monster because I got tired of whipping from the move into it all the way back into the Ear in the dark at 5am and then gave the reigns to Jesse who fired it and then I followed. I top roped the Enduros because we didn’t do them first go and I also took the stance at the no hands ledge on the move off heart. These are my asterisks, do with them what you will.

I will probably write something more when my brain and body decide to work again.

Best thing i’ve ever done!

Brilliant route from James and Hugh! Deserves a whole lot more attention than it gets. With this, Harbinger, and La Niña, Boyce Town has some of the best under appreciated cracks in the mountains. Second go on the first pitch and then onsighted the upper two pitches linked together with Paul belaying on the ground. The first pitch is an amazing roof crack at about 24 that is unfortunately guarded by a pretty hard boulder off the ground (I do not know what grade it is). This should however not put you off! With one aid move or climbing in via a bolt to the left you can access the amazing upper crack which really is rad, or just do the move. The upper pitches are a bit shit and on shit bolts; either very old carrots or stainless bash ins. I wouldn’t really recommend bothering to do them. I didn’t enjoy the climbing and thought it was kinda dangerous; probably takes away from the quality of the first pitch. A much better thing to do would be to step right and finish up La Niña for sustained trad radness (or lower off). Because of rope drag and gear and general shitness and so I could rap clean the route, after pulling the steep section on the top pitch I climbed direct up the grey jugs instead of traversing left to the snappy orange rock for the last few metres. I think this makes the climbing less offensive and allows you to get to the tree belay on top in a way that means you can easily belay or rap. You can rap from this tree to the anchor at the top of the first pitch on a 70m.

One of the very best cracks in the mountains but I did not find it to be jugs. Seven days of effort, one some years ago and then recently three on TRS and three with partners. Thanks Paul for the send belay and Harry and Will for coming down on the other days to support. For the third pitch I did a long traverse right to meet up with Telstar placing no gear. It's a bit of a choose your own adventure up there but at least this way was easy...ish. Someone go do it and tell me what grade it is.

Mega mega mega! Definitely one to add to the trad canon. Started up Boisterous then stepped right at the ledge as per FA and pulled the rope up and dropped it back down at the stance for drag purposes. All the bolts had draws on them but I placed all the trad on red point except for the two fixed wires that I hung the draws on during the send. I could wax lyrical but you should just go do it instead. Second go.

Botched the onsight slipping off. Second go in the rain. Full value.

Nice!

As hard for one move as I remembered, and probably better. Finished up the arete.

Very wet and not very hard.

Still better than Eternity.

Dreamy. TR to warm up and get the gear back out of it after Swena’s heroic onsight attempt and then had a lovely time on the sharp end. One of the best routes at Araps, well protected, and not too hard for the grade by the standards around these parts. Single pitch (obviously).

Winner! Top roped to warm up and then had a go and thankfully that was the only one I needed. Lee followed me up and I tried to onsight the second pitch but got scared and jumped off before getting to the bolt. Did it pretty easily second go though just clipping the bolts and then some gear on the face after. Lee led the ‘third and most significant pitch’ though so maybe i can’t claim the tick after all. With routes like this it’s no wonder Tobin was a believer.

A joy.

First route of the trip.

Route number three. Also took about an hour from top back to top but that was because there were people everywhere and we didn't want to be too rude climbing over them.

Another great shenanigan with Erin, Olly, and James all leading portions of this and Jack being dragged along on basically his first rock climb. I soloed in and around the two parties checking gear and helping with anchor building and other random things. Pretty rad to see Erin and Olly step up to the plate and go questing into the semi unknown having not led trad before. Radical. Headed to Melbourne shortly after.

Did this in two pitches as a team of three and a team of two with James leading the whole way with Erin. Not bad for a first day of leading trad, I think he did experience some of the wonders of rope drag though on the 50m first pitch.

Better than I remember. Pretty proud of the logistical shenanigans we went through to do ten pitches of climbing as a group of five with only one confident leader.

A perennial favourite.

Off the list. Despatched in good retro flashing style. Loved it!

High point on your proj then multi pitch into the evening with ya Dad. Classic!

After Liz came down. Eternally brilliant.

Simul climbed in a laconic 35 mins or so. 28 draws, a number two cam, and one sling will let you clip every bolt and belay off something on top. I led.

A brilliant and very worthy mini tradventure. I fell off straight away at the start of pitch one, came down from the first piece of gear, ditched most of the rack because it weighed so much, and fired it off. Such a classic and quite feisty pitch, felt quite 23 honestly. Second pitch was a fun ramble, I broke off an enormous footer though and went for an unexpected and exciting one arm dangle. Pitch three is also great; a novel roof crack to start and pleasant layback to finish. Doubles (or triples!!) to 0.5 and singles above that seemed like a good rack. Wires were helpful too. Barely need any quickdraws, maybe four regular ones and two extenders for the roof on pitch three. You can also take one bolt bracket for the belay at the end of pitch two, but it probably isn't necessary. The bush bash off the top also wasn't too bad, definitely faster than trying to rap and walk out normally.

A fun evening doing some speed laps. Got it down to 1:55 on TR. Did it five times. Classic

All this talk about how this is really only 19 and we are all just fucking soft inspired me to come back and finish it off. Rapped in, top roped the business to warm up, then rapped to the ground and did both pitches. The weather was truly superb and it turns out it's all actually pretty easy when you know where the foot holds are (especially now that the offwidth is clean). I also did a sick layback transition to hand jam flowz move above gear which pleased me greatly. I like rock climbing.