Ascents in Frog Buttress by Jack Seawright

Planned to climb with just kyle this morning: kyle at 830pm last night: just met a yosemite climber in the gym.. i think ive talked him into frog in the morn. Me: cool well bring him. Leave at 6? Kyle: cool! Nah 4. Fuck. My eyes sting. Worth it though, 5 longish pitches done! In feb on a 31degree day with a party of 3! We were moving. Alex was moving on conquistador. Onsight speed record probably, he looked way to smooth. So i stepped in, kyle, i said, enough with this donating him classics, im gonna show him what happens on your ~60th trip out here. Now alex has experienced 4 classics and a wasp infested arete variant jammed between some classics! Shit talk aside though, this was surprisingly good. Cant decide whether the traverse out from totga felt contrived or delightfully airy, but once the reachy carrot is clipped, 20m worth of thoughtful side pulls, blind holds and high feet on both sides of the arete ensues. Definitely a deserving route in its own right even amongst elite company either side. Started getting warm up high so we collected our chips and headed to get kyles favourite steak sanga and i pilfered alex for his usa beta.

So you think you can climb frog 22s? I did until this morning. Never been beat down this hard by a crux. It didnt help that i had crack goggles on and tried to jam the awful groove until my 10th? go when i finally submitted to a gaston and it went. I trooped through to the top through the garbage terrain above the crux feeling humiliated. Didnt get proper sweary until our impulse aid session.. thought id had my day ruined before that! Heres to becoming a grumbly old man. Great to meet sam j in the flesh and plummet together and find out our disc personality types.

After chippies and choc milk and a moog swim, i dragged johnny back down to the crag only to give the game away wigging out over a shit cam and calling take post-crux-move. Felt surprisingly good on the face holds. Belayed johnny with a spectacular red sunset backdrop.

22 start is pretty thin alright. Skipped it after 2 fails. Varied climbing up corner then wild traverse into r&r. Bailed off r&r last time due to not enough gear so all the climbing was new to me. Johnny and yim had front row seats of the top half from theory ledge. Laughed at me for the rope drag, then asked me to pause in positions for photos while cruxing out. Yim even said "nah dont hold the jug, looks better if you hold the crimp". Eventually it was jespers turn. He had had enough by the traverse, fair enough. I lowered him off just as yim rolled up and tied straight in. Gettin warm at froggie but snuck this in before the fucked sun.

Much better than last years gear zipper retreat attempt. Some facey moves down low teased my fingies abit but the jamming and ow felt very secure. One of the best lines out here for steamy stemming and i like abit of air uo between my legs. Dont take that the wrong way.. no do actually.

Squeeked in before an online job interview thanks to johnnys slick barnstorm up infinity. Alot of variety in it makes for a good adventure. Difficulty wise, 1 hard sequence; nice and airy. Bit hard not to touch infinity up high but yeah nah yeah, happy to have done it

Is it 20 or 21 the jury is out. I vote 21. Overhanging double finger press with blind footjams is kind of rude for 20. Rather backhanded way for me to welcome myles back to outdoor climbing. Myles: "ah crux is abit hard, lower me down cheers mate!" Me from my elay at the BST chains well off to the right: "ahhh how do i put this gently.. this one is a mandatory top out mate.. sorry." Speaking of rude at 20, trap for young players is surely at least 23 for fat fingered gentlemen goizus. Was not expecting that humbling right before lunch. Drank it off at the doogs with an ORIGINAL northern while myles out-hydrated me with a crisp. Probably the superior option all things considered.

Iron mandy, antifrom, oppenheimers and drop out. Good morning with kyle and a couple up-and-comers on the frog scene. I may have accidentally stood on a carrot on oppenheimers.. hmm.. not sure. Right in the cruxy section aswell. Dodgy form. Placing gear up top was the job of a librarian stacking the shelves. Move the rock to the side and stuff the gear in.

100th route at frog! Crux must be about gr25 for shorties, but a nice committing highstep one-mover if your 6ft tall. Pretty happy with the decision to get up at 430 for this one. Jimbos following ascent of epic journey - 'aid journey' as he put it - was an absolute spooge exhibition: young families, fairy floss and seasonal flu; the works.

What starts as horseshit pinscar aiding (not necessarily aid climbing, i chose to aid) turns into some lifechanging climbing up high with a showstopper boulder crux. Call me tomoa seawright. Im a boulderer now. Got up there and before i knew it, found myself out on the arete in a very much undownclimbable position. To quote the 2009 box office classic 'groove train' starring lee cossey; "i was definitely screaming like some sort of... ... (shrugs) .. dunno". Stoked to pull through and sunbake up top with rick while yim did more talking than climbing on 'third'. 9 star morning with totga and quisto getting a run from the boys.

'Top rope with serious amounts of aid'. What i thought would be a fun evening of tr with the boys turned out to be an annoying anchor build and blind climbing a 24. Cant climb that even with vision. Got hauled up, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, i apologised and suspect the first round at the doogs might be mine.

Log from last week. Logged humility instead (wtf). A few sits and good whips on the 'final nut' which needed abit of saliva in the end to get out from memory. Climb doesnt feel too despo tbh but im sure ill change my tune on the clean attempt. Much more my style than impulse. Fuck you impulse you beautiful but hard climb.

Absolute classic. Actually good gear the whole crux if you do it in daylight. Great keyhole wire in there. Good to not take the crazy whip again! Did this with a random fella from araps who was escaping a party of 3, as was i. Decided of all the splitters he was missing in araps, id take him up one of the most araps style climbs at the crag, like an aussie ordering a fish and chips in the alps.

Jumped on after ricks ety kate onsight. Starts sick but abit back yourself getting gear in. Had to get 3 pieces in from the kneebar - yes you read correctly, kneebar - before i was confident to move on. Stepping up and right through the undercling is very unique here and a good reminder of why i risk my ankles sometimes to climb these types of routes. A few good cams then up through the pumpy chosswall (not super loose but dont blindly trust shit) to the chains. Stoked to move through carefully and find a safe way to climb what would subjectively be labeled a dangerous climb by many.

Pretty good gear right up to where you start getting scared and pumped and the placements abandon you. Baulked at the crux 3 times almost coming off each downclimb, finally got a woeful cam in, sat, placed a bomber rp, went back on, fired the crux, footslip, rp took some heat but it wasnt getting free. Went through to the top through the very scenic cave/flake top out. Pretty nice climb although yim disagreed. Speaking of, someone who doesnt have the crag unfortunately onsighted their first 22 and theyll have to be ok with no one knowing unless they know to ask. Sad days

Pretty serious little piece. Nice to fiddle with the rps again. Nice not to test them with a 75kg fall. Moves are quite cool. Bring on arete season!

Cool right foot offwidthing. The lads had a chuckle at my efforts to place a wire at one point. It almost went in. But alas, another pure cam ascent. Sport climbing with portable bolts. Some angry ants at half height taking up some real estate on a pretty good hold there. Pop some mortein in the chalk bag gang.

Direct start is thinner than a pack a day dart puncher. Relieved my halfnut from further pounding and came in from yankee. Much better. Nice unique movement and some orgasmic jamming up high. Worrrrtthittttt

Dont solo to the ledge! Get a couple pieces in before the mantle. I double alpine kneed! Tim had to avert his eyes from such punter style. Rest of the route is quite nice though. I hereby sanction this route.. wwwwworth it!

Shoulda laybacked and backed myself. Shoulda laybacked myself.

Feels about 19 and ill be honest like cal and the rest of the seq community and downgra... nah fuck it ill take it hahahaha yeah the boys

Gahh sahh claooos. Miss borderline dynoing into finger locks while the other one spooges out of the wall. Bloody corker of a route. Probs best finger locks ive ever done at frog.. and ive done a couple routes.

As expected. Faceclimbing wizardry i am yet to gain. Thin hands above were fine. Tim decided hed do this on lead as his first ever climb at frog and first trad lead harder than 20! Did a great job attacking the crimps down low and facing his demons on the crack top out i didnt bring gear for. We got the rope stuck though so i scrambled the blocks left of erg to the anchor. Caught jarred colton and nicole for lunch and then tim onsighted rickety kate! Glad he didnt fall cos i chose to belay in the corner. Would have been squashed if any of those lil nubbins had greased him.

Again abit different to what were used to. Meant to do the NP variant but this looked cool and distinctly less wasps so i decided to plow on up the seam till the gear got shit and i got scared. Turns out these are things that are sometimes hard to solve by downclimbing! Nah it wasnt too bad. Jugs where you need them and the moves onto the big ledge are very whacky - I suspect this isnt actually apart of the route though. I believe the original 'boldly' goes straight up from the crack to the top, we just followed the crack around and found ourselves at the NP anchors. Didnt think it was too bold but some heart rate fluctuations occured at any rate. Great features. Has to be mentioned though that yim whipped on NP; Long term project for him now.. ask him how its going if you bump into him on the street.

Route 1 of our learn to fall on rps day. Warmed up on conquistador (no rps, yim just wanted to do it - but felt much better than last year). Strategically sat the rope at the base of this route (just in case). Did the start moves grabbing and testing gear, then moved unknowingly into the section that gives the route abit of rep. Some redefining of elvis leg thankfully ended in the previously unused no.1 ball nut saving my bacon (and yims after he faithfully half whipped on it - most nervous belaying moment in a while). From there the climbing eased off and the gear got better. Took some whips on a backed up rp further up which held bomber. Success! Not an onsight cos of the aforementioned sits and whips but pretty clean ascents and some good confidence building. A new style for us at froggy. Really enjoyed it. I do wonder if i must have missed a couple rps in the runout - kyles description seems to hint at this.

Can i humbly take a win at frog and not try to chase it with another win? No is the answer. Absolutely flogged by this number, got so desperate placing and took a couple good whippers, one bigger than expected when a 000 pulled. So pumped after the day i had to rest on the 18 top section. If it was bolted id stand a chance - is what i said to johnny. Placing the wires is fuckin 90% of the job. The moves themselves are really quite doable. Why do we trad climb eh? I am on the lookout for a frog proj and while i learnt alot climbing this and agree it has some kickass moves, its not my kinda line. Might do again yrs from now.

No mistakes this time. One of the best routes at frog, never too hard but keeps you on your toes (not just metaphorical.. its the biggest calf destroyer out here). Especially love the boulder to escape to the sloping ledge up top. What a finale. Also didnt stitch johnny up the way i did jarred a year ago with the exposed swing. Im learning!

Warm up on infinity as decided by johnny.. cant get out of it now. Its teardrops day. Felt good the whole way. Bulge was pretty cruisy for me, it was one move to get hands on the mantle ledge that i had to buckle down for most. I yelled down to johnny that i was now infact awake. Probably easy for the grade and not sure i did anything super standout but finally remained attached on a 22 OS. Looking forward to going to the pub and getting up on the counter and yelling to everyone that i onsighted a 22. Should make some friends.

I tried not to tell too many people id planned on doing this on froq day so i could bail if i wanted. Seemed like a good opportunity while everyone would be prancing around in their big gear for photo ops, i could put it to use right? I searched for abit around the access track, looking for heavily strung harnesses before yim chased me down the track to inform me that someone named julie had already fished the pond dry. Indeed she had, i had never seen so many big cams in one place. I was somehow given the gear to have the first burn so after a couple poses with the dress and the gear, and a few more photos in a vane attempt to postpone the inevitable, i stifled the sobbing and started up the fists section. I managed to find enough crap rests to not get properly desperate and pumped until the last 3 meters where the face holds dried up. I stood on the last ledge for a while and realised i was more desperate to get the clean ascent than i had been for a while at frog, after all id got through to get to this point. I tried various arrangements of fist stacks and chicken wings but in the end the combo of time on the wall, sore body parts, fatigue all caught me up and i slumped on the 6. Probably 2 'shuffles' of the crimp rail and footer that signals the crux end. Pretty bummed to fall short but stoked with the opportunity to get on this climb finally and dont think ive learned so much on a climb in a while, not only in terms of technique but also mind management on an exhausting climb. I told yim if he flashed it id kick him off the bungles trip. He behaved thankfully. The rest of the day was hobbling around, stealing nicoles lunch, tying then untying infront of old guard, forgetting how to climb plume even after nicoles smooth send, beautiful sunset at the anchors with a gang of 5, and then kickons at yarramalong for froq party with the crazy frog people. My whole body aches.

A nice and efficient day out with georgia and the open-book man. A bunch of smaller, non-jamming pitches climbed. Yim managed an onsight of footloose without any feet coming loose, i gave him all the hard pitches of the day and gave him inadequate gear beta for sailor in the sun. Didnt look fun. Project for the season will be running continuously from infinity to the toilet block: tried it after leaving my keys at bad company, its friggin hard. Made it to electronic flag and had to walk.

What a beaut! If anyone wanted to be a starfish when they grew up, my advice would be learn trad and do this climb. A lot of fingerlock/gaston/open palm hands with a footjam and a side smear, all the while with all 4 limbs outstretched to the 2 crack systems. While id love to go ahead and help myself to another 21 OS log, i think 'the one that got away' might be in reference to the 21 that somehow got away from being regraded to 20. Stoked to put it away clean though, and felt very confident with all the movement. A great day at frog for me and fair to say witnessing the dynamic between Tim and Yim (climbing partners for the day) was delightful.

awwwww ill give it an OS log.. cant help myself. Thought id wuss out of this today like all the other days ive wussed out of it. Really smooth and flowey climbing (the roof wasnt as smooth and flowey but still pretty chill really). hardest part for me was committing to the smooth footers in the base of the cave. Caught my bodyweight on a handjam at one point and punched the hand crack above on no gear cos theres not enough no.2s on the planet to stitch this one up. Its a handjammers climb for sure and probs is thought of by too many as a gruntathon. Some serious faff up top trying to find a place to rap down. Ended up swinging in from thor anchor to get some gear. No booty left though, bootyers look elsewhere (yim).

Well the day started off with Gen bailing for work and then in an unprecidented move, unbailing and driving out to frog to join the fun and even the party numbers (big hype). Even more memorably, Yim accidentally eating weed cookies from an unknown cooker deposited in his fridge for a midnight snack and being baked while climbing! Didnt change the backseat sleeping routine, no surprises there. Despite inquisition not being my lead and drawing rack and ruin instead, this was the highlight of my climbing day. Brilliant high foot stemming and pulling in the odd looking groove in the first half and some fairly rudimentary offwidthing to unlock some rocking moves in the second. Minus the first 5m, all classic climbing that i shall be back to repeat. RnR finger crack start went much smoother than last year so nice to see improvement there but was a bit surprised about the difficulty of some moves entering and also exiting the corner and gear availability in the thin part above it. Might be my fault for taking less than 7 .4s up!! Pretty serious lead for 20 points at frog imo. Ended up bailing into flies just below the tree which was a little disappointing but good climbing all in all. Head game is still really out of sorts.

Pretty stoked with this after crying over climbing above bolt at ninderry the day before. After mantling out top above the runout, i had 2 hours of feeling like the man until the dave mank finger crack slapped me back to quivering with gear at waist height. Great day at the buttress of fun

Attempted to aid this old free line this morning.. still a couple points of free but mainly aided all the moves. Bailed off the .2 at the top cos i realised i was going to have to do a free move within 4 grades of 24!? Outrageous. Ended the day moving egotistical pineapple from the send list to the dog list and getting a .5 stuck (inspired by yim of course) which angus managed to remove with some acrobatic upside down cam wielding.

Ok focus on the climb jack. Focus on the climb.. So i drove to yims old house in west end to pick him up and told him i was out the front. He told me i wasnt. Shit. Had to get will from south bris cos hes a gronk and has big fridays, then made yim walk across the green bridge as a fully decked out trad christmas tree. We got to frog at a time that wouldnt indicate we were a party interested in climbing well. Picked literally the only climb being occupied. Will almost knocked off materialistic by a flying rap rope. I almost had an epic on wizards back after not taking any gear. Then yim thrust a .5 into the belly of mt french via the right hand crack on res corner. I then donated on wills behalf in the form of his alpine sling that i forgot to strip from the cam. The rain stopped so i decided to drag the boys up flying circus. Ok so now for the climb. Move near fixed rp had too thin feet. Fuck. Who cares. Aid. Rock over move crawl up slab. Shoulder bar up awkward corner to bucket from heaven then hand jam up to obliterated chain anchor. Clipped. Continued onto tree. Grigri wasnt enjoying quickly lowering the lads off climbs. Smelt like plastic. Doorstopper toasties, home.

I needa take some fall practice so ill jump on a well protected climb and take whips! I told the guys: Took some sits but no falls. My sittings great though, the guys were amazed at my numerous clean 'sitters'. Lovely to be reaquainted with the apprentice cleaning for lachie while up on the ledge.. a day salvaged from the evil weather gods of SEQ - both climbs unexpectedly dry. 30 minutes was spent at the doogs comparing hand jam sizes, the last 28 of which lachie had to spend looking at an emptied pint glass while colton and I drank in a more civilized fashion.

Ill forever remember this as the climb i sussed out on a fixed line in preparation for a top rope burn! Marty and i were nearing the end of a notably efficient introduction to frog weekend when we decided after injection logic to throw a tow line down termination because im well scared of having a crack above 2 bomber rps. I had alpined a strand onto the anchor and grigrid down to the ledge leaving marty to untie it and atc down. I knew immediately when i tugged on the rope at faki ledge.. beta spray alert, using a sling hex as a footstrap for ascending is quite worthwhile! Eventually got around to top roping the climb and i was right, i would certainly have brown and/or yellow pointed the rock over move with rope below me. Marty was happy with it but i think he still somehow did more face moves on faki.

"3-star piece of shit" - jarred vardy 2021. Had such a fun time climbing this. Felt like the top pitch of a multi (why i dont know).

Nice enough jamming outing but how bout that step across hey! Love to see how a short person does it. Brilliant

Bloody face climbing. Ill be back with stronger fingers. Thats probably a lie

It doesnt get old this one! Yim must have told me how epic it was about 60 times from the chimney. Had a bit of a wake up call when a 'bomber' wire fell out of the wall leaving me in the wind for an 8m grounder.. Kneed it out moving my foot up. Watch out kids..

Great climb! A definite step up from bojangles for yim and he led this with probably more confidence. Leaps and bounds! Beaut movement in the last 5 metres and not too bad below either. Could be a contender for a 3rd star.

Not too bad actually as a beginner lead, although its a mission to get to. Yim made a bomber anchor at the top and almost wasted it by winding up to chuck both ends of the rope off the top without putting it through the anchor

Well.. i was preparing some depricating dialogue for my next frog aid-venture on a climb too hard for me. Blindsided myself completely with this result. All over in ~20 minutes of climbing. Infamous move off the ledge is the crux for me but its protectable with the good ol' red halfy, starting to really scratch that thing up. In general, i dont like to log onsights as i feel like it should be more about the experiFIRST 21 ONSIGHT YEWWWWW!!

Pretty tricky for the grade Id say. Great lead from Nicole very solid gear and climbing!

Geez this is a fun little climb. Done very differently to a year ago aswell. More stem, less power layback. It really makes you feel like a rockstar and has some amazing views at the top.

5:50am start.. probs my earliest at frog. Very humid and very underslept but nothing was gonna stop this climb from being a joy. Start went surprisingly smoothly and the moves at the rooflet made me think but nothing too desperate. More face than I was expecting and the climb has a diet of almost exclusively medium wires which was a relief since I skimped on cams. A very classy outing! Odin looks sick, keen to try.

Geez its thin at the start. Apparently grinding your body and gear up chimneys doesnt help your face climbing !?!?! couldnt repeat the red point this year, instead opting to complain in person and online about how thin the start is... But yeah, red hot climbing the whole way, stoked to be back on this proud line.

Spring is the season for getting stuck! They say that.. yeah definitely thats what they say.. the chockstones that were there in the old guide and out when the crag description was written appear to be back (wtf) and some of them moved around more in the crack than i could. Graded correctly at 19 imo - happy self-punishing!