Ascents in Blue Mountains by Anton Korsun

Having taken full value of the generous dry spell we've had since November, I've spent the last few months canyoning, scary new-routing, refining the perfect spaghetti carbonara (no cream!!!) and generally using every excuse to avoid trying hard.

Now that I'm adequately stuffed with pasta, it's probably time to climb some hard things again.

Kept nervously awaiting the crux on each sequence... it never came 🥲

Rebolt... and downclimb. Way better than it looks, bomber gear and rock the whole way and not dirty at all.

Laps. This time placing the crux gear, which I somehow haven’t done yet despite being up it so many times.

Never in doubt, but it was wetter than last time so I had a moment or two on the layback. Henry onsighted P4 without much rest after P3 - top work!

Cool route for summer. Finished up the last pitch of West Face.

brendan cruises to onsite with major winds at his back. anton jugs out after falling at 2nd bolt. still cool to get the pano views of the surrounding walls. will come back, when i grow bigger cajones.

Was told I can't not do the top pitch - so we did the top pitch (simul straight after West Face).

Tips the 1000 meter day towards the 1100m mark, especially with HC top pitch thrown in.

Having somewhat de-bonked after Hotel California (by consuming the remainder of my day's food at once), this felt a bit less desperate but more sustained.

A more striking line than BBB, but a little broken up.

1h 24 mins, then run run Rudolph'ed it back to the car.

Ran up Cows pretty smooth, until I broke a sizeable hold starting the Hotel traverse (and probably in ledge-fall territory). Frenching saved the day, mes amies!

The only route we tagged gear on, as Will could stretch the rack a lot further on his leads than I could on mine.

Bonked hard on the gr20 pitch after, just went 100% to 0% over like 4 bolts.

1h 38 mins including the top pitch.

The simplest route of the day. 44 mins base to top. First few pitches had a stuck rope and comms issues, otherwise sub-40 would've been within reach.

Thanks to the other parties for letting us sneak by, hope you had a great day!

Long time scheming finally comes together!

Did this, plus the top Mirrorball pitch, Bunny Bucket, Randy Rabbit and Hotel California (via Cows) for a 1100m day in 7 hours car to car...

...and 31 seconds, but I could've parked 20m closer near the toilets, so it's safe to call it 7 hours flat 🙂

Insane to see Will free the lot, as my frenching speed was often still slower than his freeing.

Times were as follows:

West Face (plus Mirrorball top pitch): 49 mins

BBB: 44 mins

Hotel Cal: 1h 38 mins (the bonk begins lol)

RRR: 1h 24 mins (neither having done the headwall before)

Awesome day out

Recon simul. Bailed onto bunnys headwall.

Happy to throw a clean lap on this, tho I seconded p3 and 4 this time - definitely stronger than a few months ago. In half the time and not as tired.

Absolutely emptied the tank on this one. Last shot of the day, climbing into wild pump followed by foot slip after foot slip. Haven’t tried that hard in a while, and it’s the longest I’ve taken to do a 24 this year, but happy to get it done.

Also got to watch Pat double-icecream in much better style, which was rad.

Simul in one pitch with tagging. 2 hours bottom to top. First time on it and had lots of fun 🤩

The effort put into bolting and rebolting these easy routes is phenomenal, and perhaps under appreciated. Thanks Mikl, and many others I’m sure!

Simul until the traverse

Possibly the first repeat by someone not on the FA team (neither Jason nor I knew anyone else who had done it) - and I have to say this is a brilliant addition to Blue Mountains climbing!

Despite some soft rock that can be expected on a long new route, almost all the loose stuff will clean up with another few repeats and all belays are protected from rockfall. There isn't anything too ugly, and gear is much better than expected (look both ways in the chimney).

When it comes to large gear, we brought three 4's a 5 and a 6. The 5 and at least two of the 4's are necessary, but the 6 only protected the first few ~gr18 moves of P1 and spent the rest of the climb sandbagging the follower.

P1 - Not the best gear, whether you bring the 6 or not. Up worrying flake or corner with care.

P2 - Brilliant climbing and gear once past the chossy start, very much Samarkand P2 in style but 5 grades easier!

P3/4 - If you want the full value ~60m marathon chimney experience, end P3 early below chimney/roof (hanging stance off threads - do it 🤪). Then P4 quests forever into the void... we had a 70m rope, not sure if a 60 reaches.

P5 - Funnily enough, the most dangerous part of the route is probably the fully bolted ~gr15 traverse. Easy, but be careful with breaking footers on second, you don't want to take that swing!

P6 - Is ok. Bolts.

P7 - Is absolutely insane for the grade - brilliant and relentless face climbing. I think that the true "line" wanders left after 3 meters, and stays left of the first bolt (don't clip it! climb left of it entirely on gear) before rejoining the bolts at the 2nd bolt and questing up past the 3rd and some more gear.

Whatever I climbed felt every way 22, but going direct and clipping the first bolt looked even harder.

All in all: great climbing and good gear, easy access and wild hanging belays - go do it!

49 minutes car 2 car 🚗

This one felt fast, but we got pretty awful conditions so moved conservatively and placed more pro than usual

Literally fell out of a rest. Pretty embarrassing. Almost hands free, one sequence from victory… then feet free as well 😢

Happy to get this done. Lead/seconded the same pitches as last time, but ticked P2 with more rest and less panic.

Helped by a big effort from Jacques, who put up with my stuck cams and slow progress (and even seconded p2 clean while dragging up a tree stuck in the haul line...) thanks mate!

Fantastic! A bit gripping on the first lap without gear beta.

As I bum-slid backwards towards the bolt after p2, unable to stand up due to a mix of exhaustion, overheating and pure terror, I may have considered changing my name and moving to a lonely ashram somewhere in search of whatever the opposite of what I had just experienced was...

Apart from that, it was a pretty rad day out, where everything went mostly as planned and I got to do all other pitches clean! Thanks Henry for coming along and swinging leads 🙂

Really cool sequence actually - worthwhile just for that

Went first shot but I had a dog lap last year.

Simul in just a hair over 1h car2car for a warm up. Beautiful day until lightning and hail hit as I topped out.

Pretty stoked with this one. It started as a recon lap, because I'm paying rent and the weather is good, so why not...

I've never touched the crux pitch before (either jumared or just took photos), so it was cool to send it 2nd shot without too much trouble. Had the first few pieces in, as I was expecting a dogging lap! Should've stripped it, but that's a reason to come back I guess.

It's relatively dry now (crux jams still muddy and gross), so get on it before La Niña 3.0!

boom

Aaand... pitch 12! Squeezed one more in after the rope was packed up. Thought we did 13 but looking back I miscounted.

About 60% through the full PIAD, but ticked most of the harder ones today (other than maybe Solomon).

Pitch 11 today - ok now I'm feeling it. Almost slipped out of the first few moves and took more rests than on Psychopath (pitch 9).

Pitch 10 of PIAD

Pitch 9 today. Getting faster now.

Pitch 8 today. Just the first to the thread.

Pitch 7. In hiking boots to give my toes a break.

Pitch 6 of PIAD. Got to onsight the top crack as I've only ever done the flake. Chill.