Ascents as aid by Jack Seawright

Had meant to do this for a while. Credit to yim for pulling this motley gang together to crack out the ascent while im still around. Yims barney on-the-ground recruitment, Thomas Zambon stormed up the slab and impressed everyone. Then yim stormed up to the beginning of the runout, explained that if it wasnt for the rubber on his shoes sweating, hed be interested in leading the runout. A heroic victory for the lads. Great to see some trad frothers getting thrown together for a day in the hills

Unfortunately didnt get a chance to get further than 6 pitches up the shnoz this season. Anthony and I did a 'dolt run' to practice speed climbing. I went with antons 'intermediate clove hitch' method of breaking up the death loop as opposed to the self belay because im not stoked about lead falling onto a device im wearing. The only sketchy moment was forgetting to undo one of the cloves and pulling a nut out from above. It was my only piece and i couldnt place above so i had to shimmy down and replace the nut. After that i just waited for tony to get up and put me on belay. Ultimately more research on this as well as the route itself would be needed for the holy 'niad'. A 3 or 4 day ascent might be a prerequisite.. Or 2 days with hammocks and only bars and drinking peoples piss off the wall to avoid hauling? Still stoked to get up on the 'best rock climb in the world' and look down the dawn wall with howling wind to juice up the exposure even more.

El capihoofa!! Finally on the big stone.. The first couple hundred metres but still felt like a 4 year old in a candy shop up in the sea of rock. Bringing sunnies up there would be good beta. That white rock reflects light like snow. Insecure and exciting low angle climbing but never full cheesegrater potential (for me cos shane led the sketchy 5th pitch). An el cap adventure wouldnt have been complete without some french free.. which was the only reason i grabbed the draws instead of sending. We lay on the mammoth ledge top out at 1pm staring up at salathe wall with slack jaws for 20 min before beginning the descent. Getting to rap fixed lines down to the ground for a 5 minute descent to the cars is also a luxury i will miss.

Via a fair bit of aqua id say with the precip this part of the world has had this year. Views of both springbrook falls and half dombrogargon while we traversed the very exposed 3rd class and found the start of the choss corner. The falls were kind of visible around the arete but loud enough to disguise a couple fighter jets that flew overhead at one point. 4 pitches of chimneying and moderately scary face run outs. The scariest bit definitely the '5.7' hanging flake crux where you plug the flake with cams, then hang off it and pounce to a sloper. If the flake comes off, the next piece of pro is an 'antique bolt' as its called in the guide and actually looks more like a door knocker on an english cottage. We got a nice rainbow below us at one point. Top out similar to ozymandias, climbing over the tourist lookout and getting asked by all the 'narps' (non athletic real people) if we were abseiling. A climb that shares the podium with queensland heavyweights clemency and trojan for the best shithouse rockclimbs in the world.

Part 3: Yim and i spoke briefly on the walk out about whether we would become aid climbers, probably a fairly standard conversation to have after australias 'the nose' of aid climbs that initiates so many into the world of the big walls. Yim mentioned he was keen to use the skills for exploratory trips (new routes) one day but wouldnt really make established big walls a priority over free climbing. For me, it was time to come clean about my feelings for big wall climbing: Categorical fuck no, not interested. I cant understand why one would put up with all that faff, routine 3 hour belays, sleeping and eating like animals, all to not even climb rock? There were for sure some good moments, but on the whole, i recall being uncomforable, tired, abit stressed (probably more a symptom of poor preparation) and generally distainful that i could see a stack of 3 star free climbs from the wall that we had foregone to tether our way up this wall. Whats more is that we were doing the best aid route in the country with ideal weather conditions.

Im tremendously grateful to have had this experience and owe our mate yimbo a beer (that he'll not doubt drink a quarter of and go make himself a hot choccy instead) for book sourcing all our literature and coordinating most of the gear we used for the trip. I think alot of people never try things like this because they assume they wont like it or convince themselves their life is good enough to not bother having an experience like this; if it werent for yims enthusiasm and zest for new experiences, i would have been one of them. I suspected i wasnt cut out for big aid missions. I was right in this case. Im glad to know this now for sure. Keen to continue reserving my aid climbing for free routes a little above my paygrade and continue kicking around climbing rocks!

Part 2: The following morning, first light woke us and the beautiful views of the sun lighting up the porepunkah valley were juxtaposed quickly by the first event of the morning: Laying cable into a fucking sandwich bag. Yim captured the literal second of mine on camera and im not sure how i feel about it; yet to see the photo. Ill decide on instagram worthiness later on. We packed up the circus and i got into climbing (almost without the haul line). I got back to the start of the 22 and decided i was too cunted to put climbing shoes on and aided the pitch, something i still kind of hate myself for. It was my mistake at the end of this pitch though that dished us the biggest epic of the journey. I set up at the wrong anchors (the carrots at the top of the corner). Only 4m from the real anchor on the arete but the pig did not agree with being pulled up the slab on the 6th pitch and promptly got itself trapped on a bolt. Unable to lower the pig out of its predicament, yim used the hexagonal fixture on his nut tool to try to loosen the bolt, only to have the bolt explode out on him and fall to the valley below. We have included a separate note on the route description in relation to this, please refer to that if this is of concern to you. The pig was free and dragged up to the carrots. We made a pretty efficient go of the roof, yim evidently turned the corner on cam hooks, which i realised on the prussik up the corner above that was pretty free of trad gear. It was my job as seconder of the roof to free the pig and due to our anchor location, our poor piggy that wed become close with in the last day was about to take a king swing across the wall. I was reasonably sure all the waterbottle tethers had been prepared but i still couldnt bare to look as the load soared through the air along a sagging arc. The pig handled the exposure like a champ and didnt spray plastic and shit everywhere to our relief. Looking pretty good for time, we tucked into lunch at gledhill. The fang pitch (8th) was my lead and is a truly unique pitch, which i think can still be enjoyable (and awkward) as an aid lead. Supposedly 22 but definitely would be nuts to free. Yim got us to the plaque at about dinner time just as it was starting to dim and i knew after the haul line faff that i was about to become apart of the benightment club, after such an improbable run of all daytime finishes. The jap curry was now well and truly sour and even our hungry, depleted bodies were rejecting the concoction. Aiding the offwidth with the lights of bright(?) glowing in the distance was an oddly calming experience. "I prefer stars; natural light" yim hit back after i offered my thoughts. Ok mate. The no.6 that we only included on the rack upon recommendation from pauly and brad in the carpark on monday was as essential as a climbing rope to get up thr final 5m! Wrapped my hand around the tourist lookout rail at 10pm, ripped yim up the final pitch so we could commence the walk back to the car and our bivy spot at echo point which now seemed like the marriot penthouse.

Part 1: Lot of work for a 10.

Monday arvo was when the adventure started. We lugged the gear from the base of angels to the ground bivy at the base which was way harder than i anticipated. Bushbashing with a portaledge and haul bag is exhausting work and yim seemed completely depleted of energy; a great way to be at the start of a 2 day aid route. I have to admit i was within a hair of turning us around and not going through with the climb a few times on this approach, especially after the creek crossing. We found the base at 9pm and bived down. Surprisingly good sleep. Up at 6, i refilled our 8 waterbottles (which frighteningly were coming undone from their tethers on the walk in because i had incorrectly copied the knots from a youtube tute) and ushered yim to get to work setting the pig family up at the base (the big marn takes some encouragement to wake up at the best of times). We were on the wall aiding at 8ish. P2 was my coming of age with cam hooks; Only good experiences for me, but that all changed on yims lead of P3, taking no less than 5 (five) [V if roman numerals are your choice for counting] whips in half an hour. Id never seen an aid whip before but ive now seen 5. Impressively, he stepped out the top of the crux that had beat him up on a triumphant skyhook (!) and continued to big grassy. Having never successfully set our ledge up on the wall, i was keen to stop decorating our wall lodge with fixed lines and gear displays and get to making sure we could lie down for the night. It was yim that made the break through wed missed at kp which was loosening the fuck out of all the straps to fit it together, a fairly obvious sounding solution in hindsight, but with old gear, i fell into the trap yet again of assuming the worst of the uqmc club gear (sorry lachie). We had the ledge set at 6pm just in time to pack some food in before fixing the pitches above. This was one of the best moments of the wall experience, providing some reprieve from the anxiety of this big undertaking we were backing ourselves on. The japanese curry wed cooked 8 serves on was starting to sour abit but by portaledge standards it was fine. I fixed p5, wanted to free p6 (best 22 at buffalo) but didnt have enough appropriately sized gear so rapped down to do it in the morning. The sleep was again surprisingly decent on the ledge, and it turns out sleeping mats actually arent essential we found out as i lay comfortably while yim laughed and told me to look where my sleeping mat was. I thought it was under me. It was under my feet and 70% hanging off the end of the portaledge. Fuck. Dig heels in, do a sit up, and grab the mat that was all to happy to oblige to the evening breeze that was wishing to claim it as another piece of ozymandian space junk.