Begehungen in Outer Space Buttress

Great route if you don't mind the fact it has some manufactured holds. Some sections felt pretty much impossible as a shorter climber so keep that in mind.

Repeat attempt (not clean today). Pitches 2 & 3 only (as a giant pitch).

Sure, this is obscure, but P2 is radical bold-ish gritstone-style arete climbing. Better than I remember, and also quite a bit harder.

Led all pitches, done as a 15m pitch (P1) and a 55m pitch (P2-P4) belayed from the ground. Old school equipping and commitment, and as psychologically demanding as it is physically demanding on the crux pitch. Rope management is crucial to keeping this safe. P2-P4 (as a giant pitch) probably warrant "classic" status for the unrelenting arête-y nature of the climbing. P2 is crazy overhanging in the first half!

Brilliant addition to the world of Bluies aretes, and I didn't even try the money pitch. Very cool to have been a part of this.

Yep, that mantle is still nails. V5ish? Had no trouble on the rest of this route this time (probably hard 25 without the mantle) and its a bloody awesome line to climb as a giant push from the ground, with great run-out arête climbing... Just that damned mantle to contend with... ugh.

This climb hasn't been manufactured to my body length... seriously I was shocked by the number of drilled holds and the way they have been made, I mean a gym hold looks more natural.

Would be a Classic with a rebolt, and without the utterly hellish mantle on P1. With Hugh. Lead all pitches. P1 (Dog) - Fell off at the mantle (15m up), then various falls working out the other nails moves. Quite a bit of gear to supplement the 8 bolts on this pitch (I brought all the wrong gear, so got to place "bad gear" instead). P2 (Dog) - A single fall at another very improbable mantle at the 3rd bolt, but otherwise clean. P3 - Onsight. P1 has a very "gritstone" trad start at about gr22 up to the V5 mantle, which I could do all the "sections" of, but have no chance in hell of linking into the rest of the pitch. After that its a series of extremely powerful (but rad) face moves, then tenuous and desperate (and scary!) moves up the arete to the fully-hanging belay. P2 - Has a steep start, a nutty V3 mantle (think "Dynamics of Change" on the Grit), then tenuous (and run-out) moves up the arete. P3 - A slabby exit pitch. Nothing special.

Psyched! 2nd Redpoint attempt (13th lap total, including my various Top Rope Solo laps). Climbed both pitches as a monster 60m pitch belayed from the ground. Took a huge whip off the mid-height pocket-crux on my first shot (after skipping a clip, and falling at the next bolt). Pulled straight back on and linked to the top. The 2nd lap was a battle, but I felt up to the task the whole way. So much varied climbing (even if it is separated by 3 sneaky no-hands rests), with the hardest moves in the last 5m.

2 more shots. 5kgs weight training today. Re-chalking the holds and drying to dry the fishbowl (full-of-water) pockets after the recent deluge. Refining all the microbeta... On the 2nd lap I managed to link everything in one big push EXCEPT the last part of the last move... D'oh! Draws on for a lead attempt on Wednesday.

2 more laps. 7kgs now. My best linkage yet, despite the weight. ALMOST linked the last move of the route into the moves below it (but not quite)... hopefully it will be okay when I strip the weight for the send (though I will have 50m of rope in the system).

3 more laps (this time with 6kgs of weight for training). Awesome linkage on most of the route despite the training weight. I've still never managed to link the final desperate sequence to the anchors into the previous crux immediately below it (but I can do it with a short rest)... it's just too damn gnarly!

3 more laps. Still a lot more to piece together this 50m monster, but some good linkage and some nice refinement. I find the rock on the lower section of this incredibly sharp and unpleasant.

Top Rope Solo Investigatory lap. P2 clean. P1 clean to where the climb turns the first bulge (15m? - 22 to here), then lots of rests piecing it together and finding holds. I don't know what to say about this climb, what stars to award it, what quality to ascribe to it. The climbing is rad, and aesthetically it's quite beautiful... But it is blatantly (and rather hideously) chipped, the money-pitch features 3 Shale bands to negotiate, and the rock is the very sharp crystal-y large-grain sandstone. Regardless, I enjoyed the climbing, which has a LOT to it, with quite a few hard sequences, but no "shut-down" crux. (Having said that, the moves to gain the anchors at the end of P1 could be a killer on link). I'll be back... I'm just not sure whether or not to recommend it to others.