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Medlow Bath

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Summary

Diverse crag with lots of high quality low grade climbing all the way to epic adventures.

Description

Something for everyone and a quick walk from Medlow Bath station. The Sunbath has a good smattering of easy to moderate sport routes, Reservoir Dogs and The Sporting Complex have some excellent rap in, climb out sport routes, the Colosseum has some mega trad and mixed routes and when Alex Megos visited he hit up the mega steep, hard routes at The Underworld - and that's only half the areas at Medlow! Get amongst it.

Access issues

Many of these crags are located on private property - and could be closed at any time. Do not piss off local residents by parking cars at the end of Belgravia St - park back near the train line and walk 100m up the road.

The Belgravia St descent track and Devondale bouldering is located on private property (it is NOT owned by the Hydro Majestic Hotel). This property changed hands in 2018 for a cool $1.9 million, and the new landowners have not expressed concerns about the public on their land - yet. It is very important that this property is treated with utmost respect - and if you are approached by the owners then please be courteous. If they have concerns please get them to contact ACANSW.

Blue Mountains City Council is the land manager for The Block, Katoomba Bros, Sandpit, Valley Farm & Sooty Crag. Access to all these areas is via the private land mentioned above.

The mega lux Hydro Majestic Hotel owns private land that includes the Sunbath Wall, Reservoir Dogs, Sporting Complex, The Underworld & Pole 28. Access to to these private land crags is NOT guaranteed and could be closed at any time.

DJ crag is also located on private property - with the owner apparently living below the cliff itself.

Approach

The Sunbath, Valley Farm, Sooty Crag and Colosseum

Coming from Sydney take the first exit on the left after the Hydro Majestic hotel. Park car on the corner of Belgravia St & Station Street opposite the railway buildings.

Walk to the end of Belgravia St and follow the signposted track - don't go down any driveways. Pass two indistinct trails turning off to the right and another coming in from the left and take the third right hand turn. (If you get to a concrete platform you have gone too far, back track about 30m).

Follow the path down over some fallen trees, then down a bunch of switchbacks to the bottom of the wall. On the left is Schwing wall and on the right is The Block. The track continues around The Block and to the edge of the cliff where a dead tree rests on the edge. Follow the path down the cliff via cut stairs and ladders.

At the bottom turn right for Valley Farm and Sooty Crag, and left through the tunnel for The Colosseum.

Flying Fox, Pole 28 and Three Brothers

From the highway turn onto Bellevue Cres 100m south of the service station, then left down the dirt fire trail.

Ethic inherited from Blue Mountains

Although sport climbing is well entrenched as the most popular form of Blueys climbing, mixed-climbing on gear and bolts has generally been the rule over the long term. Please try to use available natural gear where possible, and do not bolt cracks or potential trad climbs. If you do the bolts may be removed.

Because of the softness of Blue Mountains sandstone, bolting should only be done by those with a solid knowledge of glue-in equipping. A recent fatality serves as a reminder that this is not an area to experiment with bolting.

If you do need to top rope, please do it through your own gear as the wear on the anchors is both difficult and expensive to maintain.

At many Blue Mountains crags, the somewhat close spacing of routes and prolific horizontal featuring means that it is easy to envisage literally hundreds of trivial linkups. By all means climb these to your hearts content but, unless it is an exceptional case due to some significant objective merit, please generally refrain from writing up linkups. A proliferation of descriptions of trivial linkups would only clutter up the guide and add confusion and will generally not add value to your fellow climbers. (If you still can't resist, consider adding a brief note to the parent route description, rather than cluttering up the guide with a whole new route entry).

If you have benefited from climbing infrastructure in NSW, please consider making a donation towards maintenance costs. The Sydney Rockclimbing Club Rebolting Fund finances the replacement of old bolts on existing climbs and the maintenance of other hardware such as fixed ropes and anchors. The SRC purchases hardware, such as bolts and glue, and distributes them to volunteer rebolters across the state of New South Wales. For more information, including donation details, visit https://sydneyrockies.org.au/rebolting/

It would be appreciated if brushing of holds and minimisation/removal of tick marks becomes part of your climbing routine. Consider bringing a water squirt bottle and mop-up rag to better remove chalk. Only use soft (hair/nylon) bristled brushes, never steel brushes.

The removal of vegetation - both from the cliff bases and the climbs - is not seen as beneficial to aesthetics of the environment nor to our access to it.

Remember, to maintain access our best approach is to 'Respect Native Habitat, Tread Softly and Leave No Trace'. Do not cut flora and keep any tracks and infrastructure as minimal as possible or risk possible closures.

For the latest access related information, or to report something of concern, visit the Australian Climbing Association NSW Blue Mountains page at https://acansw.org.au/blue-mountains/

Tags

Some content has been provided under license from: © Australian Climbing Association Queensland (Creative Commons, Attribution, Share-Alike 2.5 AU)

Areas

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Name
Style
Routes
Ticks
Height
Grades
45
13.4k
15m
17
27
118
35m
12
Puppy Face cliff
1
0
90m
1
Warning Pole 28 cliff
38
1,024
17m
14

Routes

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Grade Route

Carrots. Grade only a rumour. Looks good.

Start: Behind bushy tree on north-facing orange wall.

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Selected Guidebooks more Hide

Author(s): Simon Carter

Date: 2019

ISBN: 9780958079075

Simon Carter's "Best of the Blue" is the latest selected climbing guide book for the Blue Mountains and covers 1000 routes and 19 different climbing areas. For all the sport climbers out there, the travellers, or just anyone who doesn't want to lug around the big guide that's more than 3 times the size - cut out the riff-raff and get to the good stuff! This will pretty much cover everything you need!

Author(s): Simon Carter

Date: 2019

ISBN: 9780958079082

The latest comprehensive, latest and greatest Blue Mountains Climbing Guide is here and it has more routes than you can poke a clip stick at! 3421 to be exact. You are not going to get bored.

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Wed 10 May
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