Ascensions dans Oceania comme Retreat

Got racked and pumped up but was singularly discouraged by the Acoylte's apprehension that the only possible means of ascent to avoid disturbing stacked sheets of honeycombed cheese was "by waving your hands". Added to which a displeasing #mankycarrot on the headwall, observed to be sticking out a good 2 inches in the old measure, and bent downward to boot, cast a thin shadow of deep uncertainty over the proceedings.

Hard and dirty

Inspected the mouth.

Awesome rock at the crux. Seems doable. Someone should go send it.

Bailed from the top of P1 after witnessing a nasty fall further up the crag (she was surprisingly fine). P2 crack looks overgrown.

Just the bottom three. Pitch one is a ridiculous sandbag! I've climbed plenty of 24s that felt easier.

Led first 4 pitches and turned back...

Don't know if I'd use the word pleasant. Very adventurous climb, also very serious and would add an R rating. Make sure you're very comfortable at the grade. Potential for very big swings between solid pieces of pro and you're often on sandy fragile rock that readily crumbles under hand and foot. The belays that rely on cams are just barely enough to keep you sane. All that being said, you get some great positions and the bolting seems solid enough. We bailed out after just before the 7th pitch by following up some FHs, pitty because the next few pitches had DBBs.

Got on this as Pipe Dreams was occupied, generally very good.

Bailed at the top of the third due to getting late and forgetting to bring torches.

Both climbed clean to the top of the 3rd pitch, then bailed in the rain. It would be nice to revisit on a winters morning.

OOOOOOPS!!!! Supposed to be on El Scorcho but took the wrong path.... Didn't have a second rope to rap off the last pitch of this but would've been nice to finish it. Next time!

Went for a cruisy day up blabbermouth but it was very busy. We were under prepared for anything else but decided to give this a go.The first pitch as for sunburnt buttress was lovely, and the chimney was easy to protect. The second pitch was pretty loose in spots, unfortunately the micro cams were left in the car and the nut placement was not heartening enough to protect the run out from the 4th to 5th bolt, so bailed..

A fantastic option for a summer afternoon climb with full shade and sea breezes. Sandbagged by at least a grade but well-bolted (except perhaps the start of pitch 2, where you have to traverse right and the first bolt is quite high up and, as you shall read presently, easy to miss!).

Grace led her pitches with great style and rapidity, whilst I followed her with significantly less style and speed (even despairing of actually finishing P1. It was certainly a stiff pitch to warm up on!).We started at 1pm and would have finished certainly by dusk if we didn't get off route. Grace was going to link P1 and 2 of Remains, as there were 4 of us doing the climb, but ended up linking up to P2 of Phoenix. Looking at the logged history of Phoenix now, it looks like we are not the first to make this mistake!

I found the steep bit off the belay on P3 quite challenging- it's definitely the most committing lead I've done thus far and whilst I didn't "send it", I'm just happy to have finished the pitch. The trad bit of the pitch was good but too short.

We finished P3 of Remains (Jill and Alex finished P4, as they overtook us when we went off route) and decided to rap down as it was getting late. Walked back in the dark but we had head torches- this was fortunate, as we almost stepped on some kind of juvenile black snake. I put out my hand to stop Grace (she had not seen it, whereas I was on hyper-vigilant snake watch!). I couldn't see a red underbelly on the snake so it might have been harmless. However, my personal preference is to say that I saved our lives from certain envenomation and probable death. As our lives were preserved, we will be back to finish this climb (I have heard that P5 is the best pitch!).

34/40

The finale to Tom and I's 40 pitch day and boy it was a doozy.

A few months ago we had the idea to do a 40 pitch day, nailing as many multis as we could on Tibro and Beerwah. Not being able to travel makes a man do strange things!

We started the day at 4am in the Tibro climbers carpark and plugged our first cam into Blabbermouth at 5:15am. Climbing Blabbermouth in the dawn light was incredible

The rest of the routes at Tibro went down smoothly:

• Ross Miller: Started 8:15, topped out at 9:45.
• Line Of Credit: Started 10:30, back on ground at 11:30.
• Troposphere: Started 12:00, back on ground at 13:40.

We transitioned to Beerwah in the afternoon, pulling onto Lhotse Flake 3:35pm (a little later than expected to be honest). My feelings about Lhotse's quality not-withstanding, it was super cool to simul climb most of it (micro traxions are a game changer!) and make the 9 pitches into 3. Linking the top 3 crux pitches into a monster 100m pitch, climbing by torchlight, running out of gear and fighting the rope drag monster was sick!

We finished the 5 raps of Lhotse at 8pm and started The Martian soon after; this is where the day went sideways.

Pitches 2/3 felt extremely tenuous on lead; the rock felt super skatey and it was hard to trust our hands and feet. Tom and I originally put this down to fatigue but about halfway through P4/5, Tom realised that the rock was wet from condensation! Nothing get's you gripped quite like climbing a bold friction slab on moist rock

At 10:30pm, we made the decision to retreat rather than push on. There is nothing to gain in the risk of climbing dodgy rock for the arbitrary goal of 40 pitches.

3 rappels later, we made it back to the ground at 11:20pm and then was back in Brisbane at 2am.

In summary:

• 2 mountains
• 6 routes
• 20 hour push.
• 34 pitches.
• 20 rappels.
• Approx 1000 meters of climbing.

35/40.

The cool evening temps (~9-10pm) caused the moisture in the air to condense on the rock, turning the lichen in to slippery death-slime.

Pitch 4 & 5, usually a pleasant ramble, were absolutely terrifying and we made the decision to abandon the goal of 40 pitches and get home safely.

Awful rock on the first pitch

coming back for the second pitch, great exposure, but the first is a choss fest.

Bailed due to high winds. One of our group swears he saw a knagaroo.

Bailed half way along the traverse , the baking sun and sharp crimps was destroying my skin. Looks awesome.

Ran out of light and w/out headtorches atop the 1st pitch. Sweet pitch! Reminded me of Bluies face climbing in places. Poor rope drag management down low, and a slight quickdraw deficiency made for an interesting ascent, which is well summarised in Peatey's log. A great day out!

Accidentally climbed this for 4 or so bolts thinking it was Traxion, luckily it looks like someone else has also made the same mistake so there was leaver a biner/ mallion to retreat from

Went up to suss the third pitch. Didn't end up trying it today.k

Lead the easy first pitch with minimal pro. Then waited at the base for the other party to finish for ages. Got very cold as the winds built up and eventually decided to bail and very glad we did.

Scared myself stupid, can’t wait to try again.

Onsight!! Oh no sorry i mean sight! :o sorry for the confusion, we just saw it from the west side of the wedding cake. The most enjoyable bail ever. A 28hr adventure with 3 mateys in an insane landscape. Nap at carpark followed by one of the best day hikes there is. PB and rang for dinner to calorie load the night before at seal lookout. 3 tablespoons of PB is too much. Watch out PBrang cult of UQMC.. know your limits. Stunning sunset over the pillars before 5 hrs of shuteye. We squished into the tent and slept like sardines before ruth sprang out of the tent at 415 to put water on the boil. Ate in sleepingbags. A bold path taken on the way down. Well.. we took the wrong turn. Twice. A shit 18 followed by a great airy 18 to the wedding cake. Great southern land was on the mental radio today. I dont make these decisions. Got shutdown by the stegosaurus traverse.. couldnt make the rope not stick to rock and ended up turning the team around via a movie-like dialogue with jarred over walkie talkie. Tom and I had a sunburnt nap at the beginning of the wedding cake reascent. Following this was a nice lunch up top, some airy raps and a canyon ascent out that was the worst (and for jarred also somehow the best) part of the day, nonetheless, adding some flavour to a buffet of ramblings that was our cape raoul trip. Sundown at the shippies lookout and a delirious drive back to fortie bay where we were greeted by the rest of the gang. A truly unforgettable adventure. Sorry if you came here to read about pole dancer. I dont have a lot to say about that

I got upto the 1st anchor and realized just how exposed the 2nd pitch is.. decided to have a closer look, climbed past the two bolts, placed a cam and decided it was too much for me. Cleaned the gear and downclimbed. Such a cool looking 2nd pitch, I will be back more prepared!!

We accidently went up this while climbing 'NTFD' The moves and features are cool and the moves around the flake before the slab are sick. The top half felt ridiculously hard in the direct sun.

Nathan lead up to the bolt under the tree then gave up. I gave it a go and got stuck in the same spot. I then back-jumped the whole pitch and checked the phone to discover we were going the wrong way.

Can confirm this is definitely not 23 (25 per Hugh Ward’s description). Especially the overhanging tight finger crack boulder start with no feet (nuts and a 0.1). Bailed from the roof as it was taking too long

I am not yet worthy. Fantastic line on the best rock. I fell of quite a bit trying to get used to the slopey/flowy style.

Had to bail around 2-3 bolts from the top. Fantastic climbing till then. Didn't have enough left in my fingers to clip on the arete from a tricky position with bad feet and slopers! Took a few whippers which was fun. Will get this next time and maybe could have stuck some gear in to help me dog up to clip. Next time will be more careful to pull the rope too so I don't get the end wet!

Spotty weather. Got as far as the top of the bolts on P2 before it began to rain again. Escaped to the El Nino P1 bolted anchor about 5m left, brought Grant up and waited for Dave on El Nino, then we bailed.