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General Climbing Discussion

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Visiting from the UK. Need advice. 22-Sep-2011 At 8:32:09 AM psd

Message

On 22/09/2011 neilmorbey wrote:
>Brilliant summary of the very funny debate. I really prefer nuts and don't
>own that many cams so I think I'll go with the RPs, double nuts up to size
>5, single set of larger nuts. Camalots 1-3 with some doubled if I have
>them.

For the bluies the gear is quite different to araps. Less nut placements, more cam placements. You're often following a crack line or placing cams in horizontal breaks. Single set of nuts, a set of 0.75 to 3 camalots with doubles of 0.75 to 2 and you'll get some use from the hexes. As rod said, made sure you get some bolt hangers and carry a few in your chalk bag with you on the trad routes too. Double ropes are probably less useful in the bluies than they are at araps.

Here's a few mid-grade trad recommendations.

Firstly get yourself to mt piddington and get on Joseph 14 (just to the rap station no one does the rest of it) and cartheginian 15 (but a #4 cam is very nice to have on this one) to get warmed up, then eternity 18 (at least as good as everyone says it is), psychopath 18 (lots of #2 cams or yellow hexcentrics), flake crack 17, amen corner 18 (scary run-out chimney bit but superb), messiah's exit 18. The phantom and tombstone wall are also pretty good.

Mt Boyce is also unmissable for trad. A respectable half-day / day would be to get on gently mine 14 and gates of janus 16 then go do firebug 17 (absolute mega-classic mult-pitch) and then if you're feeling tough get on gold star (you can just do the first pitch at 16 if you want). All absolute classics sitting pretty close together.

Multi-pitch in the 10-15 range can be a bit hit and miss in the bluies, really long ones usually involve some rubbish rock and scrub bashing but there are some good shorter multi-pitch routes. Araps is really where you want to be for easy trad multi-pitch - it's perfect for that stuff. Saying that, Sweet Dreams 14 at sublime point is pretty popular with tourists, there are also some good bolted multi-pitch routes at mt boyce which were put up more recently.

Great if you can get to point perp too - Grey Mist is superb you'll love it. At the grade also have a look at red riding hood 17 and hello dolly (sport) 18.