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In Harms Way (19), My first retreat. 15-Dec-2005 At 3:34:42 PM oweng

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Hmm, retreat stories.

I was doing work experience in Launceston for 6 months in 1998. I had learnt to lead in Cataract Gorge and on the friendly granite at Coles Bay, and with the end of the 6 months in sight, I and another student engineer decided that we would like to do a route on Ben Lomond before we returned to Melbourne. We borrowed double ropes and a truckload of gear and set-off to do a route called 'Cut No Ice' a 14 somewhere to the right of Frews Flutes, on a crag called Heathcliffe.

After a 45 minute walk across the scree slope we found the route, and after a nervous look at some approaching clouds, I set of to lead the first 40odd meter pitch. Im not sure if there was very little good protection on the first 20 metres of the route, or if I was just too inexperienced to find it, but of the pieces I placed I had no preat confidence in any of them. I managed to get through the difficulties and recollected my thoughts when the angle eased of a little. I could see the route steepening above to the belay ledge, and could see that it looked a touch more difficut than I cared to attempt. However if I moved left, I could see that easier climbing would take me up to a point from where I could traverse back right to the ledge. I started to do this, and got to a spot where I could place good gear. It struck me that if I placed gear here I would be forcing Matt to follow the same route as me, and not let him finish directly up the nice looking steeper climbing direct to the belay. I was perhaps 35 metres of the deck, and 10 metres above my last piece, which was a nut in a shallow flared placement. The gear below this piece was no more inspiring. A fall from this position would have resulted in three or four bounces down the slabby terrain I had just climbed followed by a plunge over the steepening at half height, with hopefully the flared nut catching the fall before things got too messy.

This wasnt really on my mind though, I was on easy terrain (about grade 10) that I couldnt possibly fall of, the weather was closing in and the belay ledge was not too far away. I pushed on up a slab just left of the corner, pulling up on a small juggy hold.....that moved sickeningly in my hand. A cold wave of adrenaline broke over me as the reality of the massive plunge I was about to take seared into my mind.

Luckily the hold 'held', being chockstoned in place enough to bear my weight. More solid ground was reached, and protection placed. Soon after reaching the belay ledge a bank of solid wet cloud hit. By the time Matt joined me at the belay, we were both wet and cold. I was shaking from a mixture of adrenaline overload, and the miserable conditions. We rapped of, retrieved our ropes and began the 45 minute walk back around the scree slope in a "pea souper". No landmarks at all were visable, just a scree slope to traverse around untill we were level with the carpark. Just when we started to think that we must have gone past the carpark, and be doomed to follow the scree slope around the mountain forever, we stumbled on the walking track from the carpark to the summit. This guided us back to the carpark. An epic day, that could have been very nasty, but that I look back on with good memories now.