Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

first trad fall 21-Jan-2006 At 8:54:08 PM dave

Message

As i reported briefly in the other topic i recently had my first fall on trad. I was not disapointed!

Whilst climbing in Tassie in December we through various coincidences ended up on a fantastic climb called Rysavy Ridge on Mount Roland in Northern Tassie. It is a grade 12 and is about 400 metres long. I lost count of how many pitches it was but it was about 14 - and absolute epic and a mega classic climb.

Anyway to cut to the chase...At about half height there is a really big ledge where you can stop for lunch, etc. Above this stretches the best pitch of the climb. It is a 40m or so face with a knife-edge arete and a 1000 foot drop on the other side of the arete. It can be climbed either on the arete at about grade 10 or for extra interest the crack up the face is about grade 15. I chose to do the face crack as it looked to be a fantastic line - which it was.

I lead up the first harder section easily getting lots of good gear in along the way but as the climbing became easier, and the protection opportunities fewer i ran it out a bit. Looking down at my last piece was a good cam about 3 metres below me so i placed a #2 Camalot in the outward-flaring dirt-filled slot in front of me; the only placement in sight. The cams were under-cammed and i thought it would pop in a fall but left it in anyway. I continued up and had almost reached the easy arete when the large jug handhold i was holding came off in my hand! I was now about 5 metres about my last piece; the bad cam, and was now slidding increasingly fast down the rock yelling 'FALLING'. A second or two later and i came to a soft stop about 10 metres below my starting point, no more worse for ware than a few scratches on my hands. The 'bad' cam had held. Needless to say i was very cautious for the rest of the day!

This is the position i was in just before placing my last piece of pro