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Crag & Route Beta

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Topic Date User

Federation Peak, Tassie 6-Nov-2013 At 2:45:36 PM Cam McKenzie

Message

9 days is a good window, we had 5 days, and only one day when it wasn't forecast to rain most of the day.

We took about a day and a half to walk in I think. The walking is pretty brutal as parks don't maintain the path anymore. Moss ridge in particular with a big pack on is hell. We got into Bechervaise at about 1pm, and then did one of the super easy climbing routes (one pitch of grade 8 or so), and scrambled to the summit. This allows you to sort out the abseil descent, which saves a several hours (I believe) walk when descending, as you don't need to walk around the base of the mountain to get back to camp.

Our plans for blade ridge died when we woke up at 4am to absolute pissing rain. In the end it cleared up by about 9am, and we got onto the base of the NW face at about 1pm. It's pretty horrible climbing getting up to the ridge. Scary loose mud with shallow Tee trees for pro. Awesome!

The NW face itself took way longer than it should, but I was leading every pitch unfortunately, and then had a minor epic at the crux, when it turned out not to be the 'hand crack through roof to jugs' as described in the guide, but a steep mossy offwidth, to a wet slopy ledge. I fell off. I looked behind me and saw a huge wall of rain heading towards me. I aided through the crux, and then we got rained on a lot for the next few pitches. I did find the head of an old piton hammer though, so it was all good. I think it took us about 8 hours from the base of the NW face to the summit. You could do it much more quickly if you were competent! The rock is good and the gear is also good if somewhat spaced.

Then it snowed all night and the entire NE face turned into an enormous waterfall.

Then we went home. It was awesome.

The end.