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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Buffalo	Gorge	North Side	Wilkinson's Lookout Environs	[ Gorge Guide ]

Topic Date User

Cam hooks and Ozy 23-Sep-2016 At 9:00:01 PM Timfreddo

Message

Thanks all for the very detailed Beta, exactly what I was looking for :)
Ended up fixing a 200m rope to flat ledge just over the fence from Wilkinsons lookout. Was about 150 down to big grassy (yep, excess rope slid off ledge) end of the 200m rope made it to half way down pitch 2.

Ended up rapping with gear and ledge to big grassy in the rain. Got wet. Rapped down in the morning, climbed pitch 2 and 3 (end of pitch three was pretty mossy/slimey/wet).
Jugged out fixed line (seemed a better option than rapping down and getting across very flowing crystal brook) and had an epic hauling our stuff up the fixed line 150m from big grassy...

All in all a good experience, pity we missed the best looking pitches (except very happy not to have to do the fang pitch which was very dripping and unpleasant looking). Have to head back down when drier and try to do it in a day!
Glad to not have to do the first pitch (was running with water) and the top three pitches (also very wet) bit of a cop out but good learning experience.

I found the whole aiding thing a bit too artificial on Ozy (compared to things I've aided around the blue mountains, there's a lot more fixed carrots and pins). Thought it a bit strange that people used to be able to bash knife blades in the crack, but now it's not acceptable, but the damage has already been done. Pretty hard getting gear into some of the pin scars, cam hooks came in very useful.
Feels like it's much more insecure than it may have been when pins were the norm)

What are people's thoughts on the fixed gear? I found it hard to trust the 6mm bash in carrots that seem the norm for a fixed bolt, how long til the grade of the route goes up from the bolts getting old and unreliable...? I've always stuggled with the fact that on the first ascent those bolts would've been bomber, but one might get in trouble for replacing them with updated bomber bolts to the point where someone might even chop the now bolts to preserve the heritage... Doesn't make sense to me...

Thanks again for the help.