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South Jawbone tomorrow 6th June 7-Jun-2015 At 5:51:30 PM Pat

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Little bit of a trip report. Went to Blue Haze and sampled its delights. First up, a prickle update. Basically none, which surprised me. From the Farmyard down to the cliff there is a lot of close growing dogwood(?) but the going was fine. Blue Haze is an interesting little crag. I had seen a bit of the online flak about the development. Having climbed it a bit now, I can see some of the naysayers perspectives, but as we didn't do all the climbs I will hold my judgement.

My climbing parter is new to leading, so he took off on Territorial Pissings (11) and did a nice job, dodging some of the seeping patches down low and doing a nice clean lead. Witnessed a strangely placed micro cam that was stuck firm. Not sure why it had been placed out where it was on really easy ground, but it was stuck fast and now sports two burst wires.

I led False Teeth * (16) next to it. Nice little climb - a mix of friction and little solution holes & micro edges like Greg's Direct crux section, but longer.

Then I was treated to a beautiful display of beginners attempt at Crack Pipe (14) that is between these two climbs. Tim struggled leading with the smooth section in the middle. Having run it out to that point I encouraged him to put a couple of pieces in close together. Doing this neatly with two pieces in opposition he promptly ran it out and peeled off calling out 'here we go'. With a soft catch he ended up 6 meters below the gear.

Getting himself together, he got to the gear and took one look at the 16 next to it and decided that having seconded it cleanly, it was a better option and traversed into its line with one extra piece of gear and then got to the highest bolt. After clipping it ran it out 4 meters above the bolt and peeled off again. Getting back on he ran it out past the bolt and got a good wire in and ran it out 3 meters and promptly peeled off again. Watching him pretty keenly by this stage, I realised that his slab technique was non-existent. Giving him a few pointers was followed by a few moves and a very clear 'Ah-ha' and he motored up to the top without incident.

By this stage he was pretty knocked up and the fog was blowing in cold, so we bailed in favour of a bit of exploration. Had a great day. We'll be back to finish of the other routes. The 21 looks sweet. Will be combining it with a trip to South Jawbone, where I suspect the prickly wattle will be bad. But all in all a good day Tim is now really confident in his gear after all my reassurances that his placements were good - he's had a bit of real world reinforcement.

No pics - flat phone.