Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Topic Date User

TR - My awesome FA. 3-Feb-2018 At 7:02:49 PM bigchris

Message

So I put this route up today. I called it "Never Tell Me The Odds". It was freaking hard, and I tried really hard.

It all started when I googled "Where are there good wide cracks in Victoria" only to be met with a whole heap of porn. That was kind of exciting, but not was I was looking for, so I looked a little further and found an Offwidth thread on chockstone. Low and behold, some pictures of a magical looking crack.

After various people not wanting to tell me where this crack was, I eventually put two and two together and went out with the wife to find it. We looked around at Black Hill for about an hour (about 18 months ago) and found the lovely (read: heinous, sharp, burly, overhanging) looking thing just sitting there in the arvo shade, beckoning me to mount it, but I think I got it wrong (what it was actually saying was, "Yeah, good on ya, you've got no hope - you may as well go home").

I threw my carcass at it with no avail, and went home broken and bruised. I tried again and again and again and just couldn't get anywhere near even getting off the ground. 12 months or so later, Philly and I went on our honeymoon in Moab, Eldo and Yosemite and climbed with Pamela Pack and Devin Finn. Pretty good coaches and now life-long friends to have in your corner who provide endless stoke. Just legendary humans who were more than happy for us to climb with them. You should check out their video that they just made.

LINK HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiyVynohIPM

I returned to black hill with renewed vigour, and started to make some progress. After 4 solid months of going back there a couple of times a month, sometimes twice a week, today was the day of victory.

Ladies and gents, I present to you, "Never Tell Me The Odds" Grade 26/27. I think it's a fitting name, seeing as people love cutting others down, and if I can climb this, then people that are like me (have a dream about doing something rad) should get amongst it.

Now all b/s aside, I can't actually climb grade 26/27 unless it's an offwidth, and this is harder than all of the 5.11+ and 5.12s that I did in Indian Creek (hence the grade). I guess I like the pain and brutality of offwidths. I guess I kinda like that no one wants to climb them. I like the fact that when I do climb them, no one is around. I like sharing the outdoors with my wife and my dogs. I like taping my hands up. I like the feel of a solid jam. I like that people who climb in gyms have no idea about wide cracks.

I actually suck hard at climbing. I can slab up to 21 (sometimes), so thats cool, but if it's a face climb I'm lucky to get it done at 18. I just like climbing cracks. My very good friend Muki jumped on it today (I actually heard him swear) and said it's bloody hard for him (and he climbs pretty hard I reckon).

Yes, I wore knee sleeves and put some socks over my elbows.

I've put some bolts in the top for people who don't have big cams to make an anchor. Go and throw your carcasses at it and tell me what you think.

LINK HERE:
https://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/black-hill/area/1656850935

Have at me, flamers!

">https://imgbb.com/'>