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TR - Mt Buffalo Southside Gorge FA 18-Feb-2018 At 5:31:16 PM bigchris

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Hello my fellow chockstoners,

For those of you who have read my previous trip report, know that I have a love for the wide. Wide you say? Yes, wide. Follow along if you will....

As many of you know i'm a giant hack. While this is the case, I do love climbing wide stuff a lot, and I also like to do stuff that is dangerous and go where other people sometimes don't dare. My story of the weekend starts at the chalet of Mt Buffalo. I'd been eying of a climb for a very long time. Once again, seeing a picture on chockstone with a long conversation attached to it got the better of me and my wife, so of we went!

Here is the chockstone photo.

I give you Typhon! I tried to think of a name that matched the area.

"Typhon was known as the “Father of All Monsters.” He was birthed from Gaia (the earth) and Tartarus (the depths of hell). He was said to have been the most ferocious creature ever to roam the earth. Typhon was massive. It was said that when he stood upright, his head brushed against the stars."

After speaking to the powers that be (Mike Law, Muki, M9 and others), we came to the realisation that there was a giant off width on the south side of the gorge that hadn't been climbed (but talked about a lot). With lots of information (caveat: no idea of accuracy of said information) we set off to rappel down Bodeacea. This appeared to be sketchy a/f. We had to get down Bodeacea and climb through a hole which was more like dodgy caving/crevassing. No no no no noooooooooooo.

Back up to the top we went. We ended up rappelling down Caligula to get to the belay, made a semi hanging belay, traversed into the hole, set up a new belay on some giant chockstones and I started to climb out. I was armed with multiple 5s and 6s and a Valley Giant.

I crawled through the roof of the bottom V groove and placed a 6 and then around to the front of the climb and started to make my way up. I placed the Valley Giant and realised that it was the only piece that was going to fit, and I didn't feel like accidentally blowing the cam while walking it up and then falling all of the way down Caligula and probably dying. I'd climbed about 1/3 of the crack, so I ended up reversing all the way down back to the belay and Philly and I climbed out to the top via Caligula. We had some lunch and gave up.
PS: The corner of Caligula 2nd pitch is freak nasty!

Here is the photo of me down climbing back to the belay.

While she was finishing eating, I had a look around to see if there was a different way to access the climb, and I found a magic little hidden hole which Mike Law told me about. M9 and I were thinking that I was going to have to climb up and exit either right or left (making a super sketchy traverse or possible even aiding through the roof), but you can actually crawl right through the back to make a belay on ultra sketchy rock. So we did that and I lowered down right into the cave, cleaning the entire climb with a nut tool. The chockstones that are in the photo aren't actually chockstones, they're massive clumps of dirt with trees coming out of them, to which I removed them all. Or at least I thought I had, and when I started climbing out, I basically took half of the Mount with me down the back of my shirt and undies.

Here is a photo of me stacking the top section before pulling over the lip.

I kind of climbed it with my right leg bent and jammed in, my left leg heel and toe jammed, a right arm chicken wing and my left fist kind of jammed against my chest or holding on the corner. It's quite the beast, but if you move slowly and surely it can be done. Philly had a wow of a time (read: crap) but had a big off width moment where she finally realised how to climb that particular size.

I'll claim the FA, but not the FFA as i'm going to buy more VG's and return to try and work it and get it done. I don't feel that Big Bros are appropriate as the walls are a bit weird on the inside and the chance of dying would be high if placed incorrectly. I guess it goes at around 24/25ish? I will report back with more send details if I can get it done free! Is it appropriate to red tag for 12 months? While trying to send my previous project i've messed up my knee, and torqued it a bit on this climb to reveal more pain (who'd have thought that OWs would mess you up?) so i'm gonna get that checked out this week before I go back.

We tried to get as many photos as we could but it's a pretty sketchy place. I've got some good video of the approach etc, so I'll try and get that up here also.

If any chocky keyboard warriors feel the need to flame on, go for your life ;)