Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Topic Date User

Post renamed to TR: Landslide Chimney, Dog Face 3-Mar-2018 At 11:28:16 AM robbio

Message

PART 3/3:

As each minute passes, my feeling of security on my semi hanging belay improves, if only for a little. I can hear Paul below me but cannot see him. He is finding the tight chimney more challenging than i did. He later puts this down to him having longer limbs than i, but i like to put it down to me just being an awesome thrutcher, even if my route finding ego has just taken a beating. Before too long he is out on the arete below me. More sand and small stones shower down on him as i adjust my stance to make room for his arrival. At this point he had already removed all gear from the pitch. The only thing now keeping us from falling all the way to the base of the cliff was the gear in the belay...

He tries to negotiate pulling onto the belay ledge. This is made more challenging as i am in the way. That very moment a loose sandy block that formed the extreme end of the arete gives way, which sends paul falling. During that brief moment we both wonder whether the belay will hold us both. Yay, the belay held. Good times. Thank Fu#K for that i thought.

A cloud of dust fills the air which makes it's way all the way down to the base of the climb. It seems to linger for a long time as we both process what had happened, and what would had happened had the belay not held. Many apologies later we exchange leads and Paul traverses back around to the chimney. After some easy chimney moves Paul was at the base of a sweet looking little offwidth and sets up belay with some more big bros. The big bros were certainly coming in handy. Time for some comfort food to put our minds at ease. I pull out my snickers bar from my chalk bag, and Paul nibbles down on a muesli bar. We felt that we had earned them. The final offwidth is short but sweet and not too bad once i finally get established in it. At this point i feel lucky to be leading all of the really fun parts of the climb, but that's how alternating leads go sometimes i guess. It was just long enough to remind me just how awesome offwidth climbing can feel, and just hard enough to remind me that i am pretty crap at climbing them. I top out into full sun. The whole climb had been in full shade as we'd hoped, despite topping out by around 3:30pm.

All in all, a good day out, even if made more terrifying than it had to be. I can't help but feel like an idiot for abandoning the chimney the way i did. I would like to go back and do it again sometime to do it proper. Rockin' the big bros yet again. I feel that in it's current state, it is more run out than ever before due to the state of the bolts. In my opinion i think it should be rebolted with shiny new carrots.... Big bros definately help, but most people obviously don't own any. I could have placed another number 4 if I had ventured deeper into the chimney. I once asked Mark Wilson about the climb and about the lack of gear. He basically told me that i had to do it and that it was a great climb. Run out yes, but its a chimney so you shouldn't fall out of it. I tend to agree.