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Ozymandias Direct 7-9th May 12-May-2005 At 9:05:15 AM maxots

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Well me and partner marcus finally got down to buffalo to see whether we could haul ourselves, one huge rack, and celeste the haul bag up the north wall. (celeste from babar, cos this was no pig, it was an elephant!)

Friday saw me finish school at midday to pack the haul sack and generally stresss about the climb, picked up marcus at work at six and started the long drive down from canberra. got to albury and crashed by the road, then a 5am start and got to bufallo by 7ish.

DAY 1

OK, we absolutely win the award for most f---ed up walk down ever, we managed to leave at7:45 and get to the bottom of Ozy, having filled water bottles and racked up at 1pm. If you see elephant prints leading down from the hanggliders ramp, DO NOT follow them!

Pitch one provided some interst for marcus, and then some excitement for me cleaning it. Marcus led the initial bit of free without much bother, and then started aiding, I hear "dude it looks like I can bust a couple of free moves here to save time" and im thinking, "its 22, get f**ked" so up he goes "its harder than it looked dude" off he comes, but no weight is on my grigri???? I double check he is still 12 metres above me, not in a pile beside me, so whats going on???? turns out the !black alien! had caught in his crab from his last nut placement, and through his GEAR LOOP had arrested his fall! ! ! !

cleaning was going well when WOOOOOOOSH BOOOOOMMM!!! a TV sized block of granite exploded 2 metres from he (and did some damage to the haul line, as I found while later jugging past the messy bit) lots of profanity settled the situation, and made sure whichever tourist threw it off knew not to do it again., and on witht the climb.

Marcus short fixed through pitch 2 and we decided I would lead the next (crux aid) in the morning rather than by headtorch. we left ropes fixed and had a comfortable nights sleep on the ground. Chilli con carne provided the start to some serious bowel problems, more of that later!

DAY 2

hard aid for breakfast! I realise I hadn't aided for about a 6-9 months so It was baptism of fire at 7 am in the morning after an early jug. I took a few hours, but found the pitch relatively easy and full of bomber peices (even topstepped a sky hook for fun > bring on the A4 I say) getting to big grassy was nice, though its small and rocky., we set up and marcus started leading the A2 pitch above, as we were behind schedule and had to fix to gledhill biv that night. marcus bore left at tyhe top of his pitch so I had he A1 pitch to save time, though Ive heard the A2+ pitch on the right is killer! at the top of my pitch a bolt traverse led to a superb belay below the roof. Marcus busted through the roof with many a woopeee this is sick dude. F**k yeah ! this is awesome! he finished the pitch in the dark and claening it left me with the scariest moment of the climb, unclipping one of his peices I found myself swining in the dark doing circles in free space and tripping out oer the most beutiful night sky ive ever seen. great stuff! Rapped down for satay tofu (note every meal has been a bean meal, and we had beans the night we drove down.

DAy 3

paked up big grassy, and had the terrible "shit on the wall" time. We chose to do it in plastic bags then put them in a sealed tub. Mine was a lovely solid shit, marcus not being a vegetarian and therefore unused to so much beans, had the most revolting crap i have ever seen. The beast was bageed then tubben then rebagged five times and we were off for ther morning jug!

after juggin the roof i had another A2+ pitch, the streno cam jugging pitch, It as easy but awkward and gave me much frustration, then again it did have the best exposure of the whole climb, and landed me at the coolest hanging belay of the climb. Marcus jugged up agreeing it would be a bitch o lead and set off for some A1 then gr10 chimney action. a bit of f---ing around followed as we figured out a way to haul out to the left of the chimney, but soon we were one pitch from the top.

I took the big cams and its leapfrog time, lets top out befor edark. this supposedly a2 pitch was fine, pro in the left wall for a while jugging big cams, then a little run out then some gret aid bolts for the last three metres. And i topped out with a free move or two > take that steve monks!

a small jig on top, fixed lines for marcus and haul celeste and we charged back to the car. Somehow I managed to punch out the drive (marcus doesn;t have his liscence yet though hes 19 and im 17) to arrive in canberra exhausted but happy at 2am tuesday morning!

Awesome fun, great route....

already trying to set a date for yosemite......