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Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Author
Rosea (Grampians) 27/28 March
gfdonc
29-Mar-2004
2:11:11 PM
Drove up Friday and camped at Rosea camping ground. Saturday went up to tick Debutante (15 ***), did this route some 20 years ago and it was very enjoyable a second time. Got lost on top, missed the turnoff to the descent track and wandered all the way up to Rosea summit in climbing boots before retracing our steps. My toes hate me!

Had the cliffs to ourselves until back at the bottom around 2:30pm when two parties from Geelong were starting Debutante Direct (19) and Mixed Climb (11).
We took on RIP Corner (** 18), I managed the crux after a couple of false starts farting about with protection, then Anthony led p2 which was probably 17 rather than the expected 16 and not so enjoyable, with some loose rock and wandering route. A solid lead. Maybe we were getting tired and dehydrated? It was I think 5:15pm by the time we got to the end of p2 so we decided to bail in favour of cold beer waiting for us at camp. Meanwhile the other visible party was making slower progress on Debutante.

With only the one 50m rope we thought about making a single strand descent, then returning the next day with a second rope and jumars. Instead – after rock/paper/scissors to decide who went first – Anthony found that by penduluming left and retying smaller knots at the end of the rope he could /just/ reach the only live tree below us with 24.5m of rope. The second rapell was short by comparison and we were back at the campsite around 6:30 to find dinner waiting. Nice.

The other groups were meanwhile very slow and we joked about coming back later to rescue them. They eventually ambled into camp around 10:15pm, what was the story guys?

Sunday was hotter but with a light breeze, we ticked Heretic (*** 17, 5 pitches OS) with alternate leads. Had the cliff to ourselves again, how lucky were we? Not sure of the grading, we both felt 16 rather than 17 but there were no ‘easy’ pitches. While seconding the fourth I smelt a cloud of chalk; my chalk bag and I had decided to part company unexpectedly and it had disappeared downwards. Fortunately my hands weren’t too sweaty while leading pitch 5. Walked off, found the track easily this time and were back at the car around 3pm and back in Melbourne for dinner.

The chalk bag? I didn’t expect to see it again given several ledges below us, but at the bottom found it stuck in the top branches of a 6m tree, almost exactly at our starting point after freefalling about 100m. We threw rocks at it, fortunately gave up before one of us got brained, and eventually managed to dislodge it by throwing a rope over a branch mid-way up and shaking the crap out of the tree.

12 pitches, 2 abseils, no injuries, no gear lost, what could be more perfect? Sadly no pics – battery was flat on the digital camera.

- Steve/Anthony

Rupert
29-Mar-2004
3:00:46 PM
On 29/03/2004 gfdonc wrote:
>eventually managed to dislodge it by throwing a rope over a branch mid-way
>up and shaking the crap out of the tree.

Nice image and a good report - thanks. :)

IdratherbeclimbingM9
29-Mar-2004
4:28:12 PM
Yeah the imagination/mental pictures conjured up are pretty good, (like the report).
If you are going by statistics, ... perhaps the incident free kilometres are also relevant?
adamk
29-Mar-2004
8:36:06 PM
Hey there,
i was one quarter of the Geelong group and Jane and i did mixed climb while crack head and remdan did Debutant direct. Jane lead the first pitch of mixed climb with her usual finess and style. Much humour was given by the can of leg ham wedged in a crack with some cord around it as though some crazy person had rapped off it, what was the story there? anyone outhere in chockstone world know?. After the first pitch things slowed dramatically as i took the sharp end and went everyway but the 'take your life into your own hands' right way traverse. After climbing up and down climbing the wrong way several times i eventually spotted some jugs hiding around the corner and hit the belay ledge an eternity after starting the lead. Jane and i began to worry about the time and hit the afterburners to the top. For a three star route Mixed climb seems very dirty and the route quite tricky to follow. Relising that it was about ten minutes till dark we bolted to the base of the crag where we found everyones torches. We yelled up to remdan who was about to start seconding the last pitch in the dark that we would meet them at the top with torches. Walking up the giants staircase in the dark after a day of climbing was a bit of a gut buster but fun in an adventurous kind of way. Miracally i found remdan and crackhead wandering around in the dark with bare feet and they were very pleased to recieve torches and a packet of snakes. My Aboriginal tracking senses kicked in and before you could say cascade beer and tuna wraps we were back at camp chilling out. Despite all four of us being a whisker away from spending a whole night out we all agreed that Rosea is an awesome location and we will be there again next weekend with an earlier start...
joemor
29-Mar-2004
9:58:24 PM
ah yes the cans of spam... there were a number of these "chocks" at araps.....
ant
30-Mar-2004
7:58:44 PM
Remdan,

Those "epic repellent" jokes were fairly ironic afterall. Glad to hear you got back OK.

Did you guys climb Sunday?
adamk
31-Mar-2004
4:15:37 PM
Jane and I climbed at the watchtower, such a nice crag. After Sat at Rosea we were calling sandbag on the walk-in times for the Gramps guide book but we actually managed to walk to the crag in 2 and a half minutes in thongs which is less than the time of 3mins suggested by the guide. We cranked out the 15 and 16 trad thing then led that mikl arete. The start is way tricky and quite pumpy past two bolts then you get the 'head pump' as the holds get bigger but the search for gear increases the stress level. Such a blast. Then played on that 21 trade route. Also much fun...i'll leave it up to remdan to let you know what they got up to on Sunday...if his 70 year old bones have recovered yet...

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