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Shortman & StuckNut do Arapiles 2-Jun-2011 At 9:48:03 PM StuckNut

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After our successful first meet-up for a day of multi-pitch climbing out at Sugarloaf peak, Dan(aka. Shortman) and I deduced that we were at similar levels of insanity.. err.. I mean climbing ability. So the only logical next step was to make plans to head to the trad climbing mecca of Mt. Arapiles for a weekend of ticking some multi starred routes! This would be my first visit to Arapiles, and as a couple of 'relatively' new lead climbers, we had some fairly lofty goals set which included some of the more famous multi pitch routes that weave their way up the perfectly formed quartzite towers of Mt Arapiles.

A week of excited anticipation ground slowly by and finally it was Friday afternoon! I left work an hour early, got home and was about to throw my gear in the car when the phone rang, it was Dan.

"Mate, I'm crook!"

"Bullshit!?"

"But I'm still gonna go - I've been to the doc and I've got an infection. I got some anti-biotics, I might just be a bit grumpy and you may have to lead everything tomorrow!"

"Are you sure mate, I don't want you to feel obligated to go because of me?" (which of course was bullshit, I was keen as mustard to go even if I had to haul Dans ailing body up every pitch!)

So the decision was made to continue and soon we were off down the Western Hwy hoping the Horsham weather forecast of "Possible Showers" for the weekend was overly pessimistic. After a few uneventful hours driving, and Dan doing his best to help the antibiotics kill his infection with a liberal dose of scotch & coke, we finally arrived at "The Pines" campground. We sourced a couple of flat-ish sites to pitch our tents, celebrated our arrival with a couple of tinnies and then hit the sack for an early start.

Saturday - the Organ Pipes

Me rapping off D Major Morning broke and Dan started the day off by tripping on a tree root during breakfast, going arse over tit and spraining a finger! Over the next hour or so the finger in question proceeded to swell and turn various shades of blue and purple! Suprisingly, he could still use it ok? I was starting to wonder if Dan was some kind of clumsy, terminator-cyborg type organism, an indestructible robot encased in fragile human flesh?!

We eventually set off towards the Organ Pipes area, which was a short walk from camp. It has lots of starred easy-moderate climbs on which we could test out Dan's physical state and get a feel for Arapiles rock. To start the day off I racked up for "Piccolo", a route up an attractive narrow 'pipe' which turned out to be a great intro lead for the area, it went without any problems although the crux buldge did feel a little stiff for the grade. Dan seconded and arrived at the belay with no real difficulties and congratulated me on a solid lead and commented that he thought it felt a little stiff for the grade as well. This turned out to be our intro to Arapiles grading.

Dan was feeling good so decided he was up for a lead and liked the look of "D Major". He led off, took a minute or two to route find around the block capping the wide chimney at the top of the first pitch and reached the first belay with little trouble. I followed up and was about to lead through for the second pitch when Dan said that if I didn't mind, he wanted to lead the second pitch as well. He must be feeling ok then I thought! He dispatched the second pitch which was much more enjoyable than the first - a good lead.

Dan leading D Major We stumbled around on the top of D Major and eventually found the rap anchors, I rapped off first and reached the bottom. Dan started coming down and decided to test out his prussik back up by letting it lock and then using the "stand in a loop of rope" trick to un-weight and release it again. He continued down again when a sudden loud stitch ripping sound came from the vicinity of his harness!

"WTF was that!?!"

He exclaimed in an alarmed voice as he frantically tried to peer around at his groin, still hanging a long way of the deck! The last 15m of his rappel was the fastest I'd seen anyone come down a rope - I think I may have seen whisps of smoke coming from his belay device when he touched down!

"Did you hear that!? That stitch tearing sound? It sounded like it came from my harness!?"

He blurted, with wide eyed alarm!

We pulled the rope and headed back around to the front of the Pipes, Dan whipped his harness off and gave it a close inspection. The source of the undergarment soiling sound was traced to a small protective material insert on the inside of a buckle loop on the leg, it was sewn into the loop and had decided to part ways under the strain. Deciding it was not a critical load bearing component of the harness Dan was satisfied to continue trusting his life to the device.

Next up I liked the look of "Didgeridoo", or better yet "Horn Piece" which added a more difficult direct finish and a couple of grades to the route, which headed up another attractive and steep 'pipe'. This route led to us devising a new Arapiles grading system. Similar to the UK grading system which includes a danger factor, our system adds a 'Pucker Factor' to the normal linear Ewbank grading system. The 'Pucker Factor'(we'll call it PF for the sake of simplicity) correlates to how tightly your sphincter clenches at moments during the climb. A low PF for example is nice sedate cruise at the stated Ewbank grade. Where as an 'extreme' PF could mean at certain points on the route, sphincter pressures capable of forging diamonds from coal could be encountered.

Back to "Horn Piece", I led up to a short rightward traverse which was a little cramped and awkward, the PF started creeping up! I then proceeded directly up the centre of the pipe which got ever steeper. I negotiated a blank buldge, then another loomed above, I had all kinds of trouble finding gear placements here, I was staring at a smooth featureless buldge of rock. After searching around for a minute or two I decided to head up and try get something in above, PF creeping up further! Once I got through the final buldge it turned into a gentle juggy finish up to the narrow belay ledge so I proceeded to run it out to the belay. Much to Dan's horror who was belaying and watching intently from below, crouched and ready to run off into the bush to take up slack, gritstone style, in case I fell!

Dan seconded up and eventually reached the belay, amazed at the gutsy lead and gave me slap on back to congratulate. He agreed with a PF rating of 'very high' and called me 'run out Jase' from then on.

It was getting late in the arvo so we decided to head back to camp, crack a tinny and go for an exploratory wander over to the Watchtower Faces as we had eyed the route of "Watchtower Chimney" in the guide as worth a possible attempt the next day. We also wanted to get a look at the famous line of the "Watchtower Crack". When we arrived Dan started drooling at the site of the chimney and from that point he was determined he was going to lead the chimney pitch that weekend, neither infection, sprained finger or hangover headache was going to deter him(cyborg!