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TR: Cosmic County and Narrowneck 10-Jun-2013 At 10:21:49 PM sbm

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When friday night came around, I was not particularly exited for a big long weekend. But the plan for Saturday was a day out at the County, and I've been on a roll with my crack climbing this year and I couldn't turn down the opportunity to get on Interstate 31. As a younger climber I was also interested to finally see this historic crag which has stirred up so much discussion about ethics and access.

After leaving Sydney late (definitely to avoid the long weekend traffic, and not because we are unorganised) we drove up Bell's Line and turned onto the newly-paved dam cliffs road to bivvy in the carpark there around midnight. This went well, except when the first train of the night approached, it continued getting louder and brighter for a very long time until we were all wondering if we'd accidentally camped on the tracks somehow, and were about to die spectacularly. We didn't though, and dragged ourselves out of bed in the morning and drove around to the end of Donald Road by 8am.

Bulti and I joined Paul, Jason, Jonas, and Leith for the day. We'd met Paul and Jason at Beulah this year and it was good to climb with some new faces.

The access we used was the bush bash around the eastern boundary of the private property on Donald Road, then down Greenhouse Gully. It's not that long a walk and it is on fire trails most of the way, but it is a bit involved! The worst part was lugging the #6 camalot in and out after forgetting to leave it in the car.

Anyway we dumped everything at the base of the 80 Minute Hour. The weather was drizzly, cold, cloudy and damp. We watched Paul and Jason climb that route, before warming up by climbing Bernutt's Block by some pleasant easy route on carrots that wasn't even that run out.

For a fairly average winter day in the Blueys it was actually pretty busy, we met a couple of other groups, including Damian from Canberra (aka One Day Hero) who seemed pretty nice in person.

Then I got on the 80 Minute Hour. This is a total trad classic at the grade. After looking at all the broken holds on the direct start I took the wimpy option of traversing in from the left, even so to get the first gear in, I had to round the arete and downclimb a move to a jug, then place a couple cams at knee height, all while quite high off the ground.

At the first ledge I realised I'd taken a bunch of wiregate draws, and so set about rearranging biners to make a set of franken-draws with solid gates on the bolt end. After the first ledge you have to blast out and up into great committing climbing. Then even greater and more committing climbing off of the second ledge. Awesome. I walked down and then belayed Bulti, who flashed it. I climbed it again on second to clean it, and had a go at the direct start.

We walked over to I'd Rather Be Sailing, to watch Paul and Jason while eating lunch. I had actual peanuts ready to go, but after hauling through the start Paul cruised it, with a horrific runout up the top as he hadn't brought at #4.

It was then time for the main event, which was Interstate 31. We had scrounged a pretty good rack including everything from Metolius to Totems in the hand sizes.

I gave the onsight lead (maybe just a little forcefully) to Bulti. He was doing well, but problems began emerging when he set himself up for some stupid rope drag by placing cams right under the rooflets. Soon after loud and frantic grunts began. He was getting pretty high and I figured it was just his tweaky shoulder being tweaked or something.

But what had actually happened was that, after all those bouldering session at the Ledge, his thumb muscles had sadly atrophied, and the hand jams were making him incredibly pumped. More grunting followed, then a final screamed "MOTHERF&CK%R!" which echoed pleasantly across Hartley Vale, followed by a normal plain scream, as he slipped off a jug right near the top of the route and fell quite a long way.

Fortunately, the rope drag ensured a very soft fall and I barely felt a thing. He'd also, again, made sure that he'd fallen on one of my cams.

After some recovery time, he pulled the rope and put me on belay and I flashed the route, which was great although I was maybe a bit nervous to properly enjoy it.

After this we were basically done, but also got to watch Paul climb Comfortably Numb. This route had been recommended to Bulti as having "really interesting pro, chickenheads to sling and stuff, you'll love it, get on it" but I can smell a sandbag a mile off these days and so instead we just watched as Paul cruised this as well.

We climbed out of Memory Lane, and got back to the carpark just on dark.

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After camping at Blackheath Glen, we decided to go to Narrowneck and do Fuddy Duddy with Blair and Kylie. I had spent hours blundering around the bush at the top and bottom of the crag on a previous trip, and so was able to guide everyone down to the Cave Climb rap (we belayed everyone down to the chains) and then to the base of the huge Fuddy Duddy buttress.

I was planning on leading the first pitch, but Bulti said he'd do it, so off he went. He made his way up the chossy sandy wall and arete, slinging horns and with the occasional cam.

At the base of the block at the top of the buttress, he wanted to go around to the right behind the block and into the chimney. I yelled up that the guidebook description said to go left. He yelled back that that was death as the block was overhanging with tiny sandy holds. I continued arguing until I saw sense, and let the leader lead. Bulti climbed to the right into the chimney behind the Fuddy Duddy block, and chimneyed up the last couple of meters to the belay.

I'm beginning to think Simon Carter puts incorrect information about Narrowneck in on purpose to make sure you have an adventurous day out.

Anyway, I lead up behind Bulti and Kylie, clipping Bulti's gear. When I reached the tiny belay ledge we decided that this was not the route to do in a group of four with two less experienced climbers. I stood on a chockstone as Bulti rearranged the anchor so we could rap off of a hex and the single carrot.

The bail abseil behind the pillar was actually quite fun. It was educational for Blair and Kylie, who learned how quickly things can become a clusterf&ck on a multipitch, and hopefully something about keeping that under control.

We emerged from behind the pillar and walked back around to Cave Climb. The first pitch seemed much harder than when I did it last time, but the cave pitch was much easier, and it confirmed in my mind that it's a unique classic and has much better climbing than Sweet Dreams. We topped out of the final corner just on a beautiful orange sunset, and drove off as Dogface glowed in the setting sun.

We met some friends back at the pub at Blackheath, before returning to camp for wine, beer, and a nice warm campfire. We woke up to drizzle and aching limbs this morning, and drove back to Sydney.

Not a whole lot of climbing done really, but what we did was memorable, so all in all a good weekend.