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Miguel75 and PhillipIvan go gardening. 21-Feb-2014 At 9:46:09 PM phillipivan

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Mistakes We Knew We Were Making

Notes, Corrections, Clarifications, Apologies, Addenda

The plan had been to climb the first six pitches in blocks of three, Miguel75 starting off. The remaining four pitches were to be swung or allocated according to whomever was most fit to lead them. Though M9 had dobbed M75 in to lead te fang pitch, which met no arguments from me.

Bones, become a parent, it'll sort you out quick smart. Huwj and I did Ozi Direct on four hours and twenty sleep. Granted we became wildly inefficient during the back twelve of the twenty four hours we spent on that route.

Mikey lost his fifi on the walk down. So by the time we started climbing we were sharing one. I bootied it on the walk out near mushroom rock, and plan on selling it on Chockky for top dollar.

To be fair, the first five metres of pitch three did look awesome. Beyond that I couldn't see. I didn't want to deprive Mikey of perhaps the first really nice thin section of climbing after the muck of P2. I couldn't see what lay in store higher up. Which, let's be honnest would hardly have made me more keen to lead the pitch.

No mention was made of my delicious home cooked high calorie wall food; date logs (they looked like small hard turds, laced with shredded coconut) and rice cakes. I'm deeply offended Mikey, next time I'm just going to bring grog and coffee on the wall; which - I'm well aware - your Mormon religion prohibits you from imbibing.

I've seen both Huwj and Miguel75 get pretty gassed jugging with small packs up to BG (Ozi pitch 3). I find jugging with a pack pretty easy going as long as it's not steeper than vertical. Perhaps that section is bulgy enough to warrant hauling, even if the plan is to *mostly* jug with a small pack.

There was no point five on the seven millimeter cord. It's just the same cord most people use for a cordelette, but much longer. Still fine to rap on, but we only used it as a pull cord, so two millimeter would have done fine also.

I wonder, in worthless hypothetical terms, if we might have been more successful with a slower plan and some bivvy gear etc. Nonetheless, I'm quite happy we tried it as we did. Mike had floated taking his two bivvy bags and no sleeping bag, for the night - which considering the weather would have been the better but still miserable option. In a ledge it would have been rad.

Secretly, I was jealous that I wasn't as wasted as Miguel75 by days end. But I certainly was by the time we drove home.

We failed to take doubles cams in the 0.75 and 1 camalot sizes for no intelligent reason; we were racking up very late at night. This seemed dumb, but didn't slow us down between the ground and BG. Mike did run out of small cams at one point.

On both Ozi Direct with HuwJ and LG with Miguel75 we have had a sling with a followers rack; including jugs, gri gri, and nut key. On moderate aid at least, to M3 or M4, I wonder if the leader could do without dasies also. I use them very little until it gets weird, hard, or I'm shattered. On harder routes I might be worried about losing an Ett.

I wore some softshell bibs on the theory that they would make the hanging belays more comfortable by not having a seem under the harness. It seemed to work, but Mikey's belay seat is so much more comfortable (and heavier) than mine it hardly mattered.

On the walk out Mikey listed every muscle that was cramping in his body; at a certain point I concluded he was just reciting every muscle he knew of. Don't worry Mikey, I'll lend you some of my anatomy texts so next time it can hurt alot more.

The blue totem cam is the best. Why don't I have it in triplicate?