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Offwidth appreciation society 6-May-2015 At 11:36:01 PM harold

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So, as I was saying, we saw some guys back off Santa’s Last Entry due to an encounter with a dubious block. There was some mention of rapping down to remove it. The climb goes up a finger/hand crack for 8m to a wedged block where the second half of the climb goes to No 5 Camalot offwidth. I’d done this climb a few years back and the block had felt pretty secure. Then I noticed a week ago someone logging on the Crag.com doing the climb and also mentioning the loose block. Mmmm. So a couple days ago I’m out there for a few quick arvo climbs and think maybe I should rap down and check that block… and it’s seriously a ticking time bomb, quite scary to think what could have happened. A 1 metre tall hunk of granite cammed into place by a couple smaller blocks. I lift the smaller block and push it to the back of the crack, give the big sucker a little poke and off it sails.
So a lesson to folks out there, if you see a real danger (like a giant block of death) do something about it, because soon enough someone else will wander up and think ‘I’ll just tiptoe around this thing’ and eventually it all ends in tears. The standard minimum effort is to chalk an ‘X’ as a warning.
And yes I know climbing is not meant to be totally safe and user responsibility and all that, but we do what we can to minimize that danger ( that’s what the rope and shiny gear is for). Be careful out there.