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Climbers rescued in Grampians, the story 28-Dec-2010 At 7:43:40 PM zdeneczech

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Hi,well maybe I have got a bit c--ky after climbing Spiegels overhang in Cathedrals, but main problem was that we wanted to climb Mixed climb (could not find the initials) but could not be 100% sure that we found it despite having a Grampians selected climbs guide with us. So I measured the distance stated in the guide from Heretic(marked S) which was 14m to the right, or 6m right past Diane (initials could not be found either) and there is a yellow sling visible about 5m high. We lost a lot of time trying to get it right, then we found MA initials under the sling and off I went tired of looking. Beautiful climb until on the third pitch we got on a ledge with overhanging roof. I thought that the climb was quite difficult, certainly for me and even more for my wife, I do not think it was Mixed climb, there is Hard times in the area and not sure what MA stands for. Perhaps I panicked and unnecessarily called 000, I only wanted to talk to someone familiar in the area, thinking that they will tell me whether to go left or right under the roof. Unfortunately chain of events started and we could not stop it. After the initial contact with 000 I went left under the roof (facing the rock) and climbed another 10 meters, but my wife was not able to do it, I down climbed back to her and found another easier looking line more to the left, at that stage it was getting dark and my wife was getting tired. I asked for another hour as I was confident that I could finish and asked operator not to send helicopter and help at that time. I was advised not to continue ( because of light and my wife's state) and perhaps that was right and we agreed. Why did we not abseil? Tough question for me, inexperience probably, i thought that going up was easier. In the end we found that we were about 30 m below the top (we did not know that at the time).