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Climbers rescued off Margarine Ridge, Mt Hay 9-Nov-2011 At 7:25:21 PM HumphreyG

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On 7/11/2011 aarond wrote:
>It is a bit of an epic climb. the guide makes it seems less committing
>than it is. it has stars and is grade 13... sounds like a good beginners
>long multi pitch to me, but not really.
>
>the start is hard to find, its very committing, retreat after about pitch
>4 would start to become very slow and hard. a bit chossy in places, a bit
>wandery in places, between many belays is a 10m scrub bash through steep
>bushy stuff...
>
>Its a classic adventurous trad route!!
>
>I would think alot of people who set out to do this on a nice summers
>day will finish at night and be dehydrated. I would think im an average
>paced climber and it took me 12 hours car to car, which 10 hours of that
>would have been spent out in the sun getting sooo dehydrated! i thought
>3L of water was enough but i think i could have done with 6L.
>
>
>Id be interested to know how many people have epics on this route?

This kind of thing really pi**es me off, not aaronds post but what he's commented on. There seem to be quite a few climbs which have been sandbagged around the Blueys, and I think this whole incident is probably as a result of another sandbagging. A grade 13 climb - really that's not that hard - don't get me wrong I don't climb much above this but from anyone's perspective MR might be a good candidate for a re-assessment. Quoting ACA - Pitch 1 "one hard move protected by 0.3 cam on bad rock possible ground fall". I know most of the regulars on this forum climb way harder than I'll probably ever get to but for newer people climbing a grade 11 which should be a 15 (or a grade 17 which should be a 21 - it doesn't matter) is not really a safe option, when people find themselves out of their depth. To be fair, the authors of guide books cannot personally verify the grade of every single climb and yes it can be very personal/subjective based on ones own climbing abilities/styles (some like laybacking, some like jamming and all that) but I don't think challenging it is a bad thing.

Rant over, guys who got stuck, I'm on your side if that wasn't obvious (but you really should have taken enough water - I guess you know that now though).