UPDATE May 2007: See PDF Guides below for Topos (Contributed By Josef Goding):

Contributed By: Will Monks

The Word: Less convenient but still damn fine.
Sun/shade: Early shade then bakes in the sun.
Wet weather options: No.
Style & Length of Climbs: 15-90m. Take as many as 10 bolt plates plus a rack.
Grades: 13-25

Access: Follow the tourist trail up to the saddle behind the Cathedral with great views out L of the Hump, with the Glossop Skins buttress being fairly obvious, it's the largest clean slab and you're looking at it in profile. The rap station is on top of it, be sure to get your bearings. Continue up the tourist track for another 400m or so, until about 100m past the ??? buttress (which is on the R) to where the tourist trail switchbacks L up towards the summit. Here you're almost below the Footbinders Revenge area (ahead and slightly L as you've approached). At the switchback break R for about 80m to the faint saddle , then veer R again to a small rock outcrop. This is split by a bumber of small gullies or chasms, choose the easiest one you can find which will deposit you out on a wide rock platform. If you kept your bearings it should be fairly obvious which one is the Glossop Skins buttress.

Above Right: Some general shots. This shows The Hump (on the right) and The Cathedral (on the left). The highest part of The Hump is a massive 90m slab with classics such as Glossop Skins (** 90m 25) (marked GS) and The Initiation (** 90m 18) (marked I) up it. The smaller block at far right has Redbacks (** 23) up it. Other routes marked are: TD = The Dreaming (*** 90m 23), SA = Substance Abuse (*** 90m 23), EoP = Edge of Pleasure (*** 90m 21) and M = Maharajah (*** 42m 17).
 
Above Left: This is the view of The Hump from the Cathedral, with The Horn obvious off in the distance, and Dreamworld being the little boulders at far right. Note, to access the rap chains above the very obvious Glossop Skins buttress it's not possible to traverse around the clifftop, instead follow the tourist trail until you're above the buttress at top left, then break back R to scramble between those boulders nestled in the trees to emerge on a big flat area above GS. Above Right: This shot shows the Hump Summit area (Footbinder's Revenge et al), as viewed from the boulders just above Glossop Skins. So if you have this view, GS is directly behind you.
 

** The Initiation 90m 18
A fantastic route up a crack blasting up the right side of the huge Glossop Skins buttress. I wouldn't argue with a 3rd star. It would be just as good at grade 15 if you skip the first 10m. Rap down the Glossop Skins Buttress (35m then 40m), and swing R on the second rap to where a flake/crack becomes obvious. Might be worth trying an overhand knot for your ropes because pulling a fisherman's over the rock wore straight through the sheath on one of our ropes. 1) (** 14m 18) The thin fingers flake/crack, with good stances and good gear for the first 7m followed by semi-campusing up fingerlocks with shit feet (crux). Be sure to place high gear from the last stance at 7m. 2) (* 22m 12) Lovely easy flake/crack up a steep slab - not many routes at this grade get you up a wall like that! Belay at small sloping ledge off cams up under a flake above. 3) (** 25m 14) Steeper undercling/layback flake section for 5m then easy for another 5m until it fizzles out. Ignore the dodgy old bolt and slot a good #3Fr then a blank smearing traverse down R past 2 bolts - exciting position, good pro. Once at the flakes on the far side slot a #2Fr to protect your second, then continue R to the big chockstone in the first chimney. Don't go down R to the grassy ledge with fixed sling, but pull onto the chockstone and trickily up onto the next big chockstone to the base of a splitter crack in the R wall of the chimney. 4) (** 20m 15) A beautiful textbook hand crack for 12m, widening to fists, then wander to the top. We did it in 3 pitches by combining p1&2, and it'd go in 2 pitches by skipping the 3rd belay (provided you extend gear before the p3 traverse, and from the end of the traverse to the start of the handcrack).
 

Further Reading:
Mt Buffalo, A Rockclimbers Guide - A climbing guide book, edited by Jeremy Boreham and David Breeton and available from local climbing shops, or the VCC.
Wills Climbing Page - Details on this area.

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