Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Lord Howe Island 24-Jun-2004 At 6:53:13 PM vwills

Message

Lord Howe was as splendid as ever, but the surf was the only thing cranking. None of the beaches have any bouldering- the coastal rock in the central part of the island is very soft sedimentary stuff called something like calcarenite with some people carving their initials on it, its so soft. The other stuff thats widespread around the coast is possibly basalt but it is so aerated, the rock has cooled leaving sharp spikes like multiple vertical razor blades.
There would be some scope for bouldering at goathouse cave, although the landing is about 400m below if a spotter misses you at the ledge. The low way- the ledge on the west side of Lidgbird could also give some OK bouldering if desperate. But a lot of the rock is likely to break off in big blocks and is covered in lichen which is pretty slippery.
The walk up Gower has some spots you can just about make Grade 5 moves on if you ignore the fixed rope.
Lidgbird looks far more promising, apparently the easiest ascent is about Grade 7 (no real track) and some bands of rock look OK.
Balls pyramid is off limit for the forseeable future but I was told it was actually climbed fairly recently by some sneaky people who chartered a yacht for just that purpose, and who escaped official detection.
Other climbing activity includes trying to get up the Kentia palms as the locals do using a foot sling (something at which I failed dismally), swinging through the banyans and scrambling around much of the rocky foreshore.
Paddling a kilometre to hit the lagoon reef breaks was enough endurance training and there is so much else to do the climbing withdrawal never got too bad. So if you want a climbing holiday head to Krabi, if you just want a great holiday (or conference venue) couldn't go past LHI.