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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Buffalo	(General)	(General)	(General)	[ Mt Buffalo Guide \| Images ]

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Bolts at Buffalo 28-Jan-2019 At 8:17:54 PM bigchris

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Good evening ladies and gents of the chock,

Once again I'm posting here, but at least this time everyone knows what it's going to be about.

I wasn't going to go climbing this weekend due to an injury in the family (my mother-in-law legit stacked the ride-on mower and broke many a bone during the week) but we went to Buffalo anyway.

Buffalo isn't Arapiles, nor is it the Grampians. I can't keep my eyes on all of these places, so that can be up to other people, but I will try to keep Buffalo as it is. Buffalo is this wild, wild, sketchy, dangerous place which deserves respect. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind putting a lower off, or some extra bolts on a run out slab with permission from FA teams, but in all the trips that I've done to Buffalo, I don't think I really understood what it meant to have a place like this to climb in until this weekend's trip. Buffalo has a legacy that needs to be left after the current "old" climbers pass on, and in speaking with many old-school first ascensionists, I realised what needed to be done (with them coaxing me) with their advice in hand.

Country Road bolts x 5: Chopped/punched in. There is a giant crack right behind it (read: huge) that you could stick a 3, 4, 5 and 6 cam in there to rig a slackline anchor.

Wicked Solitaire bolts x 5: Chopped/punched in. There is a tree that you can tie a rope around and a crack (at the top of the climb!!!!!!!) that you can stick gear in to rig your slack line (I think from memory I've got to do one more, I ran out of battery).

North wall both Fuhrer bolts x 5: Chopped (see previous picture in thread). There is a giant (read: massive) tree right next to the bolts, not even half a metre away. Use that instead, or the multitude of other anchors that I found when walking around there. I did damage a piece of rock on one of them (probably 4cm in size), but will return with some glue and patch it up with local material so hopefully you can not notice it.

Slab on the way down to mushroom rock, approx 15 bolts. Chopped/punched in with the help of Geoff. I walked up and down the slab (it's actually just a piece of rock not even a slab, probably 10 degrees) and yeah, I don't even know wtf.

The very top of Angels buttress bolts x 3. Chopped/punched in. Once again, if you're not feeling safe walking down the easy descent to the top of Burstons Crevasse, sling the giant tree, or one of the giant boulders, or put some gear into one of the many cracks available.

There are a few more which I need to do, but I ran out of battery. I don't think chopping local sports crags is the answer, and I do realise that bolts will magically appear over time because everyone has access tp the available technology and it's cheap. However, the last thing I want is for Buffalo to be turned into the Grampians Moratorium and I want to keep the place for wide and/or run-out climbs, even if I'll never be able to do some of them.

Peace.