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Soft Parade Rockfall 2-Apr-2013 At 12:36:45 PM sleake

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Spent a great lazy Easter sunday at the soft Parade, big crew, enjoying the cruisy sport stuff, all good fun.

Snuck around the corner, and saw a few sneaky trad lines.

Unfortunatly made the mistake of racking up and geting on them..

Started on Calcerate with Cake. Thought I better give the big starting boulder a bit of a tap before I stood on it, only to have the whole, door sized peice fall off. Not the best start. Video is floating around somewhere.

Hoped that would be the worst of it, got on, and actually 'enjoyed' the sandy, chossy thin crack - Hoever the key chockstone that you need to yard on probably needs more glue, as it too wobbles...............

Next up was Sexo drongos and Roccas. Cool route - got led, pulled rope then led again, then most of the crew left leaving me and my partner to clean it.

Only issue was the massive log that was jammed in the route - Daave had the joy of sending it over - shattered into a million peices and shocked us all. Again, Ill try and get a vid.

Partner headed up, got half way the bailed off. Then it was my turn. I struggled on up, then got to the exit of the crack, pulled on what seemed to be a solid right hand, and pulled off a briefcase sized sheet of rock, which flew down and missed my trusty belayer by..... nothing really - dont know how it missed him - sorry lloyd!

Shat myself, dogged my way up, lowered off then found 2 more huge flakes waiting to drop. Sure enough, a small kick and both sheets, probably 50 x 50 square came off no worries.

Now this is far beyond the realms of breaking a small handhold or a bit of sandyness. Be seriously careful there!!!! Easily could have ended really badly when we had the peanut gallery watching on - helmets would not have helped with any of the chunks that came down.

Next time I am up in the mountains I will be bringing a hammer and crowbar to the joint and giving it the cleaning it deserves....... I really doubt it has been done before. There is so much stuff still waiting to come down.

But in the meantime be VERY suspect of everything on the trad lines!!!

Cheers, Steve