Nestled amidst the craglet collection known collectively as Celebrity Crags area near Porters Pass and linking all the way to Centennial Pass via Colliers Causeway - a very popular loop hiking trail, lies a single multipitch climb through the impressive cliff face. It stands out as a grand achievements by the developers who discovered a major line of excellent features through a sea of verticality. Intimidatingly known as The Devil's Work, and the reviews a little scary the line is a masterpiece in its own right - combining safe sport climbing with ring bolts and excellent belays stations throughout the entire climb.
Pitch one is an extensive slab excursion via some cruxy highsteps that culminate at a footledge that runs across vertical for about 15 metres under a major roof. Eventually the feet stop and a tricky step across leads to the final vertical crux section. Although well protected the final mantle onto the ledge is covered with a carpet of loose sandstone debris so tread careful. The traverse rope is still there and you can just hoist yourself onto the ledge. This does not diminish the quality of the climb at all but gives this pitch a distinctly adventurous feeling. It also requires a lot of long draws to keep the inevitable rope drag to a minimum. The escape left from here to the Jimmy Cliff crag is an easy path out, but you would miss out on the superb third pitch.
It is accurate to list the next 7m traverse as a pitch in its own right, since it requires some solid rope work to protect your partner. We clipped the existing traverse rope and shuffled across while on belay.
This leads you to the start of the third pitch which begins with steep overhanging jugs on solid rock. The steep section ends in a corner capped by a slab to the left. The trick here is to undercling and bring your feet up high enough to reach the high crimps on the slab. Overall this is probably the most technical section of the climb and it brings you to the superbly exposed perfect belay stand with panoramic views of the escarpment leading to Centennial Glen.
the Fourth and final pitch is a serious of steepening roof bands interspersed with ironstone jugs great footholds and a sucking void below. The rock is not as bad as described online, but one still has to tread carefully. The only exception is a single band of rock after the first 5 meters of climbing, covered in shale which feels like pudding to the touch. Several horizontal breaks are soft as butter and this is the section where you begin to pray to the Gods of compact holds for mercy. What you are steeping on is joss and you are holding onto pudding for a couple of moves. But fear not the ringbolts are never far away and it held - at least for us. Once past this short character building section, jugs lead to the top over some impressive steep ironstone ledges. The top out brings you inline with Sharon Stone where the sport climbers cheer you on from across the valley. The final belay is set back a little from the edge in the Heath with Mount Blackheath as the formidable backdrop. Enjoy the view and you have completed the only multipitch in this area. But would you do it again... |
