Heathcliff and Grand Canyon

This is an old article I found on my archive when I cleaned up my computer - Gary has since moved his family to Switzerland.

To kick of the first adventure of the New Year, Gary and I went up to the Blue Mountains on Saturday the 13th January and stayed at Bruce's place in Meadlow Bath. We woke up late on Sunday morning and Bruce cooked up a mega-healthy omelet with eggs supplied by Gary's very own seven ladies. We finally got on our way after 9:00AM and headed straight for the relatively unknown Heathcliff climbing area. Located at the bottom of Celebrity crag in the Megalong valley this is one of the best mult-pitch climbing areas in the Blue Mountains. The access is relatively tricky to find and takes about 30 minutes but as a reward Gary and I had the whole multi-pitch cliff face to ourselves. After a few easy and exposed warm ups to get the head straight, we cruised up the first three-pitcher called "The Rift". This relatively easy grade twenty has everything from slab to roof to exposed arête climbing and on the way down Gary and I chose to rap simultaneously to save time. Once the warm ups where out of the way it was time for the project of the day called "Leighsageezer" a three pitch grade 23. I started with the cruxy 22 face climb and pealed off the reachy crux move in desperation thanks to my short-ass stature. Gary cruised the 22 and with a short rest styled up the steep and exposed 23 roof pitch hiding high above. That pretty much cleared multi-pitch number two but we still had some gas in the tank and decided to go for another helping.  Next in line was yet another multi-pitch, ominously called "The thing". This three-star grade 22 had a very tricky vertical flake followed by some steep cranking up a smooth orange wall. The second pitch turned out to be a real revelation and probably ranks as one of the best single pitches I have ever climbed in the Blueys. The description simply states grade 20 (48 meters) and therefore Gary set out with 20 quickdraws and several spare karabiners. Let me just say that a 60 meter rope just reached to the end of this awesome line which covers some of the steepest and most exposed climbing of this mighty wall. Just remember that the walls at St.Leonards are about 8 meters high so this aptly named “thing” was more than 5 times as long and Gary used every bit of gear he carried. There was also a surprise thin reachy crux at about halfway that made us hang on for dearlive for the remainder of this humongous line. We were both exhausted at the end of this endurance feast and once again simul-raped our third multi-pitch climb of the day.  Sitting down for a well-deserved rest, it was barely half past four and we had climbed non-stop for about 5 hours. The day was still young.

It was time for some more action since family-men do not get out very often these days and we needed to make the most of the immaculate day. Gary's idea was to make a speed assault on Grand Canyon and use up the last bit of energy we had left. Without much time to loose we made it back from the valley floor to the car in record time and drove down “Evans lookout” road to Nates Glen. The local map showed a round trip time of 5 hours for the walk from Nates Glen to Ewans look-out and back to the car but we thought we could do better than that and throw in Grand Canyon for good measures. To make up time we ran to the beginning of the canyon, which took more time than expected (30 min). The short abseil was done in slings and then we started to cruise down the dark bouldery canyon. Avoiding the water as much as possible we climbed past most obstacles and bucked loads of huge yabbies until a dark unavoidable bit stopped us dead in our tracks. There was no climbing around this baby and we only wore shorts and T-shirts, so in we went and the freezing water took our breaths away. We got to the end of the canyon, where it joins back onto the walking track in about 45 minutes and decided to complete the full loop. Shooting up the steep ascent to Nates Glen took 26 minutes and pumped the hell out of my legs. We had a brief break to admire the mighty vista of the burned-out Grose Valley and then set off the remaining 1.3 km of dirt-road to complete the circle. Power-walking back to the car we finished the day at about 19:30 PM. Our Grand Canyon round trip had taken just over two hours and we still had time to call the kids before bedtime. We both felt pretty tired but with about 60min of light left in the horizon, perhaps there was still time for one more gig .......