 Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
Thinking that it was a great warm-up we got completely shut down on the easiet climb at the crag J’aiFroid (19*). It completely kicked my bud with its horrendous slopers across a little rooflet. My body was still cold and begged for mercy at this monster sandbag. we moved over to the Grey Slab area, which is a bit of a misnomer since all routes here finish with a steep roof. Clipping the anchors here is mostly the crux. But the routes are all of high quality and provide a great introduction to the rock of this amazing cliff.
Wet Friday 18* nice balancy slab moves with tricky steep final clip in the roof.
Leed lemon 19* very similar with nice moves over the slab to steep but juggy finish.
Dob in Dumper 19* this one had the boys scratching their heads with a very tricky slab move right at the beginning. Felt very hard and not a great warm-up
Finished with the warm-ups we moved over to the next area Prow Wall, with its vertical face leading into a roof with a slab waiting above. This area has it all.
Jack Spaniel (22**) tough ground up boulder problem on arête to start with leads to nice moves until the final iron cross move across a bulge. Quite tough and bouldery but the boys made light work of this.
Obscure Pedicure (22**) nice moves lead to crux roof crossing with a blind throw to a hold – thankfully its good. Then finish on a few intricate moves up a small leaning overhang with a mantle for the final hard move.
The next area is just a few meters across to the next wall and is easily identified by a major flake running through the middle of it.
Hidden Gem (23**) up the nice flake to a thin face move. Followed by a technical undercling to get established in the roof. Final crux moves through the roof to clip the anchor. There is a jug after clipping the anchor which is a hard deadpoint with bad feet, probably the crux.
Ergonomics (22**) great root with a fantastic deadpoint move to a good side pull right in the middle. Only Chris managed to static this one! Climb quickly through pockets on final overhang as the pump sets in the victory jugs await.
Hidden Boobies (21**) nice traverse link up – over the flake and across the face to final hard anchor clip of a big undercling.
Fear is only as deep as the mind allows
恐れは、心の許すかぎり深い
That was about it for the warm-up session and it was time for the business part of the day the Ghetto Cave:
We wanted to try Wipe on Sex Appeal (25**) but it had no draws on and cleaning this massive roof would be a serious challenge. So we just could not walk past the mega classic Ghetto Superstar (28***) , which is fully equipped with perma-draws and you could just hop on the most amazing roof traverse in Sydney instead. The intial start is the crux of the route and is followed by relentlessly continuing mega jugs along the lip of the roof. It requires excellent footwork, body tension, healhooks and there are even a couple of bat hangs to recover on up-side-down. Crux boulder is right at the start followed by relentless upside down roof jugging Amazing.
There was a little fuel left in the tank for Will and Roman after that one and we hoped on the stunning arête of Glenquarie (24**) but it was too hot, too humid and we were buggered anyway. The moves are steep and juggy until the crux pockets. Lock of the left hand and reach for a smear with you right. Make sure the right healhook does a lot of work and pump your right hand from the sloper to the good final jug. I will be back for this one.
Meanwhile the boys got to work on the local bouldering area which is just below the main grotto and features a handful of classic V5 problems.
Toy (V5**) amazing positive crimpers to slopers and tricky mantle.
Booty (V5**) edges to tough mantle.
VIDEO: Slightly less cultured (V5**) tough span across the gap and then thin moves to the top.
The sun never touched the cave and the mozzies backed off a little after 10am but bring your repellant in summer. Great summer crag in the shade all day with a nice breeze whistling through the trees and breaking up the cacophony of yodeling climbers and buzzing cicadas.
We shall return again soon…..
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