Web Log

15 Feb 2012

Festival Of The Canyon 2012

Preliminaries: Photo credits go to David Noble from SUBW, Laura Rianto and Suzanna Rodriguez from UTSOAC (more photos in those links, check em out!), and Luke, Damon and Lucy from UNSWOC. I have no connection to Shane and Immortal Outdoors, I just really liked his old site TDMSKP and wish him luck in this new project. Club websites are UTS Outdoors Adventure Club, Sydney University Bushwalking Club and my own club UNSW Outdoors Club. Track notes for all of these canyons, along with many excellent photos, can be found at Tom Brennan's OzUltimate.com.

So with the uploading and tagging of all the photos on Facebook, Festival Of the Canyon is finally over for another year. Or at least, everyone is over the festival.

The Cathedral Of Ferns campground at Mt Wilson is perhaps the spiritual center of canyoning in Australia. It's also free, does not require bookings, and allows campfires, a very rare thing in this day and age. After a slowish trip up from Sydney with Dave and Bulti, I arrived late on Saturday morning just after 9AM, into the midst of a bustling carpark. After promising 5 minutes to get ready and taking 10, I was packed and running down the fire trail after Damon's party to do Water Dragon Canyon.

Water Dragon Canyon

Water Dragon is not the most popular Wollongambe canyon, being somewhat of a trashy younger upstream sibling of Whungee Wheengee Canyon. But we figured (correctly) we'd be the only ones attempting it, and it would be another one to tick off the list.

Unfortunately we reached the ford at the Wollongambe 1 exit to find this:

The normally ankle or shin-deep wade was many meters deep, submerging trees on the opposite bank and flooding nearly the whole beach. When the whitewater kayakers are going "Whoa, sketchy!" you don't attempt to swim across. So we hung around for a little while eating and chatting to the two other parties who'd intended to do Whungee Wheengee. Eventually everyone turned back, with one group changing plans to go and do Serendipity.

On the way back we got drenched by a mother of a storm, which then turned into hail, then back to rain, and then back into really large and painful hail.

This is what it looked like.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road/Serendipity Canyon

Serendipity Canyon (properly referred to as Why Don't We Do It In The Road Canyon, but if the first descensionist Tony Norman had wanted his name to be in common use, he should have chosen one with less than eight syllables) is a rather crappy canyon whose main selling points are lots of abseils, easy access, and that it's safe to do in wet weather.

Due to this reputation, it was the main attraction at this year's very wet festival. In fact, we reckoned upwards of forty people must have been in it at one point, based on the trip plans in the festival logbook and two commercial groups that were apparently doing it!

Most of these parties, as it turns out, quite sensibly got spooked by the huge storm and bailed before the final constriction, forcing an exit from an open section back up onto the ridge. Except for the UNSWOC party, who showed those Sydney Uni posers by pressing on regardless and doing the whole thing in the midst of the storm. Despite fearless leader Luke's apparent best efforts, no-one drowned, and apparently the canyon didn't even flood that much. I guess it really is safe in wet weather.

Laura and Larissa singing in the rain.

Check out the Wollongambe at the junction though! Fark! Large catchments mean large hydraulics.

Dalpura Canyon

Another wet weather favourite, a party (including canyoning legend Dave Noble) went to do this little North Grose subway. A short drive further south, they apparently didn't get any rain at all!

Hobnail Canyon

Another party regretfully descended into the mire that is Range Creek and the spectacularly crap Hobnail Canyon. This also exits into Bowens Creek South Branch, which I would say is a pretty large and flood-prone creek, but they apparently survived. They may even have had some fun!

Saturday Night

After we dried out under the picnic shelter at Mt Wilson, the weather cleared up and stayed good for the rest of the evening. The Cathedral was turned into a temporary city of tents, drying wetsuits and Dunlop Volleys, a slackline or two, and a fine large, warm campfire.

Shane set up a car battery and inverter rig and managed to run a projector. There were photo presentations, stories from the day, and Shane talked about his new website Immortal Outdoors.

Costume Competition

Then the raffle was drawn and costume competition judged. Money was being raised for the Bushwalkers Wilderness Rescue Squad, a quite practical and relevant cause! The costume entries were:

Ellen's horrifying evil clown

Max's even more horrifying mankini.

Damon's white suit with fedora.

From left to right, Luke's dad Greg in the flouro green wig (representing the Springwood Bushwalkers), Luke in top hat and tails complete with a prussik bowtie, and Larissa and Tony as Spongebob.

From left to right, Danny, Laura, Karena rocking disco style, Max again, and Suzanna.

The winner was declared to be Luke, greatly helping was the fact he actually wore his suit all the way through the canyon. He got a bitchin' Resurgance canyoning pack.

There was much socialising and drinking and discussion of ethics until the wee hours of the morning.

Grand Canyon

The next morning Damon, Dave and I were planning to do Wolgan View Canyon, however Damon had a last-minute and disruptive change of plans and had to head back to Sydney. So after dropping him at Blackheath station, me and Dave did Grand Canyon instead (reversed from the bottom, with no abseiling required). Afterwards we doddled down the old Rodriguez Pass track to Beauchamp Falls for lunch. It was a pleasant trip, but a bit disappointing after planning a more exploratory day.

Clatterteeth Canyon/Du Faur's Creek

David Noble managed to pick a beautiful lilo canyon without too high a water level on the Sunday.

Closet Canyon

Luke had his heart set on Closet Canyon, an obscure Rocky Creek tributary that even David Noble had only done once before. With a warning in the guide about "tricky navigation", a late start, a dirt road in terrible condition and 2WD cars, a huge group, and thunderstorms forecast in the afternoon, they DESERVED to have an epic, but apparently it was all good! Who dares wins huh. Luke can do no wrong as a trip leader.

They even got a nice sunset dammit.

Conclusion

What a fun, well-organised, and just plain cool event! Good to see some faces from last year, and have the university clubs partying together again. Thanks again to Ellen and Scott and UTSOC for a good weekend, despite the rain.

And the fact the only canyon I got to do was Grand again...man, it just makes me keener! But Minus reckons he's free for a canyoning trip first weekend in March, and has a 4WD, so hopefully I'll up be in Newnes before too long.

Filed in /outdoors/canyoning
Permanent link: http://www.samuelmay.id.au/blog/outdoors/canyoning/festival_of_the_canyon.html

24 Oct 2011

A day out at Mount Piddington

"...don't be afraid of places like Mt Piddington" - widewetandslippery

With uni over for the semester and thesis was handed in, it was time to get up to the mountains and get on some rock. After watching the first half of the rugby on friday night, I picked up James and drove up Bells Line of Road to Mt Victoria. We met Pez and Ben at a campsite at Mt York. After chilling for a bit, and enjoying the clear and cool night with the car lights on the highway twinkling way down below, I put up the tent inner fly and we hit the sack.

We made an bright and early start and drove straight to the Mt Piddington carpark. I was pretty stoked to finally be heading out to Piddo, and we even had Pez with us, and he has a picture of himself on On Edge on the front page of Chockstone at the moment, so clearly he knows the place pretty well.

And he climbs pretty good as well.

We got to the Eternity area at the very keen hour of 7:30. Pez started leading up Joseph, and while him and Ben climbed it I started racking up.

That crack looks pretty good. Have I seen a photo of that route somewhere?

Now James and I had spent much of the winter at Barrenjoey, having fun sticking old cams into sandy horizontals, and slowly getting more trad experience. Actually, I think I've led nearly every grade 14 and 15 crack at southwest Barrenjoey now. I was exited but nervous to see how I'd go at big crag. How much gear will I have to place on a 30m pitch? Will I be able to find wire placements? Can I actually hold on for that long? Am I going to freak out with the exposure?

As it turned out I had a blast leading Joseph and even managed to run it out a little and extend the right pieces. So that was good. I then 'persuaded' James to head up The Cartheginian: "I reckon you'll get a good big cam at the start of the wide bit and then you can just power up to the tree!". He had a cracking go, but had to take a rest, before footjamming and hugging up the crux part with the twin cracks. Seconding, instead of managing to get the wire stuck, I got it out but dropped it instead. I continued up to the fantastic belay cave. Rapping down the Eternity, we were treated to one of the most amazingly well-engineered rap anchors I've seen since the one on top of the 18 roof at Narrabeen slabs.

Over the course of the morning efforts were made on SSCC #1, SSCC #3 (I had a good flash attempt but took a fall and had to rest before getting up it), Neil Diamond Syndrome, the first pitch of Flake Crack, and Hope.

Pez makes Flake Crack look easy.

I make Flake Crack look hard.

We then decided to all go and cruise up Hocus Pocus, for tradition's sake. As the first team to the base would not have to wait, we raced to sort out gear, and at this point James dropped something that dissapeared down the slope in the depths of the valley, and I realised I'd left the dropped nut and sling at the base of The Cartheginian. Pez ran off cackling and did the whole thing in one pitch and clipped about 3 bolts.

After waiting and watching from the top of the Cottage Boulder, James led the first pitch. Hocus Pocus turns out to be that crappy rusty-coloured juggy rock that characterises easy Blueys scrambles like Sweet Dreams and Boadicia. After getting a little freaked at having so few bolts in 15m, James mantled over the little bulge and got to the first belay. When I got there he had clipped all four bolts with quickdraws and extendable draws and connected them all with a huge cordelette and an knot about the size of child's head. The rope was somehow running through the middle of this. "You wanted to be fast, so I tried to do something simple". At this point I was very happy I hadn't agreed to do Bunny Bucket Buttress with him this weekend.

But then my own stupidity began. I attempted to step off the belay 3 times but something got caught every time (why do I even have a nut tool?). I then climbed straight up and got a little bit off route. The problem with crappy rusty-coloured slabs is that they are bolted with crappy rusty-coloured carrots which are several meters apart and really hard to find. I then made the mistake of looking down and realised how far I was off the belay. Where the hell are all these retrobolts supposed to be?

At this point James dropped the rope stack. After cursing and yelling a lot I traversed right until I could clip something, and stormed up the rest of the easy corner in a rage, clipping just enough bolts to create obscene rope drag. I staggered to top, sweating insanely (the crag is in full sun by now) and giggling in astonishment at how hard we just got flogged by a bolted grade 8. The camera was also run out of battery power, as though it was too embarrassed to record this.

But somehow I did manage to take this photo. Happy to be on the ground.

Luckily the descent was done reasonably competently. We opted to do it in two raps, rather than do the death downsolo to the second rap station.

The day was not quite over. Pez and Ben headed up The Phantom for a finale. Continuing my excellent record of picking "easy warm-down routes", I chose to lead Avago with the grade 17 slab finish. It was a steep and hard start and I couldn't stop to place gear until I was about 4m off the ground. I slammed in two nuts, a big cam, and slung the 'dick'. I had to make another couple of moves right and up to clip the first carrot.

I kept waiting for the angle to ease off, but it didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure that when you're pumped, hanging straight-armed from jugs, and you look down and see your belayer is closer to the base of the climb then you are, then that ain't a slab. I yelled "take!".

Sunburnt and sandbagged I flopped onto pagoda on top of the buttress. No sooner have I set up an autoblock and yelled "On belay!", the rope goes taught and traps my hand against the rock. "Owowowow couldpleasegetbackontherockasapmyhandisstuck" "WHAT?" "STOP FALLING OFF YOU MORON!". Of course James had chosen this moment to fight the good fight against cancer and apply sunscreen, and as a consequence could't hold on to a damned thing with his slimy hands. He dogged his way up the start.

Anyway, he comes up, and in a thirsty daze we rap down Angular Crack using the hilariously over-engineered anchor, meet up with Pez and Ben, and trudge back up Horne Point. Just as we reach the cars, a perfect cooling breeze comes up.

In the end we had a great day and we didn't kill ourselves. Piddo is amazing, the classic lines are awe-inspiring and I can hardly believe it was humanly possible to lead them in the 60's. It will take another couple of trips I think to sack up and lead the rest of Flake Crack or Psychopath. It wasn't crowded at all and the people we did see were friendly.

So that was my first trip to Mt Piddington.

Filed in /outdoors/climbing
Permanent link: http://www.samuelmay.id.au/blog/outdoors/climbing/piddo.html

07 Aug 2011

An introduction to the fabled Akuna Bay: Three Star Threes and Five Star Fives

For our saturday arvo climbing mission, James had scoured Balint's bible and wanted to check out an Akuna Bay bouldering spot. Simon came all the way up ("Well, it's not the furthest I've driven for a bouldering day trip...")

I picked up James and we drove up from Mona Vale via McCars Creek Road, with a brief delay caused by trying to drink from a wide-mouthed Nalgene on a very windy road. After running in to Minus and Willis near the entrance station, it was time to find the crag.

James had been keen on Cottage Point, but I overruled in favour of Three Star Threes as it was the only one I'd heard of or had been able to find any mention of online. After driving up and down the length of General San Martin Drive in vain, I feel I can offer the following update to the Sydney Bouldering guidebook directions.

Drive exactly 1.6km from the first park entrance station (which seems to be often closed, we didn't have to pay any money). You will drive through a windy cutting on the right hand side of a steep hill. As soon as you exit the cutting and the railing ends, the road turns RIGHT (not left) out on to a straight section. The first car space is immediately on the left, a bigger one is 50m further down as described in the guidebook. This is the first car park:

From here an old fire trail in poor condition leads away through some thick brush.

The distances in the guidebook are WILDLY overestimated. For Five Star Fives you can pretty much walk a few metres down the trail and then break off left and head straight up the hill. There is no trail, if there was there is so much fallen wood around it's been covered up. For Three Star Threes walk maybe 50m down the track, until you come out of the 'tunnel' to where the bush thins out. Then break off left and up the hill. There is a very faint trail if you can find it, again there is a lot of dead fallen wood all over the place.

Anyway, we found the place! Here we are hanging out at the Three Star Threes area.

My first impressions were...not good. More like "we came all the way out here for this?". It's a pretty small poxy area out in the bush. But then we started climbing some things and I warmed up to it a bit.

The Prow, which you may know from the shot on the back cover of Sydney Bouldering guidebook, is a great problem. (BETA ALERT) Jump start to the obvious break, shuffle around, reach with your left hand to a very small and shallow pocket, then bump to a cool sloper. Heel hook optional, move the right hand to the poorer sloper to the right. Then punch for the top, and attmpt the airy mantle gracefully.

Minus goes for the pocket.

Me gaining the sloper. COVER SHOT TIME.

Heel hooks are always necessary.

Punch the lip and cut loose! Badass.

Then you have to mantle. It was a pretty brutal mantle. I'll hand it over to James.

James Demonstrates How Not To Mantle from Sam May on Vimeo.

After a pleasant ramble up the two slabs of Lost At Sea, the so- called 'multipitch boulder problem' we moved over to the scary, loose, and hard Underthingy. Even Simon didn't really get close so it's a bit harder than V3. Perhaps the problem was the weird face-out beta we tried instead of actually underclinging.

Time went by quickly and the others had to leave, so me and Simon headed over to Five Star Fives to check out Malpomene. Again my first impressions were not good. But what can I say - this poxy seeping micro-crag is definitely home to five star fives! Each problem we tried had awesome big moves that were just easy enough to make you feel good, that led to blank shutdown cruxes waaay off the deck.

(BETA ALERT) Malpomene: sick little roof, a jug and bad slopey crimp leads to a slap to the big rail. Match and heel hook, go for the perfectly-placed slot on the lip, and...go big somewhere on the utterly blank headwall. We got shut down and tried the orange scoop of Tomato Soup: the obvious natural line, big moves between horizontal slots, to a brutal iron-cross move left to a very poor horizontal, which shut us down. So we finally looked at the little line of pockets that is Catch The Bus To Bondi, good climbing left out the pockets (find the kneebar, it helps!) to a big jug, then up to a heinous pinch on the arete, which shut us down.

Lookin' stylish on the bus to bondi.

Grappling with the blunt arete.

So everyone left with plenty of potential projects. This area is exactly what it says on the tin - five star fives and three star threes! The bush surroundings are wild, feels a lot further away from the city than it is. I reckon next time though, we'll check out Above The Boat, a whole lot more rock, and the water views look very nice...

Filed in /outdoors/climbing
Permanent link: http://www.samuelmay.id.au/blog/outdoors/climbing/akunabay.html