SUMMIT FEVER

So what do you do when you have a bum finger, an awesome climbing partner, and a day of high 30's temperature at Mt. Arapiles? CATCH SOME SUMMIT FEVER BABY! Its a heck of lot better than catching Danish AIDS.... The following summit shots were well inspired by a very funny summary of appropriate summiting from this website, and, of course, this man...








Woke up early. The sun was relentless and determined to stop us. We were,however, determined to not relent and relentlessly fought against the sun with only one thought in our minds. That thought was to not relent. And we didnt! That is to say- we did do it-. Well heres the story, anyway. First stop was Tip Toe Ridge. Two summits for the price of one! This is our shadows atop THE pinnacle of "Pinnacle Face".








Then it was off to the Pharos. We climbed the Shroud and got up to the cool little cypruss tree you can see from the ground.








On to death row! Staring over at punks wall. Maybe someday.... :)







Voodoo buttress was next. What a climb! The final roof crack was good, but Anna's handstand on the summit was alot more impressive.









From this climb forward, the day takes on a different tone. As the realization that we might actually achieve the unachievable of all twelve summits in day, our minds were like phasers set to stun, and the summits were meddlesome aliens getting in the way of our James T. Kirkesque libidousness zeal for otherworldly sex. As seen here, after the technically challenging and mentally fatiguing Trapeze climb, we summited the majestic Castle Crag. This powerful "Double Teacup Pose" captures the seriousness of the ascent.








After climbing through the mighty Keyhole and catting about the Mouse we were obviously quite excited. I unleash a primal scream as Anna does her best to browbeat the camera into submission. The sun is starting to take its tole. Barely able to find the grade 4 scramble to the top we still have enough energy to present the mighty "Double Over-Under".







Anna lead the way with Blockbuster and on we summited to Bluff Major. This was the climb that litterally "breaks the back" of the proverbial summit fever day. It was symmetry in motion as we reversed poses for the sister summit of Bluff Minor. I happily concede with a frowny "Under" to Anna's imposing "Over".




The next peak was John's Pinnacle. Anna climbed up but has spent quite a bit of time on this particle knob. Well there is no need to show photos of this... However, if your interested in pics of John's pinnacle or Anna's twin peaks, email credit card details.






Here Anna demonstrates the "Bent-Over-Backward" attitude required to make this day happen. Summiting Reaper Buttress after the horrifying sandbag, Red Parrot Chasm.






This is Minstrel pinnacle. We danced our way up this and took in some exposure. No time for the skin flute, sadly. Only two more to go and losing light!







Caught the shadow of the pinnacle again. Very arty. This really says something. A very moving photograph with a gorgeous interplay of greens and blacks. A subtle hint of tanniny undertones brings to mind a flowering spring on a welsh hillside with a small goat perhaps, gamboling in the sun.






Another exposure shot. Its higher than it looks! With only one more summit to topple we march confidently up to D Minor pinnacle only to find it being "climbed" by two canadians!!! THE HORROR!!!!!!!






After chatting with a friendly but slightly bumbly kanuk, we realized they would be a little while. So with a couple hours of light left we went to the teepee for tea and a snack. When we came back they were finishing and had left a couple pieces of gear in the route for us! After pulling them out for the poor troubled canadians, we finally summitted in the dark. The day was finished and WE WERE VICTORIOUS! 12 summits. 650 metres of climbing. Lots of fun! Is this day for everyone? Sure! All you need is a pile of rocks,a camera and photoshop.

Torture and Boredom

This is were I live. A teepee made out of a bunch of discarded tarps. I have injured my finger and am forced to rest. I am bored. When you live in a tarp teepee at arapiles and can't climb, things go downhill faster than a chicken running through Ethiopia. I injured my finger on Ethiopia.


This is Anna. She puts up with me. Why? I dont know. Chess passes the time but eventually gets boring.


This is another game I came up with. It involves tying all of Anna's underwear high in a tree and watching her try to get them down. Its alot of fun!


Me and some bird friends came up with another game. This little birdy lost the game. I hope I can go climbing soon. I think the bird does to.

Photos Of Events That Have Transpired

This is Merry on squeakeasy. He got it onsight.




This is Anna soloing Dunes. We passed 6 climbers en route.




I chewed 20 pieces of gum to make this. Possibly the proudest moment of my day.




A bunch of stoners took over the Jenolan caves in the blue mountains. Oh yeah. I should mention in passing that it was Claire Tetleys 28th birthday as well. 25th. Whatever.




Anna nailing Squeakeasy 22. Not bad for a girl who can barely do a pull up! At this stage she had been leading trad routes for 6 months, mostly at araps.




Anna and Geoff shared a moment at new image wall.




Beauty before age. Mini moon hill in the background. Probably the only truly touristy thing I did all year but man those jenolan caves are STUNNING!! Thanks Dave for dragging everyone out.




Anna knitted a beany. The materials cost $5 not including the needles. I have three beanies that cost me $0. I dont knit. Cute though.

Solo days

I feel tired. Stiff. Its hot. I have Danish AIDS. (Explanation; (THIS POST HAS BEEN CENCORED BY THE DANISH SOCIETY OF UNFUN)I'm suppose to climb Ethiopia today. So to get out of the sun, me and Jed go up to cecilia wall and I climb Intrancience. Jed climbs John's Corner. Fun. So tired. What about a 25 on Cecilia wall? They look pretty good... No excuses! Project awaits! March down the gully. Into the sun. Tired. Get to the cliff. Its actually kind of shaded! Go through the traverse of India and hang. Try the crux a couple times. No good. No energy. Oh well. Im already up here, might as well try it. The first crux of Ethiopia is about 24 and is a left high-step to blind stab at a left sidepull. I go for the sidepull and hit it! Now just got to get a good right crimp.... CHHRHHCK!! CHRK! MY FINGER! I scream and fall off. Having previously damaged pulleys in most of my fingers, I knew instantly what I had done. I just got Jed to lower me off and sulked back to camp to talk fingers with Rodriguez Rollins.





This leads to ticklists. Deano Rodriguez is an expert at destroying his precious fingers. An overzealous climbing sprit coupled with an under-developed set of finger pulleys has given Rodriguez alot of down time. Some of this time he uses to write interesting songs, some he spends vandalizing dunnys or setting off early morning pyrotechnic displays for sleeping campers. Often times, however, you will find Rodriguez Chavez pouring over climbing guides compiling esoteric tick lists. Some are wish lists. Some are "Top Ten" some "Top Fifty". The interesting lists lately are those that people on light-duty can complete without aggravating their finger injuries. One list is the "Climb a Route From Every Area in the Araps Guidebook in a Day" which gives the participant quite a variety to balance quality with difficulty. Another list is a climb from every letter of the alphabet in a day. Very "doable" at Arapiles with the hardest pitches being 19 18 18 15. The new araps guidebook has offered a couple of top twelve lists that can be done in a day as well. The Summit Fever Day bags twelve prominent peaks at a moderate grade and the chimney day hits twelve cool chasms with the hardest pitch being lucky 13. Another goal of Sanchez Chavez is to tick every route in the guide 12 and under. Not in a day, silly.

So there I was. De-pulleyed middle finger. An unintentional swollen fuck-you to climbing anything hard in the near future. However, it wasnt entirely hopeless. Sanchez Carlos had done some research on finger injuries. When I say "research" I mean he had done a thorough perusal of relevant internet websites and then consulted the best climbing osteopath in Australia (who happened to be camping next to us in the gums). Carlos gave me three articles which he thought were helpful. Apparently, the consensus is that complete cessation of climbing is BAD. This I knew. But quitting climbing is also bad for recovery. YAY! The idea is to ratchet down the climbing grade and try to use an open handed grip as much as possible. This is when I looked more closely at the idea of climbing all the grade 12 and unders.

I had a half day of work at bushrangers the next day so after saying "good riddance" to the childrens, I stripped down to my stubbies and soloed all the routes 12 and under, then went by dec crag, and the atridae and did likewise. WOW! No pain in the finger and ticked off alot of climbs! Its wierd soloing with a rope on your back but I dont think downclimbs "count" and its quicker to rap. Thusly psyched I went back to camp and planned a DAY OF SOLOING!

Woke up early with all intentions of beating the sun to the cliff. A second cup of tea and a second game of chess with Anna slowed me down a bit. By the time I got started Tiger Wall was in the sun. Oh well. It was eagle cleft direct. A cool chimney. So I stripped down to my stubbies and climbed up with a rope tied on like a backpack. I fixed it on Ali's decent for the rest of the climbs. One after the next went by. Lots of fun. Climb up, scramble a bit. Rap down. Run back to my gear. Turn on the stereo. Drink water. Read the route description. Climb up. Repeat. Then onto the front of the Pharos, etc. The climbs went by fairly well with a few exceptions. Mind you, this is a comprehensive list (of the selected best 2nd edition) of all routes 12 and under so a few not-so-greats are still mandatory climbing. This troublesome aspect started to wear on me. After climbing some shitty 11 and walking by my mates ollie and jed as they climbed the classic Huey, so that I could solo another shitty 11 and then finish up on Jeckle (easy easy 7 slab), I gave up on the day. Ran out of motivation and got tired. Still it was around 40 pitches soloed. And my finger was fine!

This brings me to Syrinx. First- its a good climb. 3 stars. An easy solo. Fun. To the dumb ass that got dehydrated on it last friday; you suck. To his mate, the guy following who wrote that story about it- YOUR AWESOME! What a funny story. Second- What the fuck is up with the plaque at the base? (for those that dont know, there is a plaque commemorating a cop who died "after he fell" somewhere on Syrinx) At its grade (10) Syrinx is one of the best, well protected climbs IN THE WORLD. Most of the people who read this plaque don't know the guy and probably dont care, so it is ultimately acting as a warning to people. But a warning for what? The climb is super safe. As safe as any climb. Far safer than smoking, which kills alot more cops than climbing. Basically what this plaque says about the guy who died is-"I was an idiot who fucked up a real easy climb and died. Please remember how stupid I was as you cruise up this timeless classic." To the family or whoever put it up- Thanks for sharing with the climbing world how useless this cop was at climbing. Actually, the climb should get another star for killing a cop.



THE END

Leftover Crack

The shittiest punk band from the USA (which makes it the best punk band in oz) is coming! With songs like Stop the Insanity Lets End Humanity and One Dead Cop they share something special with people from all walks of life. See ya at the arthouse fags.

13th Nov @ Hyde Park Hotel, Perth
14th Nov @ Fowlers Live, Adelaide
15th Nov @ The Arthouse, Melbourne
16th Nov @ Bald Face Stag, Sydney
19th Nov @ Hi-Fi Bar, Brisbane
20th Nov @ Nightlife, Gold Coast
22nd Nov @ Transmission Room, Auckland

http://www.leftovercrack.org/

Barber Shop of Horrors

Last year I was climbing at Frog Buttress with a friend Merry. Merry is a male and it is a nickname. Although he does look a bit like the actor portraying the cousin of Frodo in the not-so-recent Lord of the Rings movie, Merry is an appropriate adjective of his disposition. The first thing we climbed together was a new route we put up on the far left of the buttress. It was a horrible chossy off-width that we called Beelzebub's Left Testicle. This was in keeping in line with the crags "satanic" naming convention, i.e., Satan's Smokestack, Devil's Dihedral. Besides the fact that he was almost annoyingly cheerful, watching him claw his way up that shitty offwidth, I realized I kind of liked the guy.

After climbing together a few more days at Frog, we talked about doing all of the routes Henry Barber did the first free ascent of in one day. (If you don't know who Henry Barber is, google it.) After local Gareth Lewellyn showed up one day and told us he had attempted this "Henry Barber Day" and failed due to his partners swollen feet, our fate was sealed....
WE SWORE, OVER HENRY BARBERS GRAVE, THAT WE WOULD CLIMB ALL OF HIS ROUTES IN ONE DAY!

Well, we failed miserably.

6:30 start in the rain. First Route Child in Time. I lead the route free, Merry freed and cleaned, then we rapped off in less than 30 minutes. Nice start. Next route was Venom. Off Width. One #5 Friend. (If you are wondering, that is not enough gear.) Merry gets passed the offwidth with the friend a LOOOOOONG way away. He only has one crimper move to go! His fingers decide to give up. Big fall. Rope starts flaking itself out in front of me. I take in twice then jump off. Somehow I hurt my fingers in the process. The day is fucked. HENRY is fucking us from the grave! We get drunk. Henry was impressed. The bastard.

So then I find myself at Frog, dodging cunty rangers and shacked up with a beautiful german girl who is keen to belay me on all 15 pitches. What a woman! All I have to do is lead then rap-clean the routes! Too easy! Nail the first 5 pitches in pace time then my knee blows out. HOW? WHY? It must be the ghost of Henry Barber! My knee has NEVER failed me before. Ruined. RUINED!!! Then the rangers set in on us like flies on shit... Actually, like asshole fuckhead ranger bitches on a couple of rock climbers trying to climb.

TAKE 3 on the HB DAY.

A month ago me and Merry are at araps and the story of our horrible failure at Frog comes up. "Wait a minute", we think. "HB climbed at araps!!" The realization dawned on us like a precious ray of sunshine after a week of rain. Actually, the 13 year drought had broken in the wimmera and this was the nicest day in a while. It sickens me to walk around Horsham in the rain with a bunch of smug-ass farmers grinning stupidly at each other saying shit like "Would ya just look at all that?", or even worse, "Drought aint over yet, mate!" After the storms, we tallied up the routes, consulted several guide books and a 1975 issue of Argus, and over a J recruited two teams of two for the mission.

Guess what happened? Yep. Failure. AGAIN!!! FUCK!!!

On the Henry Barber Arapiles list is a climb called Kama Sutra. Its a wide crack through a roof. I like it. Well, Merry was teemed with Grug. And after me and Danny came down from Taste of Honey and Kachoong RHV we climbed Thundercrack then came around to witness Merry repeatedly whipping off KS after much grunting and struggling. Danny pulled the pin right there. No way was he climbing that thing. He saw something else besides a young kiwi getting repeatedly shit out of a metamorphic sandstone asshole like some kind of oversized slippery suppository... It was the GHOST OF HENRY BARBER!!!!! Danny Danny Danny. Cursed forevermore by the mustachioed countenance of the crack climbing master. The last time I saw Danny he was pulling breakfast billies. Time before that, he was wearing a wig and off his face on mushrooms. A soul tormented by the demons of the past and a head wasted by expensive drugs and cheap hairpieces. I cry for you Danny Boy.


OK here is the happy ending you have been waiting for. HB day TAKE FOUR! Its just me and Merry this time. We get up early and borrow a friends car he is borrowing from friends. Through rain storms and bullshit, and dodging a #4 camalot thrown at us by a burnt-out guide book author, we got them all! The ghost of Henry Barber BE DAMNED!!! We exorcised those demons! And even though we lost poor poor Danny. I didn't fall once.

THE END.

Back in Nowra. Today I looked through some trash I found in a cave and it turns out it was an old shoplifting list I made the last time I was crusting it in lot 33! That trip involved falling down a hill drunk. The old mattress I was sleeping on had been unceromoniously tossed down the embankment and now rests in front of a cave the boulderers use a shitter.

I just spent the last 7 weeks in queensland with grug and anna. The story goes that we left fruit picking near Gaynda, QLD to go live in a Donger deeper up in Queensland. How fucking gay can you get? So all the tough butch tradies in Queensland call caravans "dongas". And they try to cram as many people inside them as possible.