I met Neilse at Araps. He seemed like a nice guy so I passed on the Tarp TeePee to him. For not being a christian he has a pretty good handle on mortality. After taking the ground fall on Lois Lane and narrowly escaping the same on Ride Like the Wind, Neilse decided to fly to Hobart to finish the job.
Although we never climbed together, I could tell he was solid. And not just because hes 5'10 and weighs 200 pounds. You can kind of tell the way someone climbs by conversation, kind of. Personally, it becomes obvious if I can trust a person after a short talk. Ive heard that within 5 minutes of conversation a woman will determine wether she will or wont have sex with someone. There is a definate correlation with climbing partners. Especially if you also plan on having sex with them! In Neilse case, it was all about the climbing ;) Besides... He had his hands full!
Nice camping spot! Remarkable Cave, Mt. Brown, Tasmania. This is Neilse with a girl who made that 5 minute decision....So our first route together was a new one on the Ruwenzori face at Africa in Ben Lommond National Park. If your one of the 20 or so people who have climbed there, then sorry for borring you with the details. If not, read on! From Denison Crag its a short walk over the plataeu to the cliff. Its out there!
Anna walking along the "obvious" track from Africa.Africa is an interesting crag. The place demonstrates the amazing variety of climbing that Dolerite provides. Although there are cracks that split the faces, these generally fuse up or fizzle out to blankness. With perseverance and imagination, however, the lines and the gear will appear! Ruwenzori is a 200 meter high cliff with 160 meters of near vertical shear cliff.
Me and Gerry Narkowitz had put up a new line straight up the guts of this cliff a couple weeks prior. Kilamanjaro goes at 25 with the crux 3 pitches up on GOOD gear that was all placed on lead. This is a story in itself, but not as juicy as the one your about to hear! This photo shows a little bit the sheer nature of the cliff. Basically, its flat enough to take a 50 meter fall and not die.
This is me on the first pitch of the "Neilse Tetse Memorial Route".I had spied an awesome flake left of this that I thought was the cool but harder way up to the 25 pitch. This is what I climbed to start off me and Neilse route. It was scary but still not over the top. 40 meter 22. Dont fall. The next pitch is Neilse. Anna and Gerry N. are climbing above us and to the right on Ruwenzori route-the Bob Mac classic!- They took the photos on Anna's camera. *Thanks Anna!* Me and Neilse are having a laugh, telling fart jokes, etc. Just a day at the crag! Hes got plenty of gear in and even one of them is good! The yellow alien is a "bomber" piece. 25 meters up Neilse is contemplating the exit moves to a good ledge and gear. Gerry N. is observing from 50 meters above. Gerry yells down, "Ya got a good ledge just above ya, mate!". No shit. Well not for long anyway! Neilse goes for it and pulls off most of the ledge! I duck for cover as the rocks smash by and I feel several tugs as the gear Neilse is ripping out pulls me into the cliff. I hear repeated screams coming by and its that crazy sound like a car passing by honking its horn while my leader zips passed the belay. I have enough time to realize hes ripped all the gear and wait a tangible agonizing second for the belay to go as well, but I get one final bash into the cliff as the lonely little nut neilse placed off the belay does its job and holds. Looking 25 meters down at Neilse, 15 meters off the deck, I asked him if he was ok. Gerry and Anna saw the whole thing. Gez was certain he was watching a man die.
This is where Mr. Kamikaze ended up after his epic bungee.Apparently what happened is that Neilse, tainted by his pig hunting exploits in New Zealand and inspired by their extreme sports craze, decided that the first Bungee Jump in Ben Lommond would be much more proud than the first climbing ascent! Well we packed it in right there. Fuck that shit! The fun wasnt over though. As you can tell from this photo there was a Mongolian style cluster fuck with the gear and ropes.
Clusterfucking Mongolian Style.After the fall I quickly noticed that the rope had been pulled through a flake as well and the sheath had been mostly stripped from a 2 meter section! Surprisingly the core seemed to be intact, so we just continued the retreat. What else could we do? :)
Goodbye rope.I had to untie and pull up one end of the rope through the ball of shit then drop it down the cliff to lower Neilse to the ground. As luck would have it when I dropped the rope, it bullwhipped poor nelise in the balls. One more scream of pain! :) Then I made two dodgy raps to the ground and we walked back to camp. It was a pretty relaxed atmosphere after the fall. We had a few sips of whiskey from Neilse flask. I kept telling him he was dead and that, like in the sixth sense movie, all the conversations just seemed to be directed at him! The next morning we broke camp and went to Launy.
Neilse contemplating mortality.So what do you do after narrowly avoiding death? Eat chocolate then get drunk! We dropped our gear off at Danger Darren's boat in the Launceston yacht club, then I took Anna and Neilse to the Chocolate Studio where my friend Alec is the chef. Thanks for the Awesome deserts bro! Sorry about the blood on the sofa... :) We had chocolate and beer, then put Neilse on a bus to convalesce at Fitzroy while me and Anna climbed Hillwood.
Whats left of Neilse pants afgter the fall. Interesting about the pants. Squib acquired them at the Hobart tip shop for free. They then resided at the Pines for several months until Neilse found them. They died a valiant and honerable death on Heimdall crag. They currently reside in Valhalla.It only took a week and he was back at it. Flashed a couple 25's and nailed two routes on Mt. Brown in a day.
Liz and Anna at the top of Mt Brown. Just another spectacular, beautiful, glorious day in little Tassie!Last I heard, he was planning an all gear ascent of Serpentine, except the falls would be a little boring.... See ya out there!
And in other news, heres a pic of my mate Jed cruising Gollum on watchtower face.
Should there be something to read here?
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