This is a blog post I wrote half a year ago and never finished. You can have it anyway :)
I think I promised a blog about climbing at Red Rocks but we just had a long weekend so I thought I would share that with you first. The plan for the long weekend was to head to Nowra for a day of climbing and continue on towards Point Perpendicular for some sea cliff climbing. Unfortunately Pat got sick with a cold and after a day at Nowra, there was no chance we were heading to Point Perp. So we headed back to Canberra and decided to join Richard for some local hiking. Hence why my legs hurt so much... But first let me tell you about Nowra.
Nowra Climbing
In my last blog, I mentioned that I planned to hop on Gun Barrel Highway (19) and attempt to lead it in my next visit to Nowra and I said that Pat would be hopping on Cowboy Junkies (25) to go for the red point send. The day started with a warm up on a 17 that I had already climbed before and then Pat was going for an attempt at Cowboy Junkies. Lucky for me we had a whole crew there so I didn't have to belay him on the roof climb, hehe... He started out with nice solid climbing but fell off in the crux move, launching for the three finger pocket. Damn... The other guys all worked the climb as well, each of them hoping to get the send. There was only one send for the day though, when Phil had his beta worked out and finally got the send, yay! And Geoff was super close as well, falling off on the last move before the anchors as he tried to catch the arête after the hard crux section. So there will have to be more attempts at the send for these two in the future, but I think they will totally get it next time!
As for me, it was time to battle with my project Gun Barrel Highway. I'd been putting it off for a while now and every previous trip since my top rope attempt, I had decided I wasn't ready for it. Even on this trip I was feeling the usual hesitation to try it on lead for fear of failing. But a little encouragement was all I needed and I finally went for it.
The first section follows the crack until a small traverse right where the rock becomes yellowish. This section is almost pleasant and I climbed it in my usual slow and methodical pace. Its probably a good thing that the start is so easy, by the time I got up to the crux section which starts just above the crack, I was well off the ground so quitting then would have been a waste. I started to get into the crux and realised I had to clip the next bolt off the terrible crimps that I wanted to avoid. Ugh. And the spacing between the bolts was close to 2 metres so it would have been a large fall by this point if I didn't clip it. Because it was such a large distance however, I couldn't possibly down climb, which is probably what kept me going to get the clip. I knew I had to pull through this to feel safe so I did. I crimped the hell out of those crimps and ended up clipping off a terrible left hand hold, being super careful to not let go as I brought the rope up to the clip.
Of course after that move I was super pumped and had to come off after making a feeble attempt at the next move. So I wasn't going to get this climb clean yet, but I had only taken one rest on the rope so far. Maybe I could get it with one rest. But it took me a while to figure out my own beta for this hard move, so I was back on the rope not long after. Eventually I found a hidden crimp that made the move so much easier and I was leading again. The climbing after the crux is delicate and crimpy but mostly just sustained meaning there is a lot of it and its exhausting. There was another section that stumped me when I couldn't figure out the beta to get it clean. It took some working out and by this point I was super pumped. The final section was also misleading, it looked like it would be a jug haul straight to the top but actually the holds weren't as good as they looked and with super pumped arms I had to take a few rests to finally get the anchors. So I couldn't get the climb clean, or even with one rest. It took a few rests to get to the top but I had accomplished a grade 19 lead without giving up and for me that is something pretty big. Its my first lead attempt at a 19 since my flash send of Vanderholics (19) (which was quite easy for the grade). So now that I have the beta worked out, I had better hop back on it for the red point soon. And maybe I can start working some more 19s as well.