Captains of Crush

The Part About Climbing aka Frothing Like Someone Who Has Rabies.

BUT! This is a climbing blog too, so I guess I shouldmention some climbing stuff. With the car loaded I rolled out of Sunbury headedfor southern Gramps to meet up with Arnie and Saunders and co. Arnie had beenraving about this new bouldering cave he had found and I was keen as mustard tocheck it out. However a late departure time from Melbourne and long drive around the top meantI got to the car park just as the two of them had walked out. With Arnies “pisseasy” directions I headed off in search of the cave, but ended up gettinghopelessly lost for a couple of hours. The good part about this though was thatI found another big, steep cave of solid rock and outstanding potential forsome good, hard bouldering. It was nice to finally get a win in the search fornew bouldering. I have become a little bit tired of bush bashing into chosscaves or blank walls.

I did eventually findArnies cave getting up a couple of the problems, and the following weekendreturned with Simon, Christof, Jules and their respective families for prettyfun day. This cave is a pretty amazing feature, with long, steep roof problems,on great rock, all topping out. Perfect!

Last week I managed to finish up an old route I tried a fewyears ago called The Great Escape, 28.In a little gully around the corner from Punks, I managed to fall off a move ortwo from the top twice before snagging it. The top entails some awesomeArapiles wrestling, knee-barring and body shuffling up a bit of a corner. Notso much hard moves, but what a workout! I love those sorts of routes.

Simon and I also had a day on Phils route ‘Rhythmic Pumper’,where I pumped off twice at the crux at the last bolt, but Simon crushed it onhis 6^th shot of the day with some new beta. Top route Philby. sureto become a classic.

So what else. It was a bit hard to find partners this week. Tuesdayheaded out to a route/boulder/traverse Gareth showed me that was done by DaveJones and used by a few of the locals for training. This rising, overhungtraverse goes for about 15-18 meters slanting up at 45 degrees and slightlyoverhanging, with the ground following you up. Its probably about grade 25, anda great way to get fit on your own.

And yesterday (Thursday) I went back out there with old mateBrendan Abernathy to try some new boulders I found. In an afternoon I put up 3new problems. Spunk Bubble, V6, starts in a roof and pulls a cruxybulge to top out a good 10 meters up on a fun easy headwall. Judge Mental, V7, takes the left edge ofthis amazing steep prow, while The Lone Deranger, V8, takes a right hand line of the prow, and could possibly beharder, the shorter you are. It’s steep, wide spanning sloper slappinggreatness. The line through the middle of the prow will be proper hard, butwill be a fucking classic!

So that’s it really. I’ll just leave you with some photosfrom the last few weeks of things. It’s Friday, so it’s down to the café fordinner, beers, socialise and then climbing tomorrow!