Climbing in Arapiles

Here's to what I hope is the first of many many trips. It has probably become evident by now, but I have not died!! Nor have I killed Marian! In terms of sends, it was really special: we climbed for 2 days and a half, during which we did five multi-pitch routes, ranging from 60 m to 145m in length and/or height. I led them all, and with the exception of one that had chain anchors, put the protection and made the anchors for all.

Here's the list:
Day one:
Guiding Light (6) ***
Serpent (11) **
Bishop (11) **

Day two:
Tip Toe Ridge (120m) (5) ***
Last pitch of the Green Slinger (13)
Siren (145m) (9) ***

Day three: (Ran out of ballz after the epic on Siren)
Holdup Line (10) ***
Some other line that I can't remember (8) ***

I have found that the number of stars in the guidebook equals just how scared shitless you are while doing the route, with one star being scared shitless, and three stars being OH PLEASE SAVE ME LORD DON'T LET ME DIE NOW scared.

For example, pitch two of Guiding Light looks like this (sorry for the bad quality pic), whereas pitch 3 of Siren reads in the guidebook as: "step over the void". It does not help if it's windy and as you approach the void the wind starts blowing.

So anyway, first day was Guiding Light in the quiet quiet Mitre Rock. The first thing you notice as you get on top of Mitre Rock are THE VIEWS! This is Mount Arapiles from Mitre.

Then you notice that I have a helmet problem:

After doing Guiding Light, we did Serpent: such a beautiful beautiful route!! Also, chains at the anchor point allowed me to relax a bit. (Since we tried to do the more remote routes, we were mostly by ourselves - except on siren - and as such could really fool around)

 After Serpent and Bishop (no pictures on Bishop because it really rose to it's number of stars: pitch two read: don't climb straight up but go on the exposed arete), we decided to boulder for a while. The boulders!!! They are on the road!!!!!

The next day saw us doing Tip Toe Ridge. Note to self: take care not to go off route. Things might be a bit more difficult, especially if you are climbing in trekking shoes and it is raining. Enough said. We climbed the pillar to the top and did the rappel - much more exciting than bypassing it. That being said, next time I'll bypass it as it saves time.

More fooling around: Mitre rock in the background.

This is where we find why the big cave that our route is going past is called Eagle's Eyrie. This is why!

After Tip Toe Ridge, we decided to get on Siren. On pitch two I got a bit off route and freaked out when I found myself on a very sloppery part. Bit my lip and drew blood as a consequence but did not fall. Siren was crowded and so had to wait for a while before starting on pitch 3, the "step over void one". And then I did step over maybe 1.5m of OH FUCK THIS SHIT THIS IS ACTUALLY A VOID!!!! void. I had previously declined Marian's suggestion of going on Xena, mainly because I wanted to see the void. Well then. 

To make this pitch even more epic, Marian could not free a nut so I had to downclimb most of it to get the nut out. Here's me giving my nut some love - it got a bit scratched in the process.

We combined the last two pitches of Siren into 50m of beautiful, layback (oh my god I hate layback cracks!!) on sloppery rock. Scary but easy. LOVED IT! Of course, to make matters even better, the last 5m of the pitch were a slab. Another one of my favorite, especially since the rope drag was getting a bit too much. Still, loved it! Got to the top and fooled around some more.

Day two consumed all of my stainless steel ballz supply so we did only easy single pitches. Behind me is a 10.

And here I'm out of juice. And ballz. Tired but happy.

It was beautiful!

The white things are not alien eggs. Nor emu eggs. Colleagues tell me they are shaggy parasols, a type of mushroom.

More pics here.