Cam

This Sunday Morning while most of Brisbane were in bed, or stumbling home from the pub... Alan, Matt, Tristan, Anthony Greg and I jumped in the car and headed to Boonah for a liberal dose of Crack, an extra large helping of hand and foot jaming, and a side serving of fresh baked pies and cold frothy beer!!

The day started early, it was 6am when we were half way to Boona, driving through fog, when Greg noticed he'd put his pants on inside out!! "It was dark when I got up!!" He said... =)

We were at the Boonah bakery before the hot jam donuts were out of the oven!! Yep, Damn Early!!

We were at the bottom of Frog Butress racking up, while the cliff was still in shade!! Yep, Damn Frickin Early.

And was it worth the early start?? Hell Yes!! It was a Glorious Morning! A crisp breeze cooled us in the warm morning sun. Blue skys, and glorious views of the great dividing range and surrounding farmlands. A massive Wedgetailed Eagle soared over us a few times during the day, checkin out our baked goods!!

And the climbing!! I nearly spewed on Iron Butterfly, had a great time on Horse Drawn Zeplin, and gave my self a kick start boot in the pants launch into hand and foot jamin when I jumped on Materialistic Prostitution!! Greg had no probs secconding me, although some of my nuts got a little stuck... Alan Breezed up Tardis, came close to god on Iron Butterfly, had a bit of a yawn on My First Layback, all the while with Matt in tow, lappin up the crack!! Triston had a blitzer as always, warmin up on Materialistic Prostitution, My First Layback, and then launching into Satans Smokestack, with BigBro and Anthony in tow!!

2:30, the sun now baking us, we packed up and headed for the pub.

Frog is a fantastic crag, that gives me warm fuzzy feelings. But with the weather starting to heat up, you can be sure that theres only one solution. Thats right, soon we'll be heading for the mountains... THE BLUE MOUNTAINS!! When Brisbane is suffering heat waves, the Bluies will be like a pleasent spring day!! Just think, wakin up each day and scratching your head thinking where should we climb today... THERES JUST SOOOOO MANY CRAGS!! In the 3 weeks that we are in the mountains you wont climb at the same place twice!!

You defrenately dont wana miss this trip. You dont need to be a pro, theres climbing for every skill level, weather you wana spank yourself on 30 meter overhung grade 25 roof climbs, or wander up 20 meter grade 16 face climbs. And theres stacks of bouldering, multipitch climbs, and canyoning too. Yep, I'm talking abseiling down a waterfall into a pool of water!! ITS AWESOME!! =)

The Bluies is guarenteed to fill you with copious amounts of warm fuzzy feelings!! You know you wana!! =)

Cameron Sear

Anthony

Mmm... Frog

Sunday morning alarm, 5am. Left Brisbane before 6am, along with Cam S, Matt, Greg, and Tristan. Alan was somewhere else, but also heading to Frog. But first, a mission to find baked goodies (though apparently the Bluies has some good bakeries too). We were down at the rock at about 7am, ready to climb.

I climbed with Tristan all day. For a warm-up (or so some like to claim), Materialistic Prostitution (16), which was fun, yet rather painful. And then a quick scramble up further, to join Cam for the view (though I imagine the view in the Bluies is probably better). Next, we did something small and easy, yet rather fun. After a break for lunch (nothing like I imagine lunch in the Bluies being, but anyway), we did Satan's Smokestack (16), where Tristan had a gearfest (including the famed Big Bro). Again, fun, painful (plenty of chimneying), and a nice view (though apparently the rock isn't so loose in most of the Bluies), before it got too hot for more (the Bluies is still cool).

A quick beer at the Doogs (the Bluies has more than one convenient pub) and then home. All in all, a good day climbing (though nowhere near as good as a couple of weeks in the Bluies).

- Anthony (yes, I am blatantly plugging the Bluies, as well as Frog)

See ya'll on the rock,

Tristan

As you may have guessed by now there was a trip to Frog on Sunday. We left Brisvegas at some unearthly time (did you know the sun is awake at 5:30am?) and headed towards Queensland's crack climbing Mecca. We arrived in Boonah to quickly grab some baked goodies and then went straight to the cliff. Anthony and I warmed up on Materialistic Prostitution, this climb is great, 15m of parallel crack with lots of hand jams and gear and then to a nice easy top out. We did a quick scramble up to say hello to Cam and I quickly discovered that not all boulders are connected to the cliff (holy crap, I have placed gear behind that in the past!). We then headed down to climb Saturday Afternoon Walk, this climb was an easy climb to do just for the hell if it.

The next climb was the Satan's Smokestack. This climb is brilliant, about 10m of offwidth crack (a crack that is too big to place most of your gear in, but too small to fit your entire body in) and then into 25m of chimney with enough gear placements to piss my seconder off. It took Anthony and I about 2 hours to climb this baby and the view at the top was worth it.

After that we (slowly) scrambled up the walk out and headed to the pup for a quick beer. If this sounds like fun its nothing compared to the Blue Mountains trip. The Bluies have some of the best climbing in Australia, and heaps of it as well. Three weeks packed into a house with all your climbing mates drinking beer and playing cards at night and then climbing hard during the day. This is a trip not to miss out on.

Tristan

-Rescued from old emails