Grand ole adventure climbing was had by all (well us at least).

Who knows where everyone else went... I guess some nonsense sport climbing was involved, but we went to Carborundum wall to do Patience Crack (15). This is a pretty nice route. It starts up just about the only decent crack in the area, and as such is a trad route. Its a pretty easy route to spot, and if you look hard you can even see a very faint PC on the wall. Having taken our time somewhat, trying to find the Carborundum Chimney, stuffing around and generally waiting for the sun to go a bit further over the mountain, I eventually racked up, and started up the route just as another couple of guys rocked up looking for the same route (It's always good to be a bit early :-) ) Of course we found the CC right in front of us at that point... it was a pretty short 8m in my estimation but maybe if you went and counted all the rocks in between...

I don't really know why I bother climbing trad in the glasshouse mountains. It really does not compare to Araps, but there was pretty decent pro to be had, and I was feeling pretty good until I got to the crux. At that point I found it very hard to trust my nut in what just always feels like horrible flaky rock and some yo yoing resulted. Poor Blake, I imagine he got rather bored, I on the other hand was rather excited, but eventually made it and got up to the run out section. (Amazing - I actually felt happier in the section with no pro!) I then spent quite a while trying to match the rock I could see above me with the route description. I mean, what the hell is a half chimney? there were none to be found, but I eventually decided that CC was the pretty obvious (whole) chimney over on the left, so the ledge on my right must be it... and there was even a crack there so it seemed like a good place to set up a belay. I even got to place one of my new shiny hexes, and back it up with one of my old ones (just for the comparison mind you - I was feeling like it was all a bit redundant, but it is always better to be safe than sorry...)

Blake started up, and made me feel significantly better by having a bit of a hard time on the crux himself, but eventually got up to the runout bit and wandered up to my last piece of pro. He took it out, and was starting to traverse over to my ledge when a hold the size of a brick broke off (did I mention that the rock in the glasshouse mountains is sometimes a bit flaky?) and he got to do a really big, nasty swing. I was belaying off my harness, and even got pulled off my ledge, at which point I was feeling pretty bloody happy about my absolutely bomber belay - you really do have to love those hexes... :D Anyway, Blake got to the ledge with no major injuries, and we had a bit of a sit - thanking the lord of good pro and liking the fact that the cliff was now in the shade. I was thinking Blake might want to lead the next pitch, but didn't want to push him as he had just had a rather nasty experience, but upon asking him how he felt about it discovered that Blake was not so much worried about leading the pitch, as he was about: "that really big snake thats just up there on the route". F?#@ me - I have never actually come across a snake on a route before, and this was a REALLY BIG one. All black and shiny... and climbing much more elegantly along the rock than we had been (bastard). So we took our time, clanged hexes (did I mention that lord of good pro?) and generally stayed on the ledge a bit longer...

Eventually Blake was racked up, and took off up the crack. He looked pretty confident, on what I was to discover when I went up was a pretty exposed pitch. Really nice laybacking, bridging, even face climbing, with fairly adequate pro. No sign of the snake either :-) He took a bit of time trying to set up a belay, and then just decided to link the two pitches together. Cool - I was still feeling rather excited after my first pitch so was quite happy to have nothing more to do.

So we took a while on PC. I had wanted to go up to the Summit Cave and do Trojan, but we were a bit late getting off PC, so we decided to go up to the Summit Cave and eat lunch instead. After a fair bit of bush bashing, and some high up but easy slab climbing we made it, and got to stare in awe at the grand view before us, and at the really bloody hard routes up above us... even Trojan (13) looked pretty bloody challenging - I can't help but feel somewhat relieved that we had no time to attempt it ;).

Even finding the way down was something of an adventure. After chatting to Pete on my mobile (did I mention that there is full phone reception all over Tibro? pretty handy huh?) and getting some idea of where to go to find rap anchors we wandered down, did more bush bashing, found a path, followed it until it ran out, found no anchors, rapped off a tree, found some anchors, rapped off them, discovered we weren't on the descent Pete suggested at all, but making our way down Remains Of The Day (16), but managed to get down to the bottom in two pitches (no need even to use rope stretch :-) )

AND we landed on our bags! :D

Originally Posted:

http://www.qutcliffhangers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=234&p=2691&hilit=trip+report#p2663