Hi.

I'm flying to tasi at around christmas time and am planning on spending a few days at freycinet with my girlfriend, hoping to get some climbs in while we're there. Planning to do a few easier climbs, namely Apline 70m grade 12, and unnamed 50m grade 15, (both at white water wall) as well as the big slab climb called pneisses 240m grade 15 at the hazards main wall.

To save on weight on the plane I was hoping to trim my rack down, and having not climbed there before I was wondering what kind of pro I should bring, and what should i leave at home...

I was thinking of bringing the following:

RPs
A set of wires (some doubles in the smaller sizes)
small to medium cams
slings and some bolt plates...

Anyone done the climbs i listed, and would that gear cover it?

I figured i'd leave my offsets at home (both dmm peanuts and hb offsets) as well as my beloved hexes and large cams. What are your thoughts? Anyone found offsets useful there?

One other thing, how do you go about cleaning climbing gear after climbing at sea cliffs?

Cheers, Rob.

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2 Comments

  1. Chris Savard

    Hey Rob,

    My friend and I just returned from freycinet. We climbed Apline, Unnamed, and Japhlion (beside pneisses), slaughterhouse 5, Harlequin, No Turn unstoned. If you have the skill, strength, desire climb slaughterhouse 5. Fun times. If you place your gear with foresight you can use one rope to the top and walk off.

    Our collective advise. Don't climb Pneisses if you can climb Japhlion instead. We were climbing pitch for pitch beside a couple that were on Pneisses and they were not enjoying the garden in their way, the moss on the rocks and the lame belay stations, and the lack of pro. Japhlion was quite fun. All of the belays are comfortable and the protection is adequate. If your climbing at 16 and finding it difficult this route may be alarming. I would probably not suggest it due to the 4th pitch which has a fun layback crack and some thrutching up an off-width for a brief distance. If you are comfortable leading 17+ then there would be no worries. Note: If you have not done the traverse to the base of the climbs before, stay low! The walk off is cake to find. Go right, follow the cairns.

    The gear we had.
    Full rack of BD Cams
    1 rack of mixed nuts.
    1 rack of tri-cams. (Were not from around here)
    Mixed rack of dmm, metolious cams.

    I don't know what bolt plates are but take the rest. Double ropes? Not needed on Japhlion if everything goes well...

    We had way more gear then we needed for each particular climb but we never were short on what we wanted.

    If its misty wet consider walking to wineglass bay. The "hike" is practically wheel chair access for an hour and its pretty.

    peace,

    Chris

    1. Liana Cousins AUTHOR

      Thanks Chris.

      I think you just talked us out of doing Pneisses! My girlfriend judges a climb by its walk in and its belay stances, so i think we might give it a miss. Japhlion sounds like fun and as much as i love thrutching (i really do) i don't think my girlfriend would be too pleased...

      By the way a bolt plate is a stainless steel bracket that most victorian climbers carry (normally in their chalk bags) to place over a carrot (this is a bolt but without a fixed hanger). These bolts are cheap, and also quite discreet, which can be good from an aesthetic point of view, but they can be damn hard to spot sometimes...

      see http://www.rockhardware.com.au/Order.asp?Action=View&StockCode=2300 for a picture of one.

      Thanks again,
      Rob