A couple trips south; Mt Wellington and the Paradiso.

The third weekend in January was relatively uneventful for me. The weather was quite hot and humid around Launceston which didn't inspire much forethought into weekend trips so Leanne and I ended up staying local. We went and picked 17lbs of blueberries at a nearby farm Saturday morning, and then went out climbing up in a new (to me at least) section of the Cataract Gorge where my greasy sweaty fingers barely got me up a 7a+ and then thoroughly bouted on a 7b. After that I concluded that it was too hot for climbing and did yard work for the rest of the weekend.


The previous weekend however, we had made a trip down to the Hobart area with two climbing friends of ours, Anna and Andrew, to hit up some cliffs on Mt Wellington which overlooks Hobart. It was hot then too, but we hoped the added elevation of the mountain and the shady cliff aspect would work to our favor, which it did very nicely (Saturday at least). We started out at a short, steep, sandstone cliff called the Sphinx. We warmed up on a nice steep 6c+ roof, enjoyable because there really aren't too many steep routes in Tasmania and it was nice for a change.

After warming up I got on an 8a+ route called Spaced Invader. I'd tried it a few months back in horrible wet conditions and damn near did it second try. On this occasion it was a similar story -one go to hang the draws and relearn the moves and then one try to do it - only this time I actually sent it.

After that we headed up to a dolerite crag higher on the mountain called the Organ Pipes. We decided to do a route called After Midnight (7a+) which was reported to be a classic 165 ft bolted arête. As with most climbs I seem to get on down here, there was little in the way of chalk to help indicate prospective holds and after climbing at the Sphinx I was apparently more tired than I thought because it took me about an hour to get up the thing. At least I managed to onsight it without falling. Leanne and Andrew then also gave it a go and I got to relax and enjoy the position up on the Pipes overlooking Hobart and the harbor wich are fantastic.

165ft is a long bit of non-stop rock climbing and after that I was pretty much spent. I did see a few other lines that I would like to get on sometime though, so I'm sure I'll be back. Sunday we checked out a different Sandstone crag but it was quite hot and although I came close on a cool 8a route called Kick Start that I tried twice, I went home without getting it clean. I’ll be back for that too.

 

Lastly, just this past weekend, Leanne and I drove down to a coastal sea cliff on the Tasman peninsula called the Paradiso. We’d been there once before, but weren’t able to climb much. This time we had a nice two days and I got to repeat a recently established 8a/+ route called Captain Jack and Leanne did a great 7a+ called Offender of the Faith that had some excellent movement and cool hand holds. I didn’t take any climbing pictures on this occasion except for a few shots on the hike (one showed below). However, here are a few other images of Leanne climbing that Craig Ingram took when the three of us had visited the cliff on a previous occasion.

 We did a few other routes as well, and I really enjoyed the climbing on this particular dolerite as its so waterworn that it’s now slightly overhanging and has really interesting and friendly holds to climb on, rather than the sharp angular features found on most of the other dolerite cliffs on the island.

That’s all I have at the moment for current news, however recently Mike McClure reposted a 30 minute video I made back in Idaho in 2008 on his website climbidaho which I figured I'd share here as well. All I had to shoot with was an old hand-held camcorder so it's definatley not HD, but I thought it turned out pretty well for what it was, even after the compression to get it online (still big enough to need 4 parts). If you haven't seen it and want to kill a half-hour watching climbing in the Pacific Northwest, then check them out. If you were to watch one, I personally think I did the best with Part 4, but maybe that's cause I'm a bit partial to route climbing a little more than bouldering and Motley Crux is one of the coolest routes I've ever done so it was nice to film it. Enjoy-

Inland Northwest Climbing 2008 video:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4