Make You Think Climbing
Mt. Lloyd & Mt. Cran
Jan. 2008
After waiting for nearly a day for the rain to clear, Jeremy and I finally set off up Freds Creek with ropes, slings, a full rack, ice axes, crampons, 6 days worth of food, a Microlight tent fly, half a toothbrush and a spoon. An hour later darkness fell, so we pitched the fly in the stream bed.
The next morning we continued upstream, reaching the stream junction heading to Mt. Lloyd a few hours latter. The sheer face jutting into the sky made my stomach do a few summersaults. I began to wonder if I should check myself into a mental institute for even thinking of climbing it. Clouds were pouring over its summit, smattering us with rain, so we decided to snooze in the sun on the other side of the valley until the weather cleared here. A few hours latter we scrambled up the valley. An hour latter we arrived at the base of Mt. Lloyd. We decided to camp on the scree ridge to the true right side of the mountain, where we would be descending from the climb.
After setting up camp we decided to do a few pitches of Craig (the route up the arête of Mt. Lloyd) before dinner to see what it was like, and to give me a taste of multi pitch and trad climbing. (I had done a grand total of two trad climbs and nothing more than two pitches.) Jeremy took the first pitch, a steady 15 finishing about 50m up at a nice ledge with big rocks to belay off of, something we would happily find to await us at top of most of the pitches. The next two pitches were easier, just steep scrambling. I ended up with the 4th pitch. It had a nice little crux of about 16 which without protection through the crux. It then thankfully eased off to about a 13. After finishing that pitch, was decided we were getting hungry, so abseiled down, excited about the prospects of completing the route the following day.
Mt. Lloyd – Craig, 4+ (Pyramid Face)
After the sun began to beat on the face of Lloyd (sun is one of life’s necessities for Jeremy) we re-began its ascent. We carried one pack, with our boots, food and water in it. We kept switching it so it was carried by the person seconding. This time I took the first pitch so I didn’t have to do the dreadful 4th pitch again. After it, there were two more easy pitches before we got to the gendarmes (6th pitch). Given the face looked like good climbing but lacked protection, I gave it to Jeremy. Following him I was certainly glad I did! It went up the face, then dropped down, before heading up another gendarme, which Jeremy looped a sling around and belayed off of, then he belayed me down that gendarme and onto the ledge. He then looped the rope around the peak and abseiled off. The next pitch was a vertical grade 16 wall of rotten, damp, moss covered rock. I was again thankfully able to talk Jeremy into climbing it (what would I do without him???). The guide book told us to follow the line of weakness, but he decided to head straight up and slightly left, as it got us back onto the ridge much quicker. Which proved to be a good move as it was much easier. Soon we reached a corner, which said it was suppose to be a 15. Soon I realized either the person who decided this was a 15 was on something I wasn’t or I was in the wrong spot. 15’s in my experience are not two smooth walls joined at 45° with an occasional little hold every few meters! Luckily I could shove cams into the crack joining the slabs, so it was quite easy to protect well. The corner ended in a roof formed of boulders jammed in a crack. Yah for awesome sling placements!! J Then it eased off to about a vertical 14. Then I ran out of rope… so time for my first hanging belay-on nice loose rock! I shoved in every piece of gear I had left and called safe. We continued on, regaining the main ridge and following it, trying to avoid the grade 18 that the guide book says to be our last pitch. I was scrambling up a pile of large boulders, when, pulling myself on top of one of them, I realized, to my relief, it was the top! Despite thoroughly enjoying myself, I was very tired.
1. Lead a challenging climb.
2. Belay up 50m of rope that keeps getting snagged on things.
3. Belay Jeremy up the next pitch.
4. Now its “Pack time!” (following Jeremy up, with the pack).
5. Begin again. And again…. And again… and again…
We worked our way down, then up to the next mini peak on the ridge, and over to the other side where we put on our tamping boots and got down to the scree slope.
As there was still plenty of daylight left we decided to summit Mt. Lloyd itself (the Pyramid face is actually quite a way away from the true summit and connected to it by a broken ridge). So we dumped most of the gear minus our harnesses and one half rope and walked up. We only needed the rope once when crossing over to the other side of the ridge. The rest of the route was quite straightforward. The view from the summit was fabulous, looking over to Mt. Cook, Nuns Veil and beyond. After taking a few pictures and gazing at the view, Jeremy was finding out what happens to me when he withholds lunch until 5pm and decided it was time to get me home to dinner and bed before I fell asleep right there. By 10pm we were home sweet home.
The next day we spent flat out – in the Microlight. I did manage to entice Jeremy to explore some of the short climbs in the evening. We were not able to find any of the routes in the book, but found two nice climbs anyway.
Mt. Cran – Deep Purple, 4
Given Mt. Cran is substantially higher than the Pyramid face and the SAR guys said they had trouble getting off it (though we do not know what route they tried) we decided for an earlier morning start. So by 8 we were on our way. This time we carried two packs, as we also had crampons and an ice tool each. One light (for the leader) and one heavier (for the seconder). Bill describes the route as “Two pitches of about grade 14. 450m of make-you-think climbing. A further 250m of easy angle terrain leads to the summit”. The first two pitches were as expected, but then it really didn’t ease off into anything we would feel comfortable soloing, so we kept pitching. And the rock kept disintegrating. So for future reference, Bills “make you think climbing” translates to “grade 14 rotten vertical rock” for us mere mortals! I’m not sure if I will ever be able to look at rock the same way again, or use a hold before thoroughly testing it! Climbing consisted of wiggling every hold as hard as I dared, then putting my wait on it gingerly, trying to put my weight as straight down as possible. Protection consisted of a few cam placements interspaced by creative sling placements. A sling placed on a small flat ledge then piling rocks on top of it was considered a good gear placement. Three placements per 50m was a well protected pitch. The best placement of the day has to go to Jeremy. When I was cleaning the pitch and got to his last (and 3rd) placement, which was a wire, and started to wiggle it out, the whole rock fell away! After half a dozen or so of these pitches the exposure decreased, and the grade was slightly less, so we began simul climbing for a while until we came again to some more difficult climbing. So more doddgy pitches… by this point we decided there was really no way we could get off the mountain easily, so the best idea was to keep going up. We also decided if worse came to worse all we had to do was phone the Glentana airport and within 20min we could have a helicopter ride home. So we continued. At last, from the best belay possy of the day (a nice big hole!) I realized we were at the end of the steepest part. So we took off our climbing shoes, put on our boots and began walking, dragging the rope between us. A little while latter we put the rope away and scrambled to the lower summit. It was easier gradient, as Bill had foretold, but only in comparison of what we had done before! It was getting onwards towards evening, so we decided we could not be bothered to climb to the true summit, especially as we didn’t know what the descent had in store for us. We took the ridge on the Mt. Lloyd side down. To our relief we encountered no difficulties, and the rope was never needed. It kept looking like it could peter out any moment, but just kept going. We even saw some little deer like animals and wished we could run up and down cliffs like them! Soon enough we had reached the snow slope. There we followed the shrund as far as possible, then Jeremy belayed me down the steepest bit. He made an anchor for himself by poking two holes through the shrund then threading the rope through it. From there we just walked down the snow then scree to the ever patient Microlight fly, which we didn’t leave the safety of for a good 36 hours!