Alan and I headed out for an afternoon climb yesterday and plumped for Driftwood Bay at Willyabrup, as it had a number of lower grade 20m climbs so Alan could have a bash at leading:
In comparison to the main walls and northern buttresses of Willyabrup this crag certainly looks scrappy and was a bit of a bush bash to get to. As such it is not likely to see much action and there was little evidence of anyone else having been here for sometime:
Alan hasn’t led many climbs so I set off on the first lead so he could get his head into gear. We both liked the look of the right hand wall that offered two routes (in the guide). I headed up the 13 leaving the 11 for Alan and found it to be a good sustained line with great moves but at time tricky to find gear. The top of the crag is littered with strange limestone formations, very uninviting for belay anchors for I set up a rap station just below the top:
Alan followed up and it was obvious from his face that the climb was harder than he thought a 13 should be and I have to agree, but then a grade is only a guide. This image shows why the crag is so aptly named:
Undeterred Alan set of up the grade 11 working his way up carefully and finding far more gear placements than I found (all of which were text book placements and bomb proof). He however didn’t mange the top headwall and crept left to finish up the line I had just done:
I then spied a line in-between the two we had just done, but seemingly sharing the line up the final headwall on the grade 11 that Alan had just attempted. With a short but fiery overhung jam crack to start and balancy final headwall it proved to be a worthwhile line (based on the grading at the crag maybe a 15). The top headwall as the image below shows was quite thought provoking and was no way an 11 (we now reckon the 11 probably should up the right hand side of the headwall):
Alan’s leading head was gone by then so I jumped on a line a bit to the left that looked to go up some pretty inconsistent terrain. However, the first half went up a sentry box that provided brilliant moves, gear and positions – it was awesome. It got a bit broken after that but still provided enjoyable climbing. Alan followed up feeling relieved he hadn’t tried to lead this one – another Driftwood Bay 13! With time to try one more line I headed for another 13 with a fun looking hand crack to start with. I ambled up the 20m with 4 bits of gear much to Alan’s surprise, but when he followed we agreed that maybe a grade 10 was probably more like it. A nice way to finish the afternoon’s climbing:
So as we scrambled down for the last time we decided the moral of the story was not to just look at the grading, but also to look at the date of the first ascent. Assuming these have not been tampered with since they were first assigned you can add several grades to 1970 routes to make them comparable with more recent routes. Either we are softer or they had bigger balls – or maybe it was just our headspace on the day…….
Sandbagged 