3:45 seemed a wee bit early to leave home, but I picked up Gav and Monica and we were off on the road to Wilyabrup. Passing Busselton at just after 4am and the police had pulled someone over, a timely reminder to stick to the limit. Then driving into Willyabrup on a gravel road to the beach at 4:30 two cars were on their way out. Maybe they had just had a night climb or surf?! As we walked to the cliff the moon was still up but there was enough light to get going:
So Gav needed a bit of practise leading on trad, and sure enough that was right as he got higher and higher Monica was very patiently waiting to become useful. Hint, hint – put some gear in Gav:
Sure enough he found some and so Minica then had to treally concentrate. The danw by now had truely broken and the earlty start was forgiven as we watched the world wake up:
As Gav topped out the next mob turned up, minus Ryan who called in sick at 3:30am. I had set Mikie a challenge if he was up for it and that was to bag 200-250m of climbing, but why you ask?! Well he has set himself a challenge to climb 10km of routes with the criteria it has to be on lead, must be a clean lead, and cannot be a climb he has claimed before. He still had to bag 307m in 2015. So we set off on an easy warm up slab and corner at grade 11:
Meanwhile Chris and Marnie jumped on the old favourite of Hope:
I hadn’t fully formed a list of climbs but was aiming for some of the better ones, with length and a mix of grade up to 19. So next up it was Glory a fun 13 that often gets overlooked and is right next to Hope:
To give Mikie a chance I was making sure I was ready to climb as soon as the rope went tight, and I didn’t waste time with stopping to get gear out instead doing it on the move. We were a well-oiled machine and as Marnie and Chris finished off on Hope we were already on our way back down (just look at the determination in Mikie’s face:
To speed thing up that bit more we had set up an ab rope which helped no end. So number three, The Unbolted and The Beautiful a feisty little 16 that is great value. I noticed the new guide only gave it 20m but I reckon 25 is fairer, it makes me thing that maybe I should have checked route lengths a bit more during the writing of the next guide:
Mikie was on fire, but I felt it was worth mixing up the grade so onto a 13 by the name of Verbosity. A name that has struck fear into many a budding leaders heart. It’s a fine line and one of the longest, but the lower section seems to freak so many people out. I thought for a moment he had lost 35m when his foot slipped as a limestone flake feel away but he held on:
The upper section of this climb is great, lots of fun and consistent climbing that keeps going and going and going:
Then for something different we went for Fishing With Dynamite a fully bolted 19. It’s a worthy climb, even if it is bolted, and there were no rules about the climbs needing to be trad:
Five routes in and going well, so next up we headed for a two pitch climb called Sirius, with both pitches going at 14. As Mikie was on the first traverse pitch someone was lowering a rope down the wall and low and behold Kym popped up. It seems Kym was jilted by young Tom who was instead heading out with Logan Barber later that day (bit of name dropping there if you didn’t notice, but also a little update on just how well Tom’s climbing is going):
Pitch 2, or should I say climb 7 was in the bag. A fine airy finish to the top of the iconic steel wall, which may well feature on the front cover the of the new guide. Around this time Lou turned up with Marie and Chris also came along with a couple of mates and it seemed that we had an explosion of people. Not only those invites but also a couple of adventure groups and several other climbers to:
As the crowds transformed the feel of the place and we were abseiling down Chris had decided to tackle (and did a great clean ascent) of the very awkward Top Gear 19. This got me thinking, as Mikie was wanting to slow down as Helen and Nadia had also turned up:
So for what I thought to be my last climb with Mikie (number 8) I threw him at the mercy of One for the Road and enjoyable climb with a tricky roof section going at 19. After 7 leads with no rests I wondered if he would make it, but after a few yo-yos at the roof he made it without a slip and the crowd went wild:
Then when we got down the tables turned and he asked me to lead something so I jumped on the very fine Dolphin Smiles. In view that Mikie got up it clean with no bother I still reckon now as I type this that he should have led it himself:
From he on the pace relaxed heaps and most of us were at the slabs near Steel Wall, long easy but fun pitches. Lou put her leading head on and Nadia had her first climb since giving birth to young Fergus. So everyone was having a good time and doing really well. Mikie finished up on one of the slabs called Peanut Crumble, a grade 10 that earned him another 30m and his tenth climb of the day:
The sun was starting to rise high in the sky and it had some bite to it. So us early birds all decided it was to head off and let the others work on their tans while trying not to slip off the holds. At the end of the day there was lots of climbing done, quite a bit of socialising for most (not so much Mikie or I), and an all-round great morning out not to mention Mikie’s remaining target for 2015 being slashed by 234m to a measly 73m. So it looks like it will be his lead (again) at Welly Dam next week when we hit that place at the crack of dawn for a pre-work climb:
Sandbagged 