Jake was hankering to get some leading in so I offered to hold his rope up at Welly Dam. Much as he was keen to head to Bob’s this second option allowed me to make a slightly shorter day of it, considering I had been out with Howsie just yesterday. In addition there are heaps of quality lines here and in truth it seems he was just as keen for the Dam. Driving in I noticed that the mural is starting to take shape since my last trip here with Howsie in late November, but it still has some way to go: https://sandbagged.blog/2020/11/29/running-out-of-time/:
Jake has previously climbed here but it was a long time back and he hadn’t led much from what I could tell. Also many of the routes he would be keen to jump on now, after having got somewhat stronger and more confident from climbing in the Blue Mountains, would most likely be his first time on them. I was therefore more than happy to offer him the rope and simply second up each route. We started on Welcome to Edges as a warm up, and he made short work of it. I wasn’t aware that he was taking a few snaps as I cleaned the routes, and seeing he did it only feels right to include a few:
As Jake had not been on most of these routes before I was keen to see how he climbed them. This place is renowned for being hard to read, making for on-sight ascents all the more tricky. I left him to each lead, not offering any advice, clues or opinions on the moves that lay ahead of him. There were only a few occasions when he varied the approach from what I would normally take, with Raging Torrent being one of them. Even how he climbed it, he felt the grade of 18 was fair. It is however easy to see why some people feel this is a sandbag route, if they happen to try and climb it like an indoor wall instead of a natural rock feature:
The Red-tailed Black Cockatoos seemed particularly active today, their cawing was never missing for long and on several occasions large flocks flew overhead. What was missing were people, despite being a public holiday and a time when the campsites here are fully booked no one was about. I was expecting people to be milling about making use of the BBQs to cook up a feast as the kids ran amuck on the lush grass. A couple of car tourists rolled in and then back out without getting out of their cars, and it wasn’t until we were on the last couple of routes that a few cars actually stopped here but even then not for long:
Next up was Savage Sausage Sniffer, one of my favourite lines here. The clean vertical quartz band that provide a smooth and at times nervous layback sequence makes this such a gem. Jake was loving it, each climb he would come down exclaiming that it was a great route. He made short work of the first three lines and was then keen to bump it up a notch or two. So after cleaning this one we walked along the crag to check out the lines and one stood out to him:
Attack of the March Flies is yet another solid lead, and even more solid on-sight. Jake has a slight advantage of reach making the clip on the last bolt before the anchors slightly more sane. But that certainly didn’t take anything away from the impressive on-sight on what is a gnarly and at times intense route. One of the things that attracted him to this route was the clean flake line, that and my previous comment about “a natural rock feature” has stopped and made me think. The variety of features on these rock walls is pretty amazing, and even more so considering they are the remnants of a working granite quarry:
The quarry was first worked in early 1930s, the granite blocks that were blasted out of this outcrop were so hard that they resulted in the rock crusher regularly breaking down. So instead of breaking them down any smaller they simply tipped them into the formwork and poured the concrete over them. The quarry was reopened in the late 1950’s when the wall was raised to the height it is today. Upon completion of the dam wall works in 1960 loose rock was removed from the faces of the quarry and the area was turned into a picnic area with shelters, BBQs and a lookout platform to view the dam from:
That would mean that 2020 marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of the quarry. And I’m guessing that the quarry was opened to the public on the same day that the newly raised dam was officially opened on the 21st October 1960. Interestingly the picnic area was a result of more tourists arriving to see the dam in the 1950s, due to the increasing popularity of motor vehicles. Fast-forward sixty years, two months and seven days and I finally saw Jake stumble, the top headwall of Rock Therapy was just too hard to read and despite a sustained effort to get the on-sight he finally slipped off:
His mood wasn’t damped and after working out the moves he was keen to jump on Ebony Road. For this route he had prior knowledge, as it was one of the lines he had topped roped a few weeks back before deciding not to climb here again until he had the chance to lead the routes ground up. He hadn’t dwelled on the last climb and was back to ticking with another clean ascent in the bag. The final route of the day was Murky Corner. This one held a special memory for Jake, as the first route he had climbed here only just after getting into climbing hence the video below. Back then he top roped it, but today he savoured it as the final lead of the day on these great 60 year old quarried walls:
Sandbagged 