Being January it is the summer school holiday and Lisa is enjoying the time off. I also tend to ease into the new year with four day weeks, allowing my January to be a bit more relaxed. It has become a bit of a tradition, and the three day weekends are very welcome. It’s a shame I can’t make it a long term thing but for now I’m loving it, and this weekend it was even more welcome. Despite not working I still got up at silly o’clock on Friday to meet Howsie at Welly Dam for our weekly climb; Rongy bailed this week in favour of additional and much needed sleep:
Then on Saturday it was the same silly o’clock start, which was made more palatable by having had a chilled Friday at home. It was another inland trip. We do not have too many inland climbing spots close enough to allow for a day trip. This means there are no images of ocean, and on that note not even a glimmer of hope of any posts about what lies beneath the ocean. The water is still grey and milky, not being given the chance to clear up with the winds churning the water up each afternoon. I hope that changes in the weeks to come, as I have been missing my snorkels:
There are only two inland crags that make for a sensible day trip, I have been known to drive a six hour round trip for a day out at Mount Frankland. But fortunately Welly Dam is just shy of an hour away and today’s location of Boomer Crag, which is just outside of Pinjarra, is only an hour and three quarters. Making it a good halfway’ish spot to meet Mario, who lives in Perth. This crag is on private land and you are encouraged to call the owner to let them know of your intentions; he has never been known to said no:
This time he warned Mario that dugites and tiger snakes were about, but then we live in the south west and at this time of year we know that. Not that we get to see them, we are way too heavy footed for any snakes to hang about. It is a very rare, and personally I think lucky, sight to see one. I do however seem to have a bit of luck with seeing carpet pythons at both Wilyabrup and Bobs Hollow. We eased into things with Sated and Calm, where Mario did a bit of gardening pulling out the dead stump of a small tree in the initial crack (two images back):
In 2014 on my first trip here with Wiggins the small tree had a little bit of greenery, but it wasn’t looking too good (https://sandbagged.blog/2014/07/13/another-day-out/). Then on my second time here with Craig, two years later, it was dead. So I am surprised that it has stayed in place as long as it has (https://sandbagged.blog/2016/10/23/heading-inland/). This is the best of the easy climbs here, and everyone jumps on it. Next up I plumped for Suspended Intelligence, which Mario was happy for me to lead. It gets an R rating due to sparse gear, but personally I don’t find the protection all that bad:
The cracks on this crag can hold water for a long time, even long after the seasons have changed. On previous trips we have been serenaded by the sound of frogs singing, unseen as they remain hidden deep in the damp crevices. Not today, everything was bone dry and the air was instead filled with the sound of crickets chirping. They don’t normally sit still when we come crashing about, but the one above was content to stay while Mario led Mr Hitachi. It remained in the same place until after we had finished on the route:
The routes we climbed followed a familiar trend of previous visits here, knocking off the same lines. There aren’t too many lines here, with no option for new routes unless you want to place bolts and project steep intimidating finger ripping faces. Seeing it was my lead, we moved round to the main face where thing steepen up. The first three climbs were slabby, and due to the easier angle our arms hadn’t needed to work very hard. But both of us felt them on the crag classic of Boomer Crack, a very fine sustained crack that almost reaches from the base to the top of the crag:
On a previous trip I sent Eric up this fine climb, shown below, and he came across a Huntsman spider. As he screeching out in surprise and terror, I braced to catch him as he fell. But he held on and then told me of his phobia, before impressively managing to supress his fear and get up the route (https://sandbagged.blog/2018/12/17/running-low-on-fuel/). There was no spider this time, and with arms definitely warmed up now we hit a route that I did with Eric. One I managed to mashed my fingers on. Fuel for the Urban Warrior is hard, simple as that. Nether Mario nor I got it clean today, it is really hard to read the moves and more so at the crux where the only excuse for hand holds are really not that good:
Apologies for the blurry image below, it was taken from a video I took of Mario’s ascent. A video he may prefer I don’t share, and we will wait till he is more climbing fit and can get up it with a bit more elegance. For those that read every post, you will recall Mario is supposed to be easing back into recovery. This route is far from easing back in, and the next line he suggested we play on even less so. Someone has since my first trip here put some new lines up and they are, as I explained above, mostly bolted and on steep intimidating finger ripping faces. The one Mario was keen to play on was Nuggetz Kucklez, an unrelenting powerful climb:
Small, sharp and generously spaced, for those of my stature, holds make for both dynamic moves and painful fingertip holds. Perfect for my tips that were already wearing thin after Welly Dam yesterday and this morning’s routes. We both worked the climb, Mario more successfully than I. With each attempt on every hold, and there were many, my fingers screamed in pain and my strength ebbed away. I was done and pleased to see the sun creep round, which brought with it the heat forecast for the day. The only sensible thing to do was to wrap up the session, which despite the descriptions above had been a lot of fun:
Sandbagged 