A sixteen hour round trip to catch up with friends down in Esperance was just a bit too much to think about for Ash this weekend. This worked out well for me, as it meant I had someone to hold the rope and I didn’t have to go solo again. As Sam found out last weekend, having the rope below you brings a whole new perspective to climbing. Something that you can probably guess I relish. So while I will resort to top rope soloing if I have to, my preference will nearly always be to be on the sharp end:
I say nearly, as I feel any statement that uses the word always and/or never are rarely true. In fact Lisa and I made a pact many years back to avoid using these terms, in part as they can unexpectedly result in discussions taking a turn for the worse due to inferring accusations. The last time Ash went climbing was with Claudia, Sam and myself, which was nearly three months back. As such he confessed to not being climbing fit resulting in us plumping for the Organ Pipes at Wilyabrup, a rarely frequented place:
This place has short, and some might go so far as to say scrappy, lines. They however offer some fun lower grade routes, perfect to ease Ash back into climbing. The main face has a great level and clear area at its base, a perfect spot to belay. The only issue today being the infestation of ants. I attempted to get an image showing them en-masse, failing miserably so I instead focused on one of the entrances to their underground home. Here I watched them frantically scampering in and out, and wondered what they may be communicating to each other:
While Ash looks rugged up, he discarded layers after the first line. It was a bit of a strange morning, we had expected a crisp clear start to the day but the air seemed to hang heavy and the humidity was up. This is what I put all the any activity down too, and made a mental note to do a bit of research to see what facts may lie behind my theory. There are plenty of pest control sites that reference increased ant, and other insect, activity in humid conditions. All indicating the moisture draws them out, but finding actual research or factual information was harder:
The closest I could get was a paper, which detailed observation of a 25% increase in ant activity with increased humidity. And I am happy to take that as confirmation, although the ant activity today was way more than 25% of what I normally see here. So much so we avoided the obvious place to belay from in order to get away from the critters. Humidity plays another role with me, making me feel lethargic. That added to the reduction of friction on the rock due to the moisture in the air, and increase in sweat seeping out of my fingertips. All of which is not a good combination:
Fortunately we were having a purposely cruisy morning, so these aspects didn’t impede my performance. Ash too did well, and even more so when I found out he had pounded out a 27km hike along part of the cape to cape trail yesterday. That along with his active job had meant we was already aching before we started. Making me wonder how much I could push him along even with the more sedate routes here. We stuck to the original lines here and purposely avoided the newer routes, which tend to be that bit more sustained and slightly trickier:
The newer routes being sneaky lines that I have over the years picked off, or offered up to others so they could bag a first ascent. There was however one sneaky option that I had not to date attempted, and despite his tiring arms Ash encouraged me to give it a go. Even hinting I was a bit of a dog with bone, so I might as well go for it and get it out of my system. The image above shows the route, and it was really fun. The top wall was where it got spicy, which is a bit of theme on this face, and this was a little too much for Ash’s not tiring but now tired arms:
Being a slightly scrappy crag, he was able to avoid the hard part and came up with an ear to ear grin thoroughly enjoying the climbing, but also just being out. Having got the new route out of my system (https://www.climberswa.asn.au/topic/wilyabrup-the-organ-pipes-2/), we hit a couple of easier routes before jumping on the crag classic. It was clear that Ash was now pulling pretty hard to stay on. And while the security of the rope above gave him the confidence to keep moving, it was a sign that it was time to wrap things up and hopefully Ash won’t wait so long before his next trip out:
Sandbagged 