The fear factor

Having a degree of arachnophobia makes Lisa a little jumpy when she see’s things moving on the wall, and what with poor eyesight anything on the wall can look blobby and could be a spider.  The other day this is what she found on the wall at the foot of the bed.  The House Centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata) definitely looks creepy, but they are harmless to humans, don’t invade food supplies, being nocturnal tend not to be noticed, and are in fact a predator of the less desirable creatures that may inhabit the house such as cockroaches and spiders:

That said once she had seen it I had to take it outdoors, allowing her to have a good bug free night’s sleep.  Speaking of which to get my quota I hit the sack early last night, as Howsie and I were heading outdoors bright and early.  We opened the gate to Spring Grove Farm, just north of Pinjarra as the day woke up.  Unlike the landowner on whose land the nearby Boobyer Boulders sit, which we’ve not been permitted to go to, after a short and polite exchange of text messages with Maurice, who owns this land, we were granted access:

Howsie was on a timeframe, which was in part why we headed out early.  And this place was chosen as you can park quite literally at the base of the crag.  While climbing next to a road may seem unpleasant, as it is a private road it has very little if any traffic.  So the only noises we heard were those we made, as we battled the climbs, and the birds in the trees and sky.  My last trip here was with Mario when we climbed on the more natural granite boulders across the road, while the trip before was with Rongy and Steve when we stuck to this manmade crag:

During that visit I added two new routes that followed the blast holes, which were protected using cams in a very unorthodox way.  And as described by Howsie, not in a way that the manufacturer was likely to want to promote.  Most would find the placements uninspiring and they require a lot of trust.  I took a video of Rongy, who normally climbs confidently and at a fair pace, as he inched his way up one of my new climbs at approx. one metre per minute https://sandbagged.blog/2021/06/19/the-george-michael-effect/.  Since that visit I noticed on The Crag that two more routes had been added to the arsenal of this little crag:

As such there were plenty of lines for the picking.  Although on arrival water was running down the left-hand side of the face.  This put the route that had made Rongy so nervous and the old bolted route next to it, which is the hardest line here, both out of contention.  Before I introduced Howsie to the delights of placing and trusting cams in the blast holes, we warmed up on a few easier lines.  The whole time needing to dodge the many Portuguese millipedes (Ommatoiulus moreletii), which were scattered all over the place:

I climbed one of the new lines and Howsie jumped on the easiest route, which also has double the amount of bolts of any of the other climbs.  These lines drew our attention to the right-hand side of the crag, where we spotted more possible first ascents.  Two blast holes looked like they may yield fun lines.  I tried one but would have had to solo at least a third of the crag, on what felt like sketchy holds, before I could get to where the blast hole was whole enough to get a cam placement:

Needless to say fear took hold sufficiently and I backed off.  The blast hole to the right was more forgiving, and it was on this route that Howsie placed his first, second, third, and then fourth cam.  I couldn’t tell if he was convinced of the way they sat and looked, but he climbed on and bagged a first ascent.  A route he aptly named Comeback Kid, seeing he has just come back from a three month road trip and based on how he climbed today he is also back to climbing with the same cool head he had before he went travelling:

We moved from right to left picking of one line after another, and half way along the sun started to peak over the opposite hillside.  As it rose higher in the sky it seemed to banish the shadows back into the depths of the earth, and we relished the warmth that came with the transition.  The sun also started to dry the left-hand end of the crag, and by the time we got to the routes at that end there was but a mere dribble of water to be found on the face.  Howsie was starting to show signs of tiring, but he had obviously enjoyed the thrill of the cams:

And for his penultimate route be bagged another blast hole route, with his arms only just managing to get him to the top.  I was then left with the option of climbing the hardest bolted route, or my scary blast hole line that had put Rongy on edge and which after a quick look Howsie politely declined to give a go.  I opted for the bolted line and it felt hard, which only enhanced the fear factor of the idea of taking on the scary blast hole.  This resulted in both us being content with climbing an even ten lines and neither of us fancying that final route.  Maybe next time: