While I was not driving today, I asked Craig if it would be silly to aim to get to the carpark at first light. He replied “yes it would be silly, but let’s do it anyway”. Working shifts he is used to waking up, and going to bed, at all sorts of weird hours. Plus an early start was more inviting, due to the forecast of a hot day in the high thirties. Setting the alarm for 3:30 was forgotten and forgiven when the sky lit up, as we approached the crag. In view that he doesn’t get out too much, I asked Craig where he’d like to head:
Moses Rocks was his choice, the friendly crag. His reasoning was however somewhat swayed by the unfinished business I mentioned in my post of my last climb with Rongy in the south west https://sandbagged.blog/2023/12/28/placed-on-hold/. It was indeed the last climb here, and Rongy and Sarah finally hit the road soon after New Years and are now somewhere over east. Seeing we were back at Rumpoles Rocks and Rongy and I had climbed every route here last time, I handed Craig the rope and left him to pick a line:
We warmed up on a couple of fun lines, nothing too serious to start with. Although the conditions were not as good as my last visit. The rock had a coating of salt spray making the rock feel a little greasy, and the air hung heavy with humidity despite the early hour. It did make me wonder how the unfinished business would feel, not that I had to worry too much about it myself. When after my warm up lead I again handed the rope to Craig and offered him the opportunity to bag the first ascent:
The route may be deemed a little contrived. It goes up a wall between two existing climbs that use more obvious crack systems. This route is climbed without using the cracks, even though they are tantalisingly. Especially at the two crux sections. The first being a very delicate slab that had Craig foxed for a while. The second being the first rooflet that despite several attempts had him completely stumped. If he’d studied the images in the above linked post, it may have provided him with the all-important beta. Climbing speak for information:
He came back down, happy to have given it a red hot go. After cleaning the gear from the potential new climb, it was my turn. Despite the less than ideal conditions it, not I, fell reasonably easily. And we have once again added another fun puzzle of a climb at this crag, which we called Off the Rails. So named because you need to avoid using the obvious track/cracks that the two lines either side take. While it may seem harder for someone trying to climb it on-sight, with no beta, we decided to grade it 17 (HVS 5a):
This was in keeping with the grading of some of the other climbs here. They really do feel like those little brain teasing puzzles, with two or more pieces that can be so damn hard to separate. I’m pretty good at them, but I do have one sat on my desk that Elseya bought me a year or two back that I still haven’t solved. And yes I threw away the answer that came with it, so I couldn’t cheat. As is usually the case, Craig came armed with a flask of tea. So a cuppa was poured and allowed to cool, while he tackled another line at Rumpoles Rocks:
Upon bagging another fun line, one that was easier to read and not having secret tricks needing to be solved to unlock the sequence required to get up, we supped our welcome teas before moving across to Hands Up Wall. Here, as the temperature was rising and the greasiness seemed to get worse, we picked another four fun routes. On the penultimate climb, my fourth lead, the humidity was wearing me down. And despite my grin, I found myself pulling harder than necessary on every hold. A sure sign I was ready to call it a wrap:
Having already lead almost four routes, due to his oh so close success on the new route, it wasn’t too hard to convince Craig to finish the session on the classic of the crag. But not before we poured yet another brew, and let that cool so it was ready to drink as we sorted the gear when we got down. It may seem strange to be having a cuppa on a hot day, but research has shown that a hot drink on a hot day can aid your body to cool down. As long as you are not already sweating, something we did a fair bit of as we walk out:
Sandbagged 