It was a bit of a déjà vu moment. Leaving the house, the stars were visible meaning it was a clear sky. However, as Josh, Howsie, and I got closer to Wilyabrup the clouds masked the sky. Soon after we could see the mist coating the landscape. Finally, as we arrived and got out of the car, the rain gently fell. I knew the temperature would drop ten to fifteen degrees from our recent stinky forty degree days, as a cool change was rolling in. I had even noticed, just the night before, a twenty percent chance of less than one millimetre of precipitation:
But at least, last weekend, the rain had waited till Craig and I had managed three hours of fun on rock. Today I wondered if it may put a dampener on what might be achievable from the outset. Although, a bit like going in for a swim when the conditions are not ideal, there is always that glimmer of hope something good will come of it. The three of us didn’t really make anything of our predicament. It was just another day at the crag, as we shouldered our packs and walked in. Not even remarking that we got a little wetter, as we brushed past the vegetation:
In part due to the conditions, I kicked things off on the route we would normally finish on. It felt like it had been a very long time since I had climbed Hope. Looking back at my four thousand plus images of climbing at Wilyabrup, it was in September. While only three and half months, that is a long time for me not to have been on this route. The last time was with Howsie, and we had seen two of our local Southwestern Carpet Python (Morelia imbricata) friends basking on the route https://sandbagged.blog/2023/09/25/a-little-crustacean/:
Today it seemed right to climb Hope first up when Josh spotted a beautiful skin at the base of the climb, as shown in the first image. Indicating our friends had grown since we last saw them, and I can say friends as we spotted three snake skins in all. As the images show the clouds had lifted and the rain had abated. It was still damp but climbable. Josh grumbled just a little bit about the greasy rock on the crux of Hope, while below I could see Howsie’s thoughts lay elsewhere. He was peering across, and eventually walked over, to Steel Wall:
But before there was any hint of climbing on Steel Wall, Howsie weaved his way up one of the very first routes established here. The very fun Stormcock, which at the grade weaves through some very impressive territory. After that and in search of more snakes, again only finding skins, I climbed Glory. Josh followed up as a flash of lightening lit up the sky out to sea, followed by a deep and reverberating rumble. Howsie was then undecided about the conditions, and pondered on two lines. To help, Josh made him choose the hand the rock was in:
He picked the hand without the rock, which in theory meant he should climb the easier line. His response however showed dismay making Josh and I, almost in unison, tell him he should just pick the climb he wanted to do. Like a surprised but excited kid, he accepted what was being offered. To get ready for the show, Josh shuffled a few rocks about to make sure he had a comfortable rock armchair. And so it began, but the show was reasonably short lived, and as he climbed rain started to gentle fall. This did not put him off and on his third attempt at the crux of Heavy Metal he powered through it. Notching up a third 24 for 2024, which meant I had to follow up to clean the line:
While most of the route is not too bad that crux is certainly pretty testy, and I’m not sure I would have led it. Josh was happy to sit this one out, and had even taken his harness of by the time we got back down. This had to go back on, as I eased up on the grades by climbing Thunder Thighs. We didn’t hear anymore thunder and there was a lack of thigh action by Josh, who was tiring. This resulted in his footwork not being the best so he didn’t make use of the biggest muscle group we have, in our thighs. He managed a clean ascent but admitted to being toasted, although not enough to stop him offering to carry our packs up:
This was to allow Howsie to lead the climb he should have, when he had picked the hand without the rock. So while he had lost the game he came good in the end, kinda playing by the rules. He was however a little sore, after two great leads on stiff oppositions,. I was also feeling weary, and we were very grateful to Josh for being our Sherpa and saving us the need to head back down just to carry our packs to where we now sat. To polish the day off, as we wandered out, we came across a great find. An Orange-backed Robberfly (Mauropteron pelago); and I’m glad to say that despite the conditions on our arrival we were certainly not robbed of a great morning on the cliffs:
Sandbagged 