Reeve's Roadtrip Blog

Round one had taken place three weeks previously. Looking for something to do from my winter wants list, I went for what I had assumed would be the easiest one. A quick route tick to satisfy the ego, in amongst a couple of months of bouldering. My progress had faltered at an impasse which required more than I was willing to give: more in the way of commitment. Maybe due to a lack of recent time on a rope, maybe from the gear which is more ‘okay’ than ‘good’, maybe in my desire for a quick-tick I had underestimated the difficulty. As you can tell, the one thing I had in spades was a willingness to resort to a string of excuses. I came back armed with Dan. His talent and enthusiasm tends to bring out the best in me. His superior ability provides sufficient competition to make me try a little harder, but any seriousness is avoided by the nature of friendship. The emphasis is always on fun. Plus I had my knowledge from the previous attempt. I had already meticulously explored ...

There’s an unfortunate interaction between Dan and I, that often happens when we are deciding where to go climbing. He’s better than me, and often wants to do routes that I’m intimidated by. But, here’s the rub, I’m easily persuaded. And I don’t let on that I’m too scared. We chose to try Other Realms on Cilan Head, by which I mean Dan suggested it and I failed to say no. We’d already failed to access the base of the route last year (which had left me secretly relieved): no sign of the abseil stake and a static rope shorter than the height of the cliff putting paid to that attempt. Dan had slightly more success last weekend with Calum, actually getting to the base and doing the direct first pitch. They were then stopped by the wet second pitch. On the Friday night, as we were being plied with rose petal wine by our friend Jess, we confidently declined her offer to check the tide times for us. We calculated that the base of the cliff is almost certainly non-tidal. We didn’t feel the...

What a brilliant route! The best route in Victoria? The sustained climbing up the 40m second pitch is simply magnificent. - Sublime Climbs guidebook I try to ignore the hyperbole that often accompanies classic routes. My enjoyment of climbing is linked to many factors, I often love unloved one star gems, and can one three-star classic really be any better than another three-star classic? Anyway, Serpentine is sufficiently classic (oh, and notoriously soft) that I was kind of saving it for the onsight. A pie-on-the-sky dream I'd secretly fantasized over since first seeing photos of it when skiving at work. Well here I am in Australia, so we rented a car to get to the Grampians for the week. I did some other routes on Taipan wall first, great routes themselves like Snake Flake, Fisting Party and Venom. An Aussie climber, Mike, had already had his gear in Serpentine (its mixed bolt and trad protected) for the last few weeks, including the weird first pitch and a jugging pine to the ...

I think that anticipation really adds to my enjoyment of climbing. A lot of my best days out, both at home and abroad, tend to involve fulfilling long-held ambitions, irrespective of the actual difficulty of the route. I’m aware that I start half my writings by saying how I’ve always wanted to do such-and-such a route, which is perhaps indicative of how much it affects my enjoyment of climbing, although I particularly remember the first time I experienced that phenomenon. I was about 15, and had just fought my way to the top of Overhanging Groove at Almscliffe. This gave me a grandstand view of a particularly youthful Andi Turner, questing his way up the adjacent Big Greeny: I was inspired! E3 was talking big numbers to me, and seeing one getting onsighted really fired my imagination. Andi is just a few years older than me, but that was at an age when a couple of years meant a lot. Andi was old enough to have developed adult qualities, like his affableness and humility, th...

Through a serendipitous sequence of acquatintences and coincidences, I managed to hook myself up with a climbing partner for New Zealand. As we had arranged, Tasmanian Garry collected me from Christchurch airport, despite the difficulties associated with recognising someone he'd never met. The ten hour drive south to Fiordland afforded us ample opportunity to upgrade our email friendship to a face-to-face one. The topic of conversation steered itself from climbing, to work, home, family, romance (not that I had much to contribute about that one) and back around to climbing. Suitably introduced, we warmed up with a couple of days sport climbing at the steep and weatherproof crag of Little Babylon. With a good forecast and a days rest, we chose a route called Labyrinth (grade 22, about F6c and 6 pitches) as our first objective in the hills. Due to the compact nature of the rock, many of the mountain routes in this area are protected by a mix of trad gear and minimalist bolting (L...

Tony and I were joined by Andy, a friend Tony met in Edinburgh. We decided to climb Artebelleza on Innominata . It was fun to climb as a three, being more sociable at belays, and Andy fitted in comfortably with our established systems. The day took longer than planned however, a due to a combination of harder climbing than anticipated, the ropes getting stuck four times, and Tony needing to replace half of the rap-stations. Eventually, we reached the floor at dusk, and hurriedly packed our bags. I was warm and no one was above us, so I removed my helmet. We rushed to get down the steep snowy gully, hoping to reach the feint trailhead before darkness fell. Tony was somewhere ahead of Andy and me when an almighty cracking noise echoed from above. A pillar of rock the size of a row of terraces was falling away from the mountain directly above us. I yelled "oh fuck" in disbelief. It was surreal to see, and hard to believe this was about to happen to me. The main body of falli...

(Link to route info: http://www.pataclimb.com/climbingareas/chalten/fitzgroup/mermoz/pilar.html) After climbing Chiaro Di Luna I expressed my intention to sit out my Achilles injury in the chocolateria. In the time it took for the swelling and pain to subside I also managed to visit a myriad of cafes and both ice cream parlours on several occasions. I felt decidedly more fat than fit. Once the ankle was strong enough for me to boulder and sport climb on the outskirts of town, Tony suggested that I hire some strap-on crampons to approach routes in my trainers, thus eliminating the need to wear the boots that aggravated my Achilles in the first instance. With good weather forecast for the Friday, we chose the Red Pillar on Mermoz as our objective. Analysing our previous route together, we felt that the rushed preparation and approach (due to having only just arrived in town) was the main factor in how trashed we had felt for the route. This time, we assured ourselves, would be dif...