Working Hard
The Blue Mountains are filled with cliffs to climb, there is just so much to do.
Every lookout point that I go see has views looking over a valley for kilometres over green forest and along most of the top of each valley is a solid wall of rock screaming "Climb Me!"
We decided to go explore a diferent area and went to Sentential Glen. There must be hundreds of bolted routes here, I felt like a kid walking round Hamley's Toy store. We decided to go to a section called Wave Wall. Wave wall is the first cliff that you see on the walk in and it looks a bit like a massive 25m wave that has just broken and you are the surfer sitting on your board below it brasing yourself, but the wave is frozen and when you open your eyes again you start noticing all the chalk marks and bolts. To get to it you zigzag throught the winding valley past all the other crags a behind a few waterfalls and tiny mini rain forests with ferns all around.
Its times like these that I wish I had better luck with my camera, my brand spanking new camera that I got in Melbourne has packed up, this time it was nothing to do with me and something has malfunctioned and I was doing such a good job of looking after it. I have managed to borrow the other cameras at times, so I will put some photos up when I get them.
I've started working another 25(7b) Rubber Lover, I have all the moves figured out, I just have to find a way of putting them all together. It is winter here in Australia at the moment, thank God for fire and hakki sack, thats how we warm up in the morning and stay warm in the evenings. My hakki sack has improved a lot, I can now touch the ball more than twice! Last day I stayed as warm as I could, wearing my down jacket, fleece gloves (thanks Jonathan, they're briliant) and my warm hat, I even borrowed Julie-Ann's invisible skipping rope to try help. I took off all the extra layers and hoped on the route, I was doing really well, I got up to the
crux and I wasn't pumped, I had the crux sequence memorised, moved my left hand onto the first 2 finger pocket my fingers suddenly felt icy cold and just would not hold, moved back to the good holds and tried shaking them, but they just wouldn't warm up. I had rest on the rope and try about 10 times before my fingers eventually decided to start working, it was very frustrating, but it was good to learn that I need to include a few crimps on my warmup.
Another great thing about the Blue mountains is that the friction of the rock is amazing, but like glendo, this also means that after a day or two climbing there you're fingers feel like toast. By now my fingers looked like toast as well. Just as I managed to get my fingers warm enough to do the route, my skin had had enough and it was no longer comfortable to climb on them. So I'm going to have to take an early rest day tomorrow.
Every lookout point that I go see has views looking over a valley for kilometres over green forest and along most of the top of each valley is a solid wall of rock screaming "Climb Me!"
We decided to go explore a diferent area and went to Sentential Glen. There must be hundreds of bolted routes here, I felt like a kid walking round Hamley's Toy store. We decided to go to a section called Wave Wall. Wave wall is the first cliff that you see on the walk in and it looks a bit like a massive 25m wave that has just broken and you are the surfer sitting on your board below it brasing yourself, but the wave is frozen and when you open your eyes again you start noticing all the chalk marks and bolts. To get to it you zigzag throught the winding valley past all the other crags a behind a few waterfalls and tiny mini rain forests with ferns all around.
Its times like these that I wish I had better luck with my camera, my brand spanking new camera that I got in Melbourne has packed up, this time it was nothing to do with me and something has malfunctioned and I was doing such a good job of looking after it. I have managed to borrow the other cameras at times, so I will put some photos up when I get them.
I've started working another 25(7b) Rubber Lover, I have all the moves figured out, I just have to find a way of putting them all together. It is winter here in Australia at the moment, thank God for fire and hakki sack, thats how we warm up in the morning and stay warm in the evenings. My hakki sack has improved a lot, I can now touch the ball more than twice! Last day I stayed as warm as I could, wearing my down jacket, fleece gloves (thanks Jonathan, they're briliant) and my warm hat, I even borrowed Julie-Ann's invisible skipping rope to try help. I took off all the extra layers and hoped on the route, I was doing really well, I got up to the
crux and I wasn't pumped, I had the crux sequence memorised, moved my left hand onto the first 2 finger pocket my fingers suddenly felt icy cold and just would not hold, moved back to the good holds and tried shaking them, but they just wouldn't warm up. I had rest on the rope and try about 10 times before my fingers eventually decided to start working, it was very frustrating, but it was good to learn that I need to include a few crimps on my warmup.
Another great thing about the Blue mountains is that the friction of the rock is amazing, but like glendo, this also means that after a day or two climbing there you're fingers feel like toast. By now my fingers looked like toast as well. Just as I managed to get my fingers warm enough to do the route, my skin had had enough and it was no longer comfortable to climb on them. So I'm going to have to take an early rest day tomorrow.
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