Orroral Ridge is an unusual place. It is at the top of a high hill (well, high for Australia that is) and has outcrops of VERY large granite boulders (tors) sprinkled along it for quite a distance. Because the boulders that make up the tors can be quite jumbled, the quality of the climbing can be quite mixed, and at times, short (i.e. there are lots of climbs there that are only about 10m long). Its a good place to find lots of tricky problems, and there's plenty of cracks if cracks are your thing. There is really only one road in (driving - you can walk in on fire trails from other directions) - Apollo Road. The road sounds spacey, and it is. The road was originally put in to access the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station, which was a huge satellite dish situated not far down from the top of Orroral Ridge, and so consequently it is well tarred and in good condition. The tracking station has long gone, though the site remains, and there is now a great little camp ground there. To access Orroral Ridge you turn right at the campground onto a good dirt road, and follow it all the way to the top of the hill. The road was put in to service a communications tower which was associated with the tracking station, but it is long gone too, and only a cement slab remains to mark it's passing. There is a group of boulders only a couple of minutes walk directly south of the carpark, and, not surprisingly, these are called Tower Rocks.
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We got to 'The Ridge' (got to talk like a cool Canberra climber now) carpark with no hassles - the dirt road is fine, even for my little Hyundai Getz. We grabbed our packs and headed off down the path that is on the eastern end of the carpark. The path meanders along the top of the ridge for quite a way, though it's quite obvious, until you get to a large area of flat rock and a few fallen trees. We had to search a bit before we found the path again, but it wasn't too hard (we placed some cairns on the way out, so it will be easier for other people who aren't familiar with the path) and after about ten minutes we were approaching the area of rocks known as 'The Belfry'. It's obvious why it's called that, as one of the central rocks of the tor is a soaring granite spire. Very pretty.
The path heads around the northern side of The Belfry, and after about two hundred metres it drops downhill (southwards) between two large boulders. Each boulder has a large cairn of rocks on top of them, so this turn-off is fairly obvious. The path then winds down and along the main line of the rocks that make up The Cloisters. The first part of the crag that will catch your eye are some lovely cracks that are begging to be climbed. I did a quick inspection, and though wanting to climb them, I thought they would not be appropriate for both the other guys - Brett needed something easier, and Owen is just getting into trad climbing, so something easier is always better when starting out.
What is Trad Climbing?(climbers who know this can by-pass this paragraph). Climbing has various different styles, or approaches. Trad, or traditional, climbing, is distinct by the fact that the climbers place and retrieve all their protection pieces (pro) as they climb - nothing is meant to be left on the rock, and bolts (permanent, like expansion bolts) are only placed in the rock if there is no other possible way of protecting that section. As the lead climber climbs, they place camming devices, nuts (little metal wedges), and various other cool little pieces of gear into cracks and crevices, then clip the rope onto the protection. The seconder stands at the bottom of the climb and belays the leader, ready to catch them on the rope if they fall. When the leader gets to the top of the pitch they set up an anchor point, then belay the seconder up the climb. The seconder removes the protection as they come up the climb.
We walked a bit further and came across the section of the crag known at the Simple Simon Slabs. Excellent! a couple of easy looking flaky cracks that weren’t too steep, with a nice little harder slab climb off to the right. We checked the guidebook and the two cracks were Smooth Dancer (9) - on the left - and Tarantella (10) - on the right. Climbs with a rating of 9 and 10 are not hard, so perfect for Brett after his working out on the couch for the last few months, and perfect for Owen to practice his trad leading skills without having to be too challenged by the climbing. I offered Owen the lead on Smooth Dancer and he agreed to go. We sorted our gear a bit, and then I did a small lesson on safe placing of gear with the guys in some of the small cracks at the base of the crag. Placing trad pro such as cams and nuts is not a perfect science, as rock is so variable it is often a compromise, but the principles are always the same, and I made sure Owen felt competent about placing the gear and leading. Without much more mucking around, Owen was off, leading up Smooth Dancer with Brett belaying him. I hassled them into using all the correct trad climbing calls, making sure they used each others names in each call (important when you are at crowded crags with people yelling out the same calls all over the place).
Owen leading Smooth Dancer
Owen led well, and before long he was at the top of the climb. He set up a good anchor and called down for the next climber. As there were three of us, and the climb was only 20 metres long, we had enough rope to tie a figure eight on a bight in the centre of the rope for Brett to tie into, and when he got to the top there would still be enough rope length left for me to tie into the end.
Owen - Smooth Dancer
Brett headed off up the climb, and reached the top without too many problems (though the step up the break in the middle is a bit scary for beginners).
Brett heading up Smooth Dancer
I then headed up, cleaning all the pro out and visually checking it before hand so as to give Owen feedback on his pro placement - every bit of gear looked fine by me!
Nick on Smooth Dancer
We then left Owen's rope in place on the anchor at the top, and rappelled (rapped) down it to the bottom of the crag. We had taken my rope as well, so we had rope to spare. I then headed off up Tarantella on lead. So different to Smooth Dancer as every bit of gear I was able to place was a nut, whereas Smooth Dancer was all cams (different shaped cracks take different types of pro). I cruised up it and then belayed the other two guys up.
As we now had two ropes up the top of the crag, we needed to get one back down to the bottom, so I suggested to Brett that we simulrap down the rope. This is where the rope is hanging down doubled up and only looped through an anchor at the top, and each climber raps down each piece of rope at the same time. As long as no-one gets off the rope before you both get to the ground, it is safe (and make sure you tie a figure eight knot in the end of each piece of rope so one person cannot rap off the end of the rope!). You can then pull one end of the rope and haul it back down the cliff. We reached the ground without problems and Owen started to rap down his rope. Before he got far I called out for him to stop and swing across the face and check out the conditions of the four bolts (and hangers) on Irish Sheila (17), the interesting looking slab climb a few metres to the right of Tarentella. Owen gave them a good check over and declared them "old, but OK". I got him to clip a quickdraw (two karabiners with a sling in between them) into the last one (at the bottom) and give it a good yank to check that it was sound. I got him to leave the quickdraw in and clip my rope into it before well hauled it back down the cliff. This way, the rope was already clipped into the first bolt on the climb and made the start a lot safer (being a slab with no features to place protection in, Irish sheila had four bolts up its main section). This is sort of like top-roping to the first bolt.
I started off on Irish Sheila, feeling light as I didn't have to haul the full rack of pro up the cliff, only having to take a few quickdraws clipped to my harness. I did the full slab start from the bottom, which we considered to be the crux as it was so smooth. Delicate moves, careful shoe smearing and splayed palms (also thinking "I'm Spiderman, I'm Spiderman") got me up to the flake above, then easy moves up to where the first bolt was. Then onto the real stuff.
Nick Leading Irish Sheila
Slab climbing is an interesting style of climbing. Being a slab, it means the rock is not vertical, merely steeply angled. It can also mean that there are next to no obvious holds or protrusions to place your feet and hands on. You look for slight bumps and raises in the rock, little crystal protrusions or edges, place your feet on them, pinch them with your fingers, and slowly move up. You feel like you could slide down at any time, but you ignore it (getting your 'slab head' happening) and move on. I moved up cautiously, clipping each bolt on the way with a quickdraw, then clipping the rope into the other end of the quickdraw. I started to notice further up the climb that there was faint bleaching of the rock where little crimpy hand-holds were, bleached lighter than the surrounding rock by the chalk (gymnasts chalk) that had been used by previous climbers. This can be a big help mentally as sometimes the way ahead on a slab just looks totally blank in regards to where to place your hands.
Nick - Irish Sheila - the climb follows the rope on the right
Gently, gently, then up to a final bulge at the top. No bolts. Ignore it, there are four good ones below. Move up again, smear, stay focused. The top! Elation. I knocked the bastard off. I rigged up the top belay and belayed Owen and Brett up.
Owen - Irish Sheila
Owen had one hang on the rope (he likes climbs with big holds) and Brett spent half the time pulling himself up the rope (the training on the couch for the last few months had helped him with that), but we all got up it in the end.
We decided to call it a day as it was starting to get late and the call of cold beer was becoming too enticing. We packed up the gear and headed back along the ridge top, placing a few more cairns as we went to help other newbies through the unobvious sections of the path in. Back to the house for a backyard sunset with barbeque, beer and bullshit. We'll be back to The Cloisters again - a great spot with some great climbs.
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