Arapiles Chockstone Gathering 2008

We (Mr Pip –a.k.a. Cuzzy Bro Brett - & I ) managed to get out of Canberra right on time at 6am on the Friday morning before the Queens Birthday long weekend. We had the topo from the Sydney Rockies website that had the beta on the best route from Wagga to Horsham. It’s almost a straight line on reasonable country roads across vast flat plains. One of the biggest problems we had was arriving at towns like Denilequin and having to work out which road to take out of town to the next place. We managed to make it Arapiles in ten hours, with various stops for fuel, food, shopping, and a beer at the pub at Minyip (sorry Love, we’ve only got Pots… - I misheard and thought I was back in Nimbin for a minute, but then realized we’d entered the land of Pots Only Pubs).

Bard Buttress, Mount Arapiles, Victoria, Australia

Arapiles!! Look at all that fricken rock! After the initial shock of having too much rock to look at, we wandered around The Pines trying to find any other Chockstone Gathering people. We stopped and asked a South American guy, Juan, if he knew where Dave (a.k.a. Widewetandslippery) was. Dave seems to know everyone, so it was worth a shot. “Yeah, actually, I met him today” said Juan “here he comes now”. We looked across The Pines to see a grinning WW&S sauntering across the road. He was camped over in The Gums area, the non-piney campsite to the north, so we headed over there and set up camp with him.

We went for a late afternoon walk around the crag and checked out some routes on Tiger Wall, Castle Rock, and the Organ Pipes. A little later Rod (a.k.a. IdratherbeclimbingM9) arrived on his motorbike, so by later in the evening we had the start of a gathering and some plans for climbing. After the mega drive and a couple of beers an early evening was definitely in order.

Chockstone Camp!

We took it easy getting started the next morning as the sun comes up later in western Victoria, and we weren’t in any rush anyhow. Arapiles is a crag to ease into slowly. WW&S suggested we start on some single pitch routes on the left hand side of the Central Gully or the Organ Pipes area. The five minute walk in to the crag was extremely strenuous, and we were soon ogling what was on offer. WW&S suggested we walk further down the hill, and he slipped in behind a rock tower and the main face of the wall and down climbed a steep gully. Mr Pip and I followed, and as we were handing our packs down WW&S let out a string of expletives that are usually a fair indication that something serious and/or painful has just occurred. I arrived to find him clutching his leg, with a hundred kilo-ish boulder lying on the ground next to him, dislodged from its original position. As WW&S had stepped on the corner of the rock it had dislodged, rolling against his leg. Quick action on WW&S’s part had resulted in him only suffering from a badly bruised leg. Muki (a.k.a .Bomber Pro), had turned up that morning as well and was preparing to climb nearby with IdratherbeclimbingM9 when he heard the commotion. He was quickly on the scene with a First Aid kit and professional attitude and had WW&S checked out and fixed up with an elastic bandage. I was prepared to bail at that point and get WW&S back to camp to get an ice pack on the bruise, but he insisted that we (those left unwounded) should climb first.

Nick leads on the Hornpipe start to Digeridoo

After a bit of consultation, WW&S suggested that Didgeridoo (11) would be a good route to start with. It was going to be my first lead at Arapiles, so something easy sounded fine by me. I was soon to find out that Arapiles is one big sandbag and the routes are all graded about five grades lower than what they would be elsewhere. The moves up the first part of the climb were nice, but as I moved into the climb’s broken crack I missed the step to the left to move out onto the face of the rock. I didn’t get too worried as this was our first climb, Mr Pip had to second, and I didn’t want him put off by pushing him on anything to difficult to start with. If you stay on the right on Didgeridoo it turns into a wide ledge that leads into the back of a gully. It had a good flat spot for belaying from. I plugged into the wall and belayed Mr Pip up. Whilst standing there I was able to look straight across at IdratherbeclimbingM9, then Bomber Pro’s wife Jen, cranking through the roof on Jen’s Climb (19), which was next to us.

Rod Kerr (64) pulling through the roof on Jen's Climb (19)

After getting safely to the gully behind Didgeridoo, I ducked up and around the Didgeridoo pillar to find three people camped on top of the rap station which has about enough space on the associated knife edge ridge for a mountain goat. I didn’t think we were going to shift them quickly, so we decided to rap off the pine tree that is growing out of the center of the gully. I started to abseil down and dislodged some stones and yelled “Rock!!”. I thought that would clear out the crowd at the bottom of the crag, but it didn’t bring about much of a reaction. I looked back up at Mr Pip, who was sitting next to the pine tree rap station, when a fist sized rock came barreling past him, obviously dislodged by the climbers up behind us. The rock ricocheted a few times and then bounced out towards the base of the climb. At the same time Maddy, Bomber Pro and Jen’s very small and cute daughter (3yrs?) walked up the path and into the firing line. I stood aghast halfway down the abseil and watched as the rock made straight for Maddy, who was blissfully unaware of the implications of my manic screams of “Rock!!”. At the last moment the rock dropped, hit the ground about 30cm in front of her, and exploded into pieces. At the same time Maddy put her hands to her face and miraculously avoided injury. They must make these kids tough at Natimuk – she didn’t even cry. Maybe she just hangs out at the base of crags so much that falling rocks are just part of her world.

After the morning’s excitement we decided that going back to camp would be a whole lot safer, and my medical recommendation of an ice pack on WW&S’s bruise and a beer for the pain was eagerly accepted. Back at camp we got WW&S into a comfy position and cooked up a very late breakfast.

Mr Pip and I decided that we had to at least get another climb in, so we went off for a bit of a recce by ourselves. We settled on Ali’s Face (9), which is the face next to Ali’s, and in the guide book is assumed to be the original Ali’s. This looked fine to us as it got us up into that part of the crag without too much effort so we could have a bit of a look around. I climbed to the rap station at the top and tied in just as the rescue helicopter arrived to pick up the broken ankles accident over at Kitten Wall. The chopper kept buzzing the top of the crag in the vicinity of The Bard for about twenty minutes, making it impossible to hear what Mr Pip was yelling from below, or for him to hear me. Mr Pip eventually made it up, then I belayed him down as he moved over and grabbed the Ali’s chains and scrambled back down Ali’s. I then rapped off the very nice double chains and down climbed the last few metres.

Nick leads on Ali's Face

We’d had a very interesting, and at times a bit too exciting, introduction to Arapiles. The beer definitely tasted better than usual that evening. We sat around talking about what we had done that day and decided that we had discovered a variant finish for Didgeridoo, which we decided to call Didgeridon’t.

I slept in a bit on the Sunday morning, then headed over to The Pines to find IdratherbeclimbingM9 who was helping with the official camp clean up (organized by the VCC I believe - grab a plastic bag and pick up rubbish). I got stuck into picking up rubbish too, and it was a good way to cruise around The Pines and check out who was there (for the record, there were more Coopers beer bottle tops than any other – Carlton came in second). IdratherbeclimbingM9 and I caught up with Ross (a.k.a. rhinckle), who was camped at the other side of The Pines.

We got back to the Chockstone camp in The Gums, sorted our gear, and headed off for Tiger Wall. IdratherbeclimbingM9 and rhinkle decided to climb the immortal classic, The Bard (12). Amazingly, they got the climb to themselves. The rest of us (WW&S, Mr Pip, Bomber Pro and I) decided on Kestrel (12), an eye catching deep corner crack. WW&S led, while Mr Pip belayed.

I headed downhill a bit with Bomber to belay him on a sport climb (a grade 23?) he was trying to wire. He soloed up the easy (??) side until he was high enough to die if he fell, then traversed across and threaded the rope through the rings at the top. I fooled myself that I was spotting him, and was more than relieved when he was safely tied in. I lowered him down and he started up the climb. The crux is only a few metres off the ground, where you have to lean right and have all your weight on a tiny hold under your right foot, and reach up high with your right hand to a nasty sharp hold. On about the third go Bomber all but made it, the sharpness of the small handhold doing him in. He gave the move a few more goes, then decided to finish the rest of the climb for the hell of it.

Bomber and I headed back up to Kestrel to find Mr Pip just getting into the crux of Kestrel – a grovelly little chimney which isn’t fun if you are not good at groveling. Poor old Mr Pip gave it his best shot, but in the end just got himself too exhausted. Even my encouragement of Fantini ethics and that we’d all look away while he climbed the rope did no good, so WW&S lowered him.

Just as this was going on there was a pained yelp from the American climber a few metres to our right. He had just copped a rock to his left cheek bone from the climbers above him. He was more shocked than injured, and THEN decided to put his helmet on. There is a common theme involving falling rocks and Arapiles starting to develop here.

I roped up and followed WW&S up Kestrel. It well deserves its two star rating. It’s a great one to do as an early climb at Arapiles as it gets you used to the height without the wild exposure. While I was groveling, thrashing and grunting, Bomber gave Mr Pip some technique lessons in some of the accessible cracks at the bottom of the climb. Brett (Mr Pip) really appreciated someone of Bomber’s experience and ability giving him the time to help him improve his climbing. I topped out and clipped into the chains, then Bomber cruised up the climb behind us. The view was fantastic and the climbing exhilarating. We rapped down on twin ropes and headed back for our last night at Arapiles.

The weather on the Sunday night was really warm. There was only a light Norwester blowing, and it made me think of approaching rain. From the Chockstone camp we had a front row seat view of the Bard Buttress, and we could see there were a couple of crews climbing The Bard. What High Sport, I thought, get out there and climb it with head torches! We all grabbed beers and walked up the road a bit and sat down on the log fencing in the dark and watched as head torches bobbed their way up and down the Bard Buttress. I entertained the idea of top roping The Plaque crag with head torches, and we even got to the point of getting a rope up there, but the alcohol fueled bravado wore off when it was discovered that there were no belay stations there and rhinkle started acting a bit weird and said he was going to tie off at the top of the crag and rap down without a harness. A retreat was definitely easier than having to wait around for an ambulance, so we headed back to camp to find other like minded ground huggers.

We all wandered over to the VCC camp in The Pines and had a breif chat, then went and sat around with some NSW crew who were down from the Bluies. I talked to a German guy, Sascha, who was from the area in Germany where they climb with only knotted rope for protection. I asked him if it worked as well as normal pro, and he said he didn't know, as he was too scared to fall on it and test it out. We staggered back to camp for a quick feed and a very deep sleep for all.

Rod gives the weekend the thumbs up!

During the night the rain came. Light and steady, there must have been hundreds of farmers in the surrounding district who would have been more than pleased. Time to get the Winter wheat crop in!We had a wet morning, though it never rained too hard, and we went for a final walk to the Northern end of the crag. The Watchtower Crack, Arachnus, The Watchtower Chimney – soaring lines for the ticklist for next time. There's Kachoong! So much rock, so little time. We packed our soggy gear into the Go Anywhere Getz and said our goodbyes to the rest of the Chockstone crew – October long weekend – we'll be back!!