UNSW Bushwalking & Mountaineering Club

Newsletter - September 1999

Introduction

By now you'll already be half way through this second session of 1999. It is really amazing how time manages to fly by. Just a few weeks ago, you were just starting back at University for the session, and now half of the session has disappeared. Well I hope that you've been able to make good use of your time, and maybe even managed to come on one or two of our club trips. If not, then there is still plenty of time, and a number of trips to go on.

We are getting into Spring, and it is time to start thinking about those more summery activities. Canyoning is always god fun, and if you haven't tried it yet, I would urge you to do so. Mountain biking, while fun all year round, is often warmer and more pleasant during the Summer, and you don't need any fancy equipment. Any mountain bike that can stop is usable.

So I hope to see you out there on the trails, or in the bush in the next month or so.

Discounts at INNES bicycles

INNES bicycles, on 222 Clarence St near the Town Hall in the City, are now offering club members a 10% discount of parts and accesories. Just talk to Innes, the guy who owns the place, and he will set it up for you.

Innes is also looking at doing discounts on bike packages (bike, helmet, lock, etc all in the one package) and at offering hire and guaranteed buy back prices on bikes.

New Website Address

Once again our website has moved. This time however, I don't expect that it will change in the near future. The new easy to remember address is:

This should prove a lot easier to remember than the other address. Remember UNSWBMC is UNSW Bushwalking and Mountaineering Club.

The previous two website addresses now both have links that will take you to this latest page.

Gear Store Now Open

Our gear custodian Jonathon Golan, will be able to open the club gear store, in the UniGym, from 17:00 to 19:00 on Tuesdays and from 18:00 to 20:00 on Thursdays. He will only open the store up if you let him know before hand, so e-mail him at yong@tig.com.au.

The current schedule of fees is

The deposit listed is a maximum figure, and may be reduced at the discretion of the gear custodian. A club trip is one which has been advertised in the club newsletter, or on the club website.

Friday Night Rock Climbing at the Ledge

Our friday night rock climbing sessions at the Ledge climibng gym continue to be very popular. Remember that the training session will not be on during the September/October holiday.

For those who don't already know, the climbing sessions are held every Friday night from 5pm until about 10pm at The Ledge climbing gym, in the Womens Gym at Sydney Uni (no that doesn't mean women only). Entry is free for club members, but you will need to show you club membership card. The map below shows where it is in Sydney University

T-shirts

We are still looking for possible T-shirt designs, so if you have any ideas, let Tom Sobey know at tsobey@hotmail.com. We are even prepared to provide a prize for the design that is selected for the club T-shirt.

An Ascent of Thurat Spires

If you have ever ventured out onto Kanangra Walls then you probably noticed the menacing looking ridge of spires rising out of the deep gorge containing Kanangra Creek. On hearing that Thurat Spires are not as impossible to ascend as they look, I thought it was worth checking out. "Only one 20m absail off the top of the second spire is required" was the info I got from someone who had heard from someone else but we will talk about this rather minor detail later.

Driving west through the Blue Mountains with fellow "spire baggers" Owain, James and Daniel on Friday night, I was deciding our plan of action. Originally we were going to camp at the base of the spires where Danae Brook meets Kanangra Creek on Saturday night then have plenty of time to do the spires on Sunday. However considering the capabilities of the 4 of us I reckoned we could do it all in a day. One advantage would be lighter packs and a comfy campsite next to the car at Boyd Crossing on Saturday night.

Waking to a beautiful clear day on Saturday, our defiance of the weatherman's rain prediction paid off. We set off early across Kanangra Walls, eyeing off those steep and rugged spires wondering how the hell you traverse those things. We reached the junction of Danae Brook and Kanangra Creek with lightening speed, after descending 500m down a very steep slope. After breaking for awhile in this very pleasant spot we crossed Kanangra Creek and started up the foot of the ridge.

As we climbed I began to think about how this trip differed from most others I had done. The theme of previous ventures into the bush were to reach a mountain top, waterfall, river or rock formation, ridges are usually a means of getting to these places, never the focus of the trip. If only there were more of these types of ridges, ridging could become as popular as canyoning.

The ridge got rockier and narrower the higher we climbed. Picking our way around great blocks of rock, which were sometimes all that was left of the ridge, it became treacherous in places and a couple of times we erred on the side of safety and hauled our packs up. We had lunch on top of the first spire, admiring the fantastic view and being careful that none of our belongings went rolling down hundreds of metres into Kanangra Creek or Danae Brook. The spires look kind of round from Kanangra Walls, they are actually rather 2D. The topographic map gives no indication of their narrowness or steepness, although developing maps from aerial photography in an area where most contours are on top of one another is not easy and doing fieldwork would have been interesting.

We inspected the next spire, which is also, wafer thin and covered in slippery scree. The saddle between the two spires is more than a saddle in the topographical sense of the word. You can actually ride the thing it is that narrow. Straddling the 50cm wide and 5m long block of rock, if your shoes fell off, one would tumble into Danae Brook and the other into Kanangra Creek.

Once the top of the second spire was reached we descended carefully knowing that a "20m absail" lay before us. Sure enough cliff edges greeted us but the bottom of these could not be seen. For all we knew they could go all the way to Kanangra Creek. Owain was punished for owning nice ascending gear, and became the guinea pig. Maybe some people are freaky rockclimbers but it required one 30m and two 10m absails for us to reach the saddle between the spire and the spur that leads up to the plateau. Wonderfully exposed views into Danae Brook canyon were experienced as we slid down the ropes.

The sun faded as we started the ascent back up to the plateau, which was at the same elevation as the car. It was one of those slopes where nothing is actually attached. The trees, rocks and dirt come out in your hands leaving fewer and fewer handholds for those following you. I recommend wearing a helmet for this trip as debris from those above you comes in all shapes and sizes and can get pretty messy. When faced with no hand holds and a ledge of loose dirt, it becomes necessary to use the grovel maneuver where you degrade yourself to a worm wriggling your body above the obstruction on your stomach on the dirt. James, being the more graceful member of the spire baggers, deliberately chose the more difficult routes up the rocky bits.

Once at the top we enjoyed chocolate under the stars. The epic does not end here however, the couple of hours scrub bashing back to the fire trail, also reduced us to the grovel to get under brittle banksia trees. The moon was in full force and the torch could be done without most of the time. As it was getting rather late and dinner time had passed us by we stopped to brew some tea. The walk along the fire trail back to the car was pleasant under the stars and moon but we couldn't hide the fact that we were glad to finally reach the car. The time was 11pm. Bed. Sleep

Having done the spires we were free to laze about the campsite on Sunday. Basking in the morning sun on the granite, eating the dinner we were supposed to eat last night and watching the glistening Boyd River flow by. We returned to the lookout on Kanangra Walls to have another look at Thurat Spires. Other people were there just doing a short walk from their cars to see the spectacular view. We had done more than just look; we had explored one of the many many aspects of that dramatic landscape.

The Trips List