UNSW Bushwalking & Mountaineering Club

Newsletter - March 2001

Our Website - http://go.to/unswbmc

We are trying to move most of our club information and processes onto our website. This means that you should always be able to find up to date information about the club. unswbmc stands for UNSW Bushwalking and Mountaineering Club, thus the URL of the website.

http://go.to/unswbmc

The main page of the website.

Once you're there, the more important pages on the site are:

 

/admin/trips.html

The trips list - the most up to date listing of the club's activities.

/admin/memberform.html

A printable copy of our membership form.

/admin/maillist.html

Forms for joining the clubs general announcements and rock climbing discussion e-mail lists.

Also on the website we have sections for most of the activities that we do, with lists of what to bring on trips, who to contact for advice on different activities and photos. We also have other information pertaining to the administration of the club, and copies of past and current newsletters.

Boree Log

Every year we run a big get to meet everyone sort of trip. Well the club is kinda big, so you don't quite get to meet everyone, but it is a great event anyway. This year we are heading down south to Bungonia for the Boree Log. Bungonia is situated above Bungonia Creek and the Shoalhaven River. While not exactly the most wildernessy place, there are many great activities to partake in, and it promises to be lots of fun.

Of particular interest is Bungonia's extensive cave system. While the caves in Bungonia lack a lot of the more beautiful formations, they provide an ideal introduction to the joys of squeezing through small holes in the ground.

We'll also be walking ,swimming and maybe even liloing in the Shoalhaven River and up Bungonia Creek. Bungonia creek cuts a sheer gorge through the limestone, and certain sections of it have cliffs several hundred metres high on either side.

So if this short little description sounds tempting, contact Scott Morrison (93491522 or bmc-trips@bigfoot.com) to reserve your spot. Preference will be given to those willing to help with transport (i.e. those who can provide a car) and those who can help run the various activities, it won't happen without them.

There's a web page with info on the Boree Log at our website.

Kanangra Walk 2-4 March 2001

Surviving the trip up there was an achievement in itself. After dining in style at Papadino's we jumped in the car, keen to get going, despite the pouring rain that had been falling for hours. The Jenolan road provided the first excitement for the weekend, when my car decided it just didn't want to go up any more! We finally made it to Kanangra, collapsing in the Dancefloor Cave for night.

Up early (except for Brian, he he!) we headed off south, over Pindari Tops towards Mt Colboyd. After wonderfully scenic sidetrips to the top of both Bungin and Bulgin, we finally made it to the Watcher, awe inspired at the system of caves that surrounded the western and southern sides of the mountain. Climbing up to the north east toe, the clearing weather allowed us a good view for lunch. Steeling ourselves for the afternoon, we ascended the Great Groaner, which, groans aside, was a great ridge. We followed the Groaner Cone down to Central Christys creek, where we made camp, eager to explore the surrounding areas.

Nic and Owain headed up Middle Christys Creek, as far as Oblique and Hidden Beauty Falls, where they narrowly missed decapitating some passing canyoners! Brian headed up Wheengee-Whungee Creek, while Steve and I meandered up Christys Creek.

The following morning, after Steve and I had gorged ourselves on nettle tea (yes, the nettles are definitely good for something!), we all headed up the hill towards Badbury Knoll, heading north up to Barralliers Crown, where we had the pleasure of sitting 2m away from a beautiful wedge-tailed eagle. Although we had plans to stop for lunch at the Temple of the Shining Orb, an intriguingly named point on a small peninsula west of the Crown, we were thwarted by impossibly thick scrub, and settled for Bushlanders Point instead, on the eastern part of the peninsula. We decided that if Dunphy had bashed through all that scrub, then he most definitley would have been hallucinating shining orbs by the time he got to the end!

The day was getting on, and finally admitting that we were on the home run, we headed back up to Kanangra Road, via Sunshine Hill, Wallarra Creek, and Gogy Ridge. While Owain and Steve relaxed by the side of the road, Brian, Nic and I decided that we hadn't done quite enough exercise yet, and jogged the final 5km back to the car. All in all, a great end to an even better weekend.

By Lou,
Attendees: Brian Hawkins, Lou Pastro, Stevie Theunissen, Owain Williams and Nic!

Public Transport Derby

Hi all, just a quick [note] to say that the team we entered into today's Smogbusters Public Transport Derby won.

The SPTD is an event similar in format to a rogaine or Polaris event, involving (far too) many checkpoints of variable value located over the entire Sydney metropolitan area. The idea is to use public transport, bikes, and feet to collect the highest score possible. I hope that in subsequent years the event takes place over a longer time, as it was a bit too much of a sprint. 12 or 24 hours would be good.

Our team "Human Powered Vehicles" included three of us on recumbent bikes (those funny looking ones you might see sometimes and ridicule us for lying around on the job). We started well heading from the city to Bondi Junction and eastwards, but suffered our first mishap when arriving at Watsons Bay hoping to get a ferry connection over to Taronga Zoo and the northern harbour. No ferries. Oops. A longish unplanned cycle took us back to the train line, on a train for Pymble in North Sydney. Then it was a long ride through hilly northern Sydney towards Palm Beach. We dipped down towards Ku-Ring Gai NP and then up a monster hill to the Bahai Temple, but reached our turn-around time before we got to Palm Beach. Back to Pymble, piling onto the train with mere seconds to spare, and arriving at Central with just enough time to get to the finish.

Shameless plug following for recumbent bikes. For those of you that think bikes are slow, we cycled 60km in just over 2 hours across hilly terrain, not bad considering that there were hills that I winched up at about 6kph. Fortunately there were downhills as well, and we maxed out at 83kph on one. Not to mention the joy of cycling itself.

Safe cycling to you all, owain.

Marc's Climbing Corner part 5

Hi all and welcome to Marc's Climbing Corner. This is my regular column in the Newsletter where I go on about climbing and assorted stuff. Generally I'll write articles for this, but this time I thought I'd say hi first to all the new members, especially those of you who came along to the Ledge in Week 3. We had what must have been a record turnout.

To those of you who missed out on the Beginners' Climbing Course, I have to apologise, we had no idea there would be that many people interested. If you'd like to learn how to climb though, feel free to come to the Ledge any time during the session, meet people and learn a little. Better still, come along on the outdoor trips which should be going out on a regular basis once things get a little settled around here. If you're interested in climbing at all, join the Club's Climbing Mailing List (details are on the webpage) and you can get a whole lot of news about climbing and short notice mailouts of climbing trips.

The article for this month's climbing corner is a continuation of an earlier one. It's the report from our Grampians Trip in September last year, which is still not finished (sorry guys). The first part of this was published last year, but I've included it again anyway for those of you who weren't around then.

The Grampians, September 2000 - In the Eyes of a Self-Proclaimed Hard Man

It's about twelve hours in a car from Sydney to the Grampians, Western Victoria, which makes up about that long of convincing yourself that you're driving through the clouds and not to them.

Add one hour to that for weird navigational errors involving nearly driving into Bellfield Lake and sometime around midnight we (Andrew Collins, Ben Shanahan and me) made it to our campsite near Mt Rosea.

The rain held off long enough for us to get some tents up and get sleep before some climbing the next day.

Sadly, Sunday involved occasionally pissing down rain, extreme cold, fog and wet rock. However, being the hard men that we are, we did some climbing anyway.

The walk to Mt Rosea from the campsite involves steep terrain and that wonderful calf-burning sensation of walking up nearly as far as you are forwards. This kind of exercise is preferably avoided as it can create unnecessary leg bulk. I wasn't however, able to convince anyone to either carry me up or push me in a shopping trolley.

Scott Morrison was somehow convinced to lead the first pitch (crux) of The Ascension (21). After some extreme difficulties involving the leukoplast holding his shoes together being soaked through and it just being too cold to climb, he decided to aid to the top. He was in danger of relinquishing his hard man status at this point, but made up for it by trusting an RP Nut (These are tiny little approximately 10x10x5mm "protection" pieces) to actually hold body weight, then, when it didn't, taking a lead fall lasting a good five metres, a lungful of scream and three popped placements. The bottom two pieces, which had about eight more attached to them all came sliding happily down the rope to land on or near Ben Cirulis on belay.

Other than that, the day was quite uneventful, but we can say that the view from the summit would have been breathtaking if we'd actually been able to see more than ten feet through the fog.

Wonderful first day, huh? Well after that, the second day out had us believing that the whole week would be rained out, but, since we'd driven all the way to climb, we climbed.

After happily sleeping in until around 11am, we thought: Nothing better to do than to check out the rock at Barrington. Actually, Ben and Nathan had already been that morning and came back with reports that the rock was dry and climbable. By the time we got there however, it had all changed. We hid under an overhang for a while as the rain came down again, soaking the climbs that Ben and Nath had earmarked earlier as possibilities. All that seemed to be left to climb was a grade 25 under an overhang.

According to the guidebook, the first move was the hardest, so, after we'd done that, it might be ok.

I think the part of my brain with no forethought allowed Ben to stick-clip one of my draws just above this move.

Well, after we all had two or three tries at the motherfucker, we came to the realisation that it was definitely not happening. I'm not sure exactly how Ben got my draw back down, but I think it has something to do with dressing up as Batman.

Next up, Scott came around the corner having found "A patch of dry rock that looks interesting". Andrew had flat out refused to climb this already, but I, without even seeing the rock, decided to grab a rope and some gear and check it out. Thus began our epic adventure . . .

It began with a little scope out, which ascertained that our climb was heading up a slabby face, sheltered under a roof maybe thirty metres above it. There was a definite ledge where we were expecting to finish, with, hopefully, some way of getting down. We weren't worrying about that though, it's the ascent that matters (oh if only hindsight could have spoken to us then). Honestly though . . . this climb was completely lacking in quality and far too dangerous for my likings.

The first dangers I experienced on this climb involved simply belaying. Two metres off the ground, both the holds Scott's feet were on broke off and he came crashing down. Luckily for him, his fall was broken by my head and shoulder. Note for dummies: Rock that doesn't see much climbing and has been rained on for a few days shouldn't be trusted.

As Scott put some protection in, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could belay in relative safety . . . or not. It was only a few moments later that small pieces of rock started impacting with my shoulders and helmet. "Uh Scott . . . 'rock below' would be a nice call to make at this point?" Then when he actually did yell 'below' I stared resolutely forwards and tried to fold my entire body under my helmet. Scott chucked the piece of flake a safe distance away from me, only to have it shatter on impact and have one of the shards come flying back in my direction, ending up on the rope tarp at my feet. At this point I started getting those feelings in the back of my mind: "Gee, I wonder if this was entirely a good idea?"

Well, too late. When you're committed, there's nothing for it but to push on and see what happens. Scott made the belay ledge without any problems, and I started up. This is when I found that our slabby face was rather more blank than it had originally seemed, and the route we'd chosen had somehow drifted across onto the juggy section . . . which was basically deep pockets full of freezing cold water. I eventually hauled my muddy, cold and sorry arse to the belay ledge where Scott and I looked at each other and asked the lovely question, "How are we getting down?"

A quick scan of the dripping cave we'd ended up in revealed our last resort option: A flake, maybe a metre square and about 20cm thick, joined to the face by a strip at the bottom about 10cm high . . . and cracked. After quickly assessing our situation, which involved Scott saying "Wheeeeee-splat" when we considered our different options, I started to wonder about what it's like to hit the ground really hard from a height. Our last resort was starting to look like our only real option. Eventually, we came up with a plan:

We'd leave some cams in a different crack, sling the dodgy flake, and Scott would head down first with all the gear, so that the flake would be tested while he was still protected. The abseil went smoothly. Well, sort of jerkily, as Scott's belay device kept skipping on the wet rope and little tinglings of fear crept around. While watching, I kept seeing the flake moving outwards, nearly imperceptibly, but I was so sure it was moving. I looked away for a bit then looked back to find the flake in the position it had been before. It's amazing what a little fear will do to your senses.

Scott made it down alive, which was great. What was even more dodgy about the flake was that, if it had broken and fallen, even if the rope had been saved by the cams we had in, there was a distinct chance it would have gone hurtling down and pulverised Scott. There was also a chance that it would have been propped against the other side of the cave opening and held. Contrary to logic, we banked on the second option.

After removing the cams, and a short prayer to no particular deity, I stepped off and slid and jerked down the wet rope to the ground. Oh how happy it is to reach safety sometimes.

On the walk back to the cars, we came up with a theory. The climb we'd just finished wasn't listed in the guidebook, and it was so abominably shit that we could see no reason for anyone else doing it, so it must have been a first ascent. And the major thing that goes along with the first ascent is naming the climb. After a short debate we settled on . . . The Shithouse Death Flake.

Marc Chee, March 2001.

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