Callum's Birthday
Sometimes all it takes to have an Epic is to tell someone a ridiculous idea that's swimming around in your head. Sometimes that person will drive you to see the idea happen, and make sure that you succeed.
The day: 14/3/15
According to plan we left with one car, aiming to hit the Booroomba carpark at dawn. Unpack the car, check that we have everything, and not too much excess, before starting the 30 minute walk up the hill.
When we reached the top it was light enough to see, but a bank of fog had appeared at the top of the cliffs, adding to the picturesque view. Dumping a little gear at the top we dropped down and traversed right to Sunstroke, starting with a line we all knew. Callum and Veronica roped up, with Callum leading confidently, placing just a few pieces in the third pitch.
As the morning wore on we moved left, onto new ground for me, with Drunken Delight, Prohibition, Melmoth and Aquanaut. We found anchors after the shared first pitch of Drunken/Prohibition, so in the interests of speed, I stayed there, while Callum climbed several of the top pitches before a rap to the ground.
By that point he was at about 14 pitches, and not feeling like increasing the difficulty, it was also about 2pm, not giving us a lot of time for the remaining pitches, so we decided to move on to Tower Rocks, running laps on the classic 'Penny'. Callum led the first repeat, then lowered off, pulled the rope and lead it again, and again. In order to give him a break we were pulling the rope for him, and keeping an eye on his climbing, clips and tying.
He finished the day with another easy classic Dinero, wrapping up the 28 pitches just on dark.
My count was 14 pitches, and another 4 solo, Veronica clocked 4
A few months prior to Callum's 28th birthday in 2015 he mentioned a plan, to climb 28 pitches in a day, all trad, all lead. While it's not a huge objective, for a relatively new trad climber it was a pretty big thing to attempt. Part of his motivation in telling me was to make sure that it happened, that there was someone to hold him accountable, as well as cheer him on through the day.
After a few months of training for volume, and making vague plans with areas of dense, easy lines the agenda crystalised. Start early with Booroomba ,- the walk in could be done in the dark, and there are a fair few easy lines on the North end of the Northern Slaps, he'd start with those, and see how many we climbed, leaving the Orroral Ridge crags for later in the day as needed due to the easier access and shorter pitch length.
According to plan we left with one car, aiming to hit the Booroomba carpark at dawn. Unpack the car, check that we have everything, and not too much excess, before starting the 30 minute walk up the hill.
When we reached the top it was light enough to see, but a bank of fog had appeared at the top of the cliffs, adding to the picturesque view. Dumping a little gear at the top we dropped down and traversed right to Sunstroke, starting with a line we all knew. Callum and Veronica roped up, with Callum leading confidently, placing just a few pieces in the third pitch.
As the morning wore on we moved left, onto new ground for me, with Drunken Delight, Prohibition, Melmoth and Aquanaut. We found anchors after the shared first pitch of Drunken/Prohibition, so in the interests of speed, I stayed there, while Callum climbed several of the top pitches before a rap to the ground.
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| I belayed the latter pitches of 34, 38, 39 and 40 from the anchor chains of 39. While all of the top pitches were a little different, the lower ones were pretty similar |
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| Adding the last tally mark at the top of Dinero |
He finished the day with another easy classic Dinero, wrapping up the 28 pitches just on dark.
My count was 14 pitches, and another 4 solo, Veronica clocked 4
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| He made it |
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