Tassie – Mt Geryon part 4: Damocles

Damocles
300m of grade 12 fun, on alpine Dolerite, a long way from people.
Part 3

Our 2 man quorum reached a consensus that we’d had enough scrambly alpine nonsense and wanted to focus on carving up a few hundred metres of proper rock. Again, we went up the tallus and scree to the base of the mountain, then, left across the face towards the gully between the north and south peaks. But first, one of the worst breakfasts of my life.

Without the coffee it would have been worst by some distance.

A forced, tired, bearded smile before heading up the scree once more.

The track comes in under a bit of a terrace, the left hand side bordered by a two obvious corners. The easy gully on the right is the Damocles start which goes at a very easy grade, while the steeper, cleaner (and wetter) corner on the left marks the direct start to Damocles. We balked at this, mostly because of the water. Instead Steve lead the easy gully to the terrace. His belay was forced right by a lack of gear on the terrace, and thus miles off line. I lead a pitch around the dodgy rock between the terrace and the main line, stopping a couple of moves back as there wasn’t any gear to build an anchor. Steve then got us back into the corner proper, with a series of complex and intimidating moves, through the broken rock straight off the belay. Three pitches in and we’d hardly gone anywhere, the rock was terrible and the climbing uninspiring.

Anyone repeating the route, I strongly recommend taking the direct start, by any means necessary. This avoids a lot of shenanigans and hazard in the pitches above trying to get back into the corner.

I took the 4th pitch up the continuing gully, the climbing and rock quality slowly improving. We were on-route now and nearing halfway. I balked at the short steep jamming section, complaining about running out of gear and trying as hard as I could to lead the minimum number of metres so i could shirk responsibility back to Steve.

As expected, Steve cruised the steep wall and belayed me up, hiding in a capped gully to the right of the line, smirking a bit at what was to come.

My lead, and it went out left from the belay across the wall, traversing a bossy and persistent shrub to the left hand end of a ledge about 50cm deep and a few metres wide. Obviously the valley extends behind me, 8 or 900 metres, vaguely visible down, left and right of my little ledge. The line continues up a body chimney for 15m from here.

Setting sail towards the chimney. Shrub visible hanging off ledge on left.

This is a bad size chimney for me. I wasn’t happy to be out on this ledge at all and danced around for an age considering my options. Last chimney of this size I climbed into I got utterly stuck and had to get out of my harness to get back out. The moves into the chimney were hopelessly committing too; leaning away on the right hand edge, feet on the left, walking up the edge of the chimney until I could get a foot onto the chockstone, then launching my torso in over that foot to re-assess my options.

Again I went up and down through the sequence, brightly aware that the hard part was going to be once I had my foot in and I was committed to standing on the chockstone. Steve shouted encouragements.

Convinced there was little other option, I launched into it, left shoulder first, deep into the chimney. It’s a funny process getting into a chimney, going from the feeling it doesn’t want you there to the embrace as your centre of mass crosses your balance point and there’s suddenly no way of falling out.

I crossed this point with my back pack on.

So I’m going into the chimney whether I want to or not now, but I can not move at all, since the backpack has made sure that I can’t rotate my torso even a little bit. The dolerite walls are covered with friable, dry lichen and moss, that rises as irritating dust with every move. Steve told me later there was a tide mark on my cheeks from tears and sweat washing the dust out of my eyes.

The backpack had to go and it was physically impossible inside the chimney. I put in a cam at my waist level and started cheating by pulling on it. To get the pack off I had to stand on the chockstone, get all of my body apart from an arm and a leg out of the chimney, slip it off the outside shoulder. Then I change arms and legs in the chimney and slip it off the other shoulder, clipping it to a sling on my harness on the way through. There were a few tense moments changing arms and dropping the bag onto the loop but mostly these contortions made me more comfortable with the situation and much more ready to go to work in the chimney.

The metres came more easily after that, shuffling and grunting as I was. 13m of tight chimney gave way to another 10m of gully scrambling then another wide crack problem. Again some shuffling and wheezing got me off the deck, but the walls were much mossier and unpleasant than those below and the friction was terrible. The only gear was a good horn on the edge of the crack, a few metres off the deck. Beyond that it was a tumble down the gully to flip upside down half way down the chimney. I didn’t want to botch the move, so clipped a loop to the sling hanging off the horn so I could put my foot into it. Shuffle up, foot into the loop, stand up and 2 moves to the good ledge. I mantled gingerly onto the ledge glad that it was over, then had a look around. The obvious belay was another 10m up the gully, making this a good, long pitch. I was just about to set off when I realised the sling I’d left on the horn was now on my knee and the last piece of gear to catch a fall was halfway down the gully. Woops.

I experimented briefly with opposing cams on either edge of a tottering block to set up a belay, but to everyone’s relief some better protection was available further up. Much better as the photo below shows.

Standing at the belay above my chimney pitch, mood significantly improved. Some proper vigorous climbing is a good way to lift the spirits. I’m not wearing shoes there either.

From there Steve blasted another 30m pitch up to the notch next to the Thimble. We knew we were a long way up now and started to get a bit of summit fever; a first for me. We didn’t fiddle around much at the belays, speaking as little as possible, concentrating on moving efficiently. I checked my watch and it said 4:30. It didn’t make any sense to me at all. I hadn’t had lunch yet! How could it be 4pm?

From the notch it was still 3 pitches and almost 100m to the summit. I lead the final pitch to the summit, the moment exactly as I’d hoped. The sun was shining brightly with hardly a breath of wind. The camera battery had gone flat by this stage so the moment wasn’t captured, which was a shame, because the most memorable part of the route was still to come.

The first abseil off the peak was spectacular and terrifying. The route goes straight down the overhanging face on the left of the notch above, landing on a small platform in the col between the east and west sides of the gully. The excitement starts straight off the belay; the anchor is back from the edge a little so a long sling ensures the ropes hang cleanly over the edge, which means the top of the rope is over the edge before you start. To get on you’ve got to pull the rope and anchor up, clip it, then slither backwards off the edge into space, lowering yourself down an armlength or so until the slack takes up in the rope and belay device. Pants filling stuff. From there it’s 50m straight down, to the notch, the north peak receding instantly from reach. The ropes twist gently as you slowly fall, spinning like an enormous spider over both valleys.

The ropes land on a good ledge, where the next abseil continues. Steve went first, spotting the next anchor on the way down. Speaking for myself, climbing and abseiling are essentially a series of risky situations, in between safer spots. Leading between belays is higher risk than hanging from one. So in any of the transitions, my awareness goes up and I consider all the things I could do wrong before the next safe point. Knowing the next safe point is nearby can reduce the anxiety somewhat. Steve had the slings of the next abseil anchor in his sights and was about to clip them.

Except that, when he arrives, the slings are just sitting on a ledge. 3 of them, not around anything, just sitting on a ledge. It appears that the previous anchor had disappeared. This was likely a large block, which was wedged in the pile, some stout rope tied around it. But the rock wasn’t there any more. Either something fell from above and destroyed it, or the block fell out of the pile and conveniently left the slings on the rock. Unsettling in either case. Steve made a new anchor and clipped it, the ropes back to the top arcing wildly out over the east gully as the wind whipped through the notch.

There were four long abseils to regain the track. From there it’s back along the mountain, to the swimmy upper sections of the scree slope, down through the brief greenery and onto the familiar tallus field. Head torches were needed for the section between the talus and the campsite. I was very weary by the end, my legs wobbling around under the weight of gear on my harness. Dinner went on at about 10pm, Steve and I quiet from exhaustion.

I was completely buzzing mentally from the ascent. It was just about the perfect route to finish on. Long and exposed, with some vigorous climbing and some high quality rock, not necessarily experienced together. The summit and abseil were both spectacular. A massive day, ending right on dark.

But, there was a sense of relief about it, having walked out here and not died while ticking some incredible and memorable climbing.

Beyond the relief, I felt calm and relaxed, increasingly conscious of the fact that this would likely be my last climb, and that I wasn’t unhappy about it. In the 12 months previously I’d hardly tied in, beset by laziness, a lack of partners and a competing enthusiasm for gardening. I had actually realised this near the top of Damocles; enthusiastic about the pending summit, overjoyed to be there rowing through alpine rock in pristine conditions, but knowing I would not miss the constant anxiety which descended once we stepped off the track.

Not that I dislike climbing, but more that once in the wilderness I was conscious of it, and my need to understand and mitigate the risks became acute. There was the constant focus of not breaking an ankle or twisting a knee while walking; the random and nagging attention of watching for and avoiding loose rock; the tension watching an abseil rope pull, wondering if Steve will climb up again to get it out if it sticks, and whether I can remember where my knife is.

So, being switched on like that all the time gets wearing. Since this remote climbing has become virtually all that interests me, I think I’ll just walk away, preserving the crystal clear image of that last summit to keep me happy.

Besides which, there’s a baby coming in May, so I’ve got other things to think about.

Day 6 – Packing Out

The walk out went mostly without a hitch, one story aside. We’d run out of sugar but were desperately keen to make it out in one day. We’d been moving well but were probably behind schedule to make the last ferry across the water. I was very thirsty by this stage and all the water in Lake St Clair wasn’t going to help. I strongly considered abandoning my pack until the next day and jogging the 13km around the lake just to feel a cold beer in my gullet.

Working hard we stopped with about 3km to go, both flagging and low blood sugared. This was obviously a popular place to stop as there were some fresh liquorice allsorts sitting on the track. I offered them to Steve, and he ate them gladly, grinning wildly at the sudden rush of calories.

We made the ferry come back for us, jumping on the 2-way radio and begging for a special dispensation. The operator was running a tour at that stage and offered to come back. I suspect he understood something of my thirst.

The first beer hardly touched the sides. This was followed by another beer and a pizza. They tasted good. I felt like we’d earned them.

EB