VVV - Viral Vixen Video

Yes, it's been super quiet here at the Upskill blog. I actually never posted in 2014. Is that bad?

On a positive note, I have been doing heaps of climbing. The 2013 and 2014 seasons are some of the most fun climbing I've had in the SE Queensland region, ever. You know I love new routing. For those two years, all my energy outside work was funneled into developing three major new cliffs in the Urbenville region of northern NSW: Vesuvius, Spot X and Crossroads. 

Between the three crags, we established 71 routes. 20+ of these were over 40m in length. It was epic.

All this action is a mere two hour drive from Brisbane. I put lots of k's on the car. But so, so worth it. All info for all three crags is now available on theCrag.com, and the season is just starting. If you live in Brisbane, 2015 could be your Urbenville year. It's the Catalunya of Queensland.

I capped off both prolific seasons with a hard first ascent. The second of these was Vixen 32. I was really pleased to vision, and then eventually climb this extremely overhanging, blank looking wall. The movement on it is super good - one of the most fun routes I've done. Erik filmed on it using his ingenious RopeClimber camera, and EpicTV ended up picking up the video. 200,000+ views later, and lots of people have now seen Spot X, even if they'll never climb there. Watch the vid.

Climbing Anchors - The ideal sport route lower-off?

Looking for the ideal sport route lower-off configuration is like a quest for the holy grail. There are so many different setups and configurations, and generally, they all generally have some advantages and disadvantages.

Let's look at a few different configurations for pro's and con's.

A custom chain setup.

Visual impact: Bad. This is a pretty visually obtrusive anchor.
Expense: Bad. High cost due to number of components.  
Rope-twist factor: Good. Low.  
Lifespan: Good. Where the rope touches are rings which spin, spreading the wear.  
Replace-ability: Good. Mallions attach the chains.  
Convenience: Bad (no clip and lower).  
Single clip safety: Bad. Ideally you want to clip to the anchor and be immediately attached to two bolts.

Horizontal Fixe rings - quite common setup.

Visual impact: Good. No chain involved, so pretty low impact.  
Expense: Not bad.  
Rope-twist factor: Not great. Even if this was threaded correctly (not like the photo) this configuration does twist the rope.  
Lifespan: Good. Where the rope touches are rings which spin, spreading the wear.  
Replace-ability: Good. Tru-bolts have been used (the only time I recommend their use!) to enable the anchors to be removed and replaced.  
Convenience: Bad (no clip and lower).  
Single clip safety: Bad. Ideally you want to clip to the anchor and be immediately attached to two bolts.

Commercial Fixe anchor set. Very common.

Visual impact: Moderate.
Expense: Moderately expensive.
Rope-twist factor: Good. Single ring sits perpendicular to the wall. No rope twist.

Lifespan: Good. The rope wears the ring, which can spin and spread the wear.  
Replace-ability: Not great, as you have to replace the entire anchor, or chop the ring and install an alternative.
Convenience: Bad (no clip and lower).  
Single clip safety: Good - you're always on two bolts. This makes for a good multipitch anchor, and quite a good sport route lower-off, if somewhat inconvenient.

Commercial unit from 'Raumer'

Visual impact: Not great. It's a pretty big beast. The double-chain version of this is even more obtrusive.  
Expense: Reasonably expensive as this is a commercial product.  
Rope-twist factor: Good. Lowering off a single point minimises rope twist.

Wear!

Lifespan: Bad. In high-traffic areas, this thick stainless carabiner will be worn through in a year or two (see right).  
Replace-ability: Bad. When the carabiner is worn out, it's quite a job to chop it off with a grinder. This leaves a spinning ring which you can lower off, or put another captive steel carabiner with a mallion. The other option is to replace the entire unit with an identical unit.
Convenience: Good. Clip and lower, baby!
Single clip safety: Good. You can clip anything and you're attached to two bolts.

Two naked glue-in rings.

Wear on ugly U-bolt. Bad!

Visual impact: Good. About as low-impact as you can get.
Expense: Good. Pretty cheap.
Rope-twist factor: Not great. This configuration does twist the rope.
Lifespan: Bad. Rope-wear will wear these bolts out (see right). This anchor can be good for very low traffic routes, but as soon as wear is noticed, install some mallions and chain.
Replace-ability: Bad. Once these wear out you have to heat them with a blowtorch to melt the glue and then extract. It's pretty full-on! Lazy people would chop them but this is messy at best.
Convenience: Bad (no clip and lower).
Single clip safety: Bad. Ideally you want to clip to the anchor and be immediately attached to two bolts.

Fixe ring and chain combo.

Visual impact: Moderate. Chain always stands out, but at least this is only one length.  
Expense: Moderate. There are a few components here. Cheaper than most commercial setups though.
Rope-twist factor: Good. Placed in this configuration, the thread point acts as one. Minimal twist.
Lifespan: Good. The ring will spin. The chain is easily replaced.
Replace-ability: Good. All wearable components are easily replaced.  
Convenience: Not great (no clip and lower) but at least you have plenty of clip points.
Single clip safety: Bad. Ideally you want to clip to the anchor and be immediately attached to two bolts.

Glue-in rings with twist-shackles for "replace-ability"

For a while, climbers started to use twist shackles because they would not twist the rope and you could replace the components that wear. Seems like an ideal solution, right?  
Why this is not good: The shackles can flip around so the rope is running over the pin of the shackle. This can undo the shackle (!!). People have tried to overcome this by "mousing" the shackles in position using wire or cable ties, but ultimately, this turns into a mess. Avoid twist shackles.

"Mussy hook" lower-off. Gaining popularity in America.
This setup ticks a lot of boxes but has some drawbacks.

Visual impact: Moderate. They're very beefy, no doubt.
Expense: Good. These mussy hooks are supposed to be quite inexpensive (available in large hardware stores like Home Depot). Beware however cast versions of these - probably from China, and strength unknown.
Rope-twist factor: Could be a big problem unless they can sit off the rock. Mike Law says "I lowered off a lot of Muzzy hooks in Owens River Gorge and they destroyed ropes by twisting, I think the fat ones have a thick spine and sit so far off the wall that rope tension pulls them over at about 45 degrees, towards each other."
Lifespan: Good. The mussy hooks have a huge rope-bearing surface and are very thick so they'll take a long time to wear to about halfway where they can be replaced.
Replace-ability: Good. The hooks are easily replaceable via the mallions.
Convenience: Great! Clip and lower!
Single clip safety: Bad. Ideally you want to clip to the anchor and be immediately attached to two bolts. 

Rotating rings, replaceable!

Visual impact: Moderate. They're very beefy, no doubt.
Expense: Moderately expensive. But everything here will last for a very long time, and will be easy to replace.
Rope-twist factor: Not as good as a single point, but not bad.
Lifespan: Superb. For starters, everything is 316 stainless, and the glue is Hilti RE-500, the best there is. The rings freely rotate, and when and if they need replacing, this is easily achieved via the mallions.
Replace-ability: Super.
Convenience: Average.
Single clip safety: Ordinarily I would rate this "bad" but in this case, I give it a "good" based on the fact it's a stainless glue-in with the world's best glue, in granite. You're good. 

CONCLUSION
As you can see there is no "right answer" when it comes to sport-route anchors, but there are materials and techniques that are nearly always more appropriate than others. Route developers should always be thinking "When this anchor is worn, how easy is it to replace?"

Further reading:
To learn even more about bolting, read my 2013 updated article "How to bolt rock climbs, and how not to"

Kalbarri - It's Gold!

It was 1994 and I was finishing school when I first started climbing. Soon after, every request for birthday or Christmas presents was for anything climbing related. Invariably, a favourite gift was the 'Simon Carter Calendar' for that particular year. In the first one I ever had, there was a picture of a girl. A girl climbing an orange, overhanging arete. The route was called Rattler and was in a place I'd never heard of called Kalbarri in remote Western Australia. The route was grade 22 which was inconceivable at the time, but I cut out the image and put it on my wall in my university dorm and vowed I would one day go to Kalbarri to climb Rattler.

Fast forward a mere 19 years. Hectic work schedule. A long weekend possibility? A few hasty emails. Book flights. Book hire car. The team was set: the QLD squadron of JJ O'Brien, myself and Sam, and the NSW ranks of the Carter company: Simon, Monique and Coco.

Google says 51 hours by car. Perhaps we'll fly to Perth?

Now, some say that Perth is the world's second most remote capital city. It's a really long way from anywhere. Kalbarri is about six to seven hours north of Perth by car. So yep, it's a mission. In fact, I had never before been to Western Australia, so this would be pretty exciting.

On top of that, immediately before flying out, we got word that the road in to the climbing area was closed for roadworks and would stay that way for 17 weeks. Noooo! Much negotiating with the local Ranger by Simon managed to secure us a way in, but not on the road.

The way in. This is early and the sand is still damp from the dew. This is good.
When the sand is white, and dry, and you're not in a Land Cruiser - you are scared!

The head ranger in his jacked up Land Cruiser looked very skeptical at our hire cars: Nissan X-Trail and Toyota Rav-4. After being read the riot act and letting our tyres down - a LOT - we left the bitumen and turned onto a very scary fire trail composed 100% of sand. I won't go in to the driving too much, suffice it to say that I have no idea how we didn't get bogged multiple times, and we took our soft-roaders to the limits of their abilities.

First view of the gorge and I am stoked!

We're on the walk-in and Coco leads the way.

One of the first climbs I saw as we walked in was Rattler. It was much smaller than I imagined! Over all the years this route had grown to epic proportions in my mind. I dumped my pack, racked up and soundly ticked it. It felt good.

Sam ticks Rattler (22)

I'd heard of the area "The Promenade" which was the home to steep hard sport climbing in Kalbarri. This small but perfectly formed sector was developed by a core group of WA locals like Chris Jones and Gerhard Chipper (yes, that's his real name!) in the early-mid 90s and in some ways was ahead of its time, certainly in Western Australia. The wall varies from slightly steep on the right end to something like 60 degrees overhanging on the left and has 9 routes and a linkup between 24 and 29.

Check out The Promenade on theCrag.com

As it turns out, we had a mere two and a half days to climb, and we simply went to work on this wall. I was lucky enough to get the two hardest routes (Glass Slipper 29 and Homophobia 28) done fairly early, so I decided the mission was to tick the wall! I worked my way down in difficulty as I got more and more tired, and I can tell you my hardest ticks were the easiest graded routes on that last day. We had to leave at a certain time to be able to make our plane and the only way I could meet my objective was to climb the last three routes back to back with basically no rest. I was wailing on the final 24, especially when I discovered its top bolts were missing.

Anyway, I somehow made it and got it done:

• Glass Slipper 29 - 2nd shot
• Homophobia 28 - 2nd shot
• Bustin' Down The Door 27 - 2nd shot
• Root Canal 26/7 - flash
• She Magic 26 - flash
• Super Funky 25 - 2nd shot
• Fuck The Law 25 - 3rd shot!
• Heavy Petting 25 (maybe 23/4?) - onsight
• It's A Boy 24 - onsight

This cut-loose and clip sequence was on the flash of Root Canal 26/7.
Hope this doesn't induce seizures or vomiting.

What really stuck me about Kalbarri was the rock. I loved the perfect, clean rock shelves to belay from. No need for rope bags here. I loved the different textures in the rock, and the deep rich oranges. This is ancient, ancient sandstone - over 300 million years old. The sun was blazing but we were cool in the shade.

Rock texture instagram

Here's a few final pics to help me remember what a great micro-trip this was...

Discovering the rock on Crankshaft 24

Sam on Obscene Gesture 18

I think this one was Bustin' Down The Door 27

Wow!

Chilling on the diving board finish of Glass Ceiling 29. So good.

My man JJ put in every last ounce of juice and finished off Root Canal at the death.

Nearly all pics here are from JJ (http://jjobrienclimbing.blogspot.com). No doubt we'll see a few pearlers come through the Onsight Photography media house at some point too.

I felt so happy and at peace here. If you have the chance to go - do!