A Big Day Out (BDO)

Sometimes you can get into a bit of a rut of going out and doing three or four climbs for the day and that's it. Glenn wanted to challenge his perceptions of the possible when it came to volume of climbing in a day. So we decided to have a big day out. Our self-imposed arbitrary challenge was 'Celestial in a day'. Celestial Wall is a sector of multipitch sport climbing on Mt Tibrogargan in the Glasshouse Mountains.

At the leisurely time of 10:12am, we blasted off.

© L Cujes 2009

1. Heliosphere 14, 35 m
2. Vernal Equinox 22, 28 m
3. Zenith 24, 25 m
4. Latitudes 21, 35m

Time check: 1:23pm. Hmm, getting late already!

5. Aphelion p1 / Voyager p1 16, 35 m
6. Voyager p2 22, 12 m
7. Voyager p3 23, 20 m
8. Voyager p4 17, 30 m
9. Aphelion p2 21, 12 m
10. Aphelion p3 22, 30 m
11. Aphelion p4 / Rubicon p3 22, 10 m
12. Rubicon p2 22, 30 m

Time check: 5:23pm. Hmm, not much light left. Grab the headtorches.

13. Rubicon p1 18, 45 m

Time check: 6:06pm. It's pitch black man! The mozzies are feasting!

14. Troposphere p1 15, 30 m
15. Troposphere p2 17, 10 m
16. Troposphere p3 18, 15 m
17. Troposphere p4 15, 25 m
18. Troposphere p5 16, 30 m

Time check: 7:49pm. Stumble back to the car.

9hr 36mins after blasting off, Glenn's still smiling © L Cujes 2009

So, 18 pitches, 318 points, and 457m of climbing. A big day out! For us at least. Doing things like this give you an appreciation of the massive efforts of the likes of Tommy Caldwell linking Half Dome and El Cap in 24 hours. Crazy!

We weren't speed climbing and we didn't rush. We started late and ate lunch. The key was to simply keep moving upwards and try to minimise any downtime where nobody was moving up.

Fun stuff. Go set your own arbitrary challenge!