bonner : climbing: New heights at Fairy Cave Quarry!

Brad and I frequented Fairy Cave Quarry once again this weekend, where we broke new boundaries with our climbing.

We started off first on Back to Basics (VDiff). In my opinion the best climb at its grade in the quarry - a lovely crack before you top out!

Then we plodded over to Rob's Crack (VS 4c) and rope soloed it, mainly as a confidence builder for me really :-)

Once that was dealt with we headed over to the Glacis area and I climbed Pleublo (VDiff). Although quite short, it has some interesting moves and pleases all the way to the top.

Brad had been eyeing up a climb since we got there, it was a bit harder than our recent climbs but it just looked great! Brad gave me the opportunity of climbing one of the pitches, and after having a quick tinkle on it I chose to lead the first pitch.

The first pitch comprises of a thin crack line for about 20m where a traverse rightwards leads to the first belay. The prominent crack line is then taken towards the top for the second pitch.

As it turned out I had chosen the harder pitch of the two. The guidebook describes it as poorly protected, but I managed to find enough gear placements. It was however fairly sustained and with the Sun beating down on me I had a fairly good sweat on!

Brad easily followed my lead and completed the second pitch to the top, and belayed off a bunch of saplings! That was Halfway to Kansas (HS 4a) done!

Finally I convinced Brad to lead The Conning Tower (Sev). A good little climb for the grade and with a bit of cleaning would make a little gem we think.

That's all for now folks! Enjoy the pictures.