We’ve been busy putting up new problems in the Grampians. I climbed the project I posted a photo of earlier and named it Pigeon superstition. It’s an amazing dyno problem and probably a hard V13. It took me two days of work. It’s for sure a lot harder than it’s neighboring Ammagamma, V13. Ammagamma took me about 10 minutes and didn’t feel too hard, so who knows about the grade, but climbing Ammagamma was still a dream come true because it’s a problem I’ve wanted to climb for as long as I can remember. The mantle move in the end is one of the nicest moves ever. We also brushed the huge prow project left of Ammagamma, but haven’t had he chance to try it yet. It’s for sure one of the wildest projects I’ve seen in all my years of climbing.

Another FA I did is on the left side of the Project Wall previously known as the Aid-line project. It’s a proud, tall line that follows two seams up the face with long moves leading to a big dyno high off the ground. I climbed it starting from the obvious break and also from the sitstart, but starting by jumping to the break seems to be the line and the sitstart doesn’t really add much to the problem. I called it Parallel Lines and V11 should be about right for this one.

First ascent of Parallel Lines, V11. photo: Keith Ladzinski

A good thing about Grampians is that there are areas where you can climb even when it rains. Kindergarten is one of these places and we checked it out one rainy day. I flashed the classic Gripmaster V10 and also flashed  So You Think You Can Dance V11. I brushed a new line to the left of Gripmaster and did the first ascent calling it Drop bear V11.

We’ve been up at the Hollow Mountain cave twice and worked on Wheel of life on two days. I did it in smaller sections the first day and last time I did all the parts; Sleepy Hollow V12, Cave man V9, Dead Can’t Dance V11 and the remaining sections that don’t constitute as problems on their own. The whole link-up definitely seems very doable, but watching the local James Kassay practically cruising up the Wheel from a few moves in and still falling off the last move, made me realize that it would probably take time to get the whole thing dialed enough to go for the full link. At the same time when there are amazing unclimbed projects everywhere and new areas to discover, it’s hard to invest all that time into a 70-move link-up. Also at the Hollow Mountain cave, me, Dave and Ian all flashed American Pie V10.

We’ve only climbed on the Taipan wall one day so far, but it is amazing. All the routes are pretty runout and gear is needed for most of the them. The best route I climbed so far was Invisible Fist. There’s also very good bouldering below the Taipan wall. Last time we cleaned and built a landing for what’s called the Wave Room project. I can’t wait to get on that one and another hard project that is just 20 meters away. Also one more project below the Taipan wall went down a few days ago. Dave Graham got the FA of what we called the Roobar project and I quickly sent it after him with a completely different beta not involving a kneebar. Dave hasn’t named this one yet, but grade-wise it’s probably a high-end V13.

Some days ago I got really close on another hard project and broke a key foothold making it harder. Just another project to go back to. You probably have noticed already that our focus has been mostly on projects and how could it not be when you see all these amazing unclimbed lines every day. Yesterday I put up two new climbs again; a very nice black overhang with a dyno from a perfect pocket and a hard slab next to Forced Entry. Both of these in the Andersen’s sector and both around V11. The day before that, we put up some FA’s as well and cleaned some great projects.

Here’s just a couple of projects we haven’t even had the time to try yet.

Just another project

V15? double dyno project

It’s crazy how many projects and areas there are and even though we’ve been climbing pretty much every single day, there still isn’t nearly enough time for all that we’re psyched on. We may have to extend our tickets…