Climbing in Takaka

If you're going to climb in New Zealand - you better get use to slopers.

There are many different types of climbing holds. Some rock types are characterized by a certain type of hold - and without a doubt for New Zealand limestone - it's the sloper. Everyones favourite type of hold is the jug. This refers to anything that is large and easy to hold (like a jug handle). Unfortunately, they are reasonably rare, although the Blue Mountain sandstone seemed to be blessed with more than its fair share of them.

In Finland we climb granite and are mainly on cracks and crimps. I love climbing cracks, Anni hates it. You simply stick your hand in, contort it to a different possition and pull away. Crimps are small edges. They look tiny, but tend to be sharp and as we would say "positive". Think about pulling on the door frame, with a little training and strong fingers you can perform pull ups on surprisingly small edges. As I said we climb granite and are mostly using cracks and crimps - I wouldn't want to say that we are good at them, but perhaps we can say they are our best holds.

We also climb indoors on plastic, and plastic prepares you well for some of the other types of holds - pinches and pockets. Infact, anyone who climbs indoors regulary also becomes remarkably proficient in putting two fingers in a rounded hole and pulling on them. I don't know anyone who likes pinches. I don't expect anyone to write a comment claiming that they do. Normally, one can avoid them but the route setters of indoor problems aren't so kind and by climbing indoors you get OK at pinching all manner of strange knobs.

This brings us to slopers. These are often large holds, sometimes they look like jugs but when you put your hands onto them you soon realize that there isn't much to grip. Imagine half a football stuck to the wall. Imagine trying to pull on it, you're not doing a bad job of imagining New Zealand climbing. Now, if we had read our own advice we could have practiced them indoors, but they have been something of a nemesis to us and we had managed to avoid them. With this in
mind, we nervously went climbing in Takaka.

We'd heard that Payne's Ford was THE best sport climbing crag in New Zealand. We'd also heard that it was steep (in most places overhanging) and the climbing was mainly on slopers. We were told about the Pohara sea cliffs and that the climbing was more like "sloping edges". With this in mind, we tried Pohara first.

We had a pretty successful morning getting up 6 routes, each route felt better and we would have continued except the crag came into sun and with the temperature in the 30s - two pasty Northern Europeans didn't stand much chance. The sloping edges were far from reassuring but with the occasional pocket or pinch thrown in we got up several F6a+ routes.

With this increasing confidence, I announced that I'd try one of the overhanging routes as at only 6b - it couldn't be sloper after sloper. It could and it was. With just one rest on it, I pulled the ropes, left the draws in, rested for 5 mins, looked at the shade retreat from the route and claimed that I'd go for the red point. No such luck. After another rest on the third bolt I stripped the route and was prepared to leave the crag when Anni spotted a line. In the near blinding sun on a sweltering day, she found a route where the bottom two thirds seemed to be in at least partial shade. She charged up this with great speed only to come stuck where the sun blasted the route. I managed to finish it with sweat dripping from my brows, my sweaty fingers grabbing the sloping edges for all they were worth and my swollen feet slipping in my now saline lubricated shoes. Other people arrived, but for us there was no way we could climb anything more. We headed to the car, set the air conditioning to full and decided to get up earlier the next day.

The Pohara sea cliffs.

A typical insecure slopey edge.

Other parties join, regardless of the blazing sun.

We'd heard that Payne's Ford was THE best sport climbing crag in New Zealand. We'd also heard that it was steep (in most places overhanging) and the climbing was mainly on slopers. We were told about the Pohara sea cliffs and that the climbing was more like "sloping edges". With this in mind, we tried Pohara first.

We had a pretty successful morning getting up 6 routes, each route felt better and we would have continued except the crag came into sun and with the temperature in the 30s - two pasty Northern Europeans didn't stand much chance. The sloping edges were far from reassuring but with the occasional pocket or pinch thrown in we got up several F6a+ routes. With this increasing confidence, I announced that I'd try one of the overhanging routes as at only 6b - it couldn't be sloper after sloper. It could and it was. With just one rest on it, I pulled the ropes, left the draws in, rested for 5 mins, looked at the shade retreat from the route and claimed that I'd go for the red point. No such luck. After another rest on the third bolt I stripped the route and was prepared to leave the crag when Anni spotted a line. In the near blinding sun on a sweltering day, she found a route where the bottom two thirds seemed to be in at least partial shade. She charged up this with great speed only to come stuck where the sun blasted the route. I managed to finish it with sweat dripping from my brows, my sweaty fingers grabbing the sloping edges for all they were worth and my swollen feet slipping in my now saline lubricated shoes. Other people arrived, but for us there was no way we could climb anything more. We headed to the car, set the air conditioning to full and decided to get up earlier the next day.

At 06.30 I was prodding Anni awake. Although we were on holiday, I was determined that we get an early start, afterall if yesterday was anything to go by, at 10.00 it would start to get uncomfortable to climb. After some delay, We were at Payne's by 8.00am and staring up at a wall, without sloping edges but with true slopers, interspersed by a few pockets and even fewer crimps. We started with some small lines and with considerable umming and ahhing we both knocked off a 5+ and 6a. Just like yesterday, I spotted an overhanging line, that was again only 6b. Again I thought, at 6b there must be proper holds. After a few wild moves I'd climbed up past the second bolt and to the lip of the really steep ground, I had to pull over and on to the mere vertical but no matter how much I searched I couldn't find anything other than slopers and I couldn't pull on the slopers. After a rest, I found the same slopers and still couldn't pull on them. After pulling on the quickdraw, I got a little higher and found more slopers and couldn't pull on them. Remembering the advancing sun of yesterday, remembering that we were on holiday, that we were supposed to be enjoying ourselves and that it's no fun to hold the end of a rope when someone is blatantly not climbing an overhang, I retreated leaving a carabiner in place. Whoever climbs the route and pulls on the slopers above is welcome to it.

After some reappraisal it seemed like on both days we'd been doing well until I had decided that I could climb overhangs on slopers, and if we just avoided the overhangs we'd be OK. We finished the day with a great two pitch climb on near vertical ground with a difficult crux pulling through a small bulge (of course on slopers) and an endurance 25m line where virtually every hold was (as you can no doubt guess) a sloper. At the end of two mornings, there was no doubt that we improved. There was also no doubt that our forearms ached and a more relaxing activity was needed - we were going wine tasting.

Anni on a delicate slab

and me on another delicate slab

48h in Australia

Sydney.

Anni: 48 tuntia Australiassa tuntuu järjettömän lyhyeltä ajalta, ja se on sitä. Simon, kotoisin Sydneystä, aloitti painostuksen jo viime helmikuussa. Kun Uuden Seelannin matka alkoi pikkuhiljaa muotoutua, hänellä oli jo tiukka aikataulu, jota noudattaen saisimme ujutettua reissuun pari päivää Australiassa. Ideana oli aloittaa heti aamusta (Bangkokin kone laskeutui tasan klo 6 aamulla), ja jakaa valveillaolon tunnit kanjonireissun, kiipeilyyn ja kaupunkiturismiin. Melkein onnistui.
It felt quite tight to squeeze in 48h canyoneering, climbing and city tourism. We almost made it with the help of Simon, who started pestering us about visiting Sydney in last February, pretty much as soon as he found out about our plan to go to New Zealand. Oh well, the plane arrived at 6am, Simon was there to pick us up, and off we went.

Sydney Opera house. It is even more amazing from close up.

This would be the close-up. You should see the tiling, too.

Sydneyssä paras tapa nähdä kaupunki on varmasti kajakkiretki satamassa. Se on varmaan myös nopein tapa hommata kunnon palovammat. Lämpöä on koko ajan 30 astetta plussaa ja taivas on pilvetön. Ensimäinen ostos oli 30 kertoimen suojarasva ja hattu.
You want to have the best view of Sydney? Go kayaking in the harbour. It is worth the wet trousers, which you will get, if you do not time your beaching with the waves correctly.

Scenic view of the Blue Mountains.

Another view of Blue Mountains.

Aika pian menimme itse asiaan, eli kanjoniin. Tähän olimme henkisesti varanneet hiukan alle 3 tuntia kävelyineen, kuten innokas oppaamme oli meille reissua etukäteen kuvannut. Saimme myöhemmin selville, että emme sitten menneetkään siihen kanjoniin, vaan jonnekin ihan muualle. Paikka oli nimeltään Butterworth, ja tasoltaan helppo tekninen kanjoni. Se vain oli aika paljon pidempi kuin alunperin luulimme. Saimme kulutettua 6 hengen porukalla kanjonissa koko päivän, sisään mentiin klo 10, ja takaisin autolla olimme klo 18.
We headed fairly quickly to the Blue Mountains, to a canyon called Butterworth (Simon may want to correct this), which allegedly could be done in shy 3 hours, with the walk-out. Hah. Being in a group of six we manage to spend most of the day there, fueled entirely by one chunky steak pie, and some banana bread.

Australian wildlife. No idea, who (or what) this fellow is, but he sure was keen to pose. And we don't believe it was poisonous.

Kiipeily sitten jäi. Istuin kypärä päässä ja tossut repussa katsomassa illan pimetessä kun Tony kiipesi puoliksi huijattuna verrattain kovan tason sportin.
Then to the climbing. We didn't do much of it. In fact, I did not do any, whilst Tony was kind of willingly sand-bagged to do an overhanging 6c. I was promised bolted slabs (awesome), but never saw any of them.

The second last abseil in the canyon, to a waterfall. The whole place was kind of slimy and slippery, but enormous fun, too.

All in all, the whole side tour to Sydney area was absolutely fantastic. With the amount of jet-lag we had, I was pesonally quite amazed, how long we managed to keep sleep off. I guess the trick is to just keep going, and going hard.
Thanks heaps to Adam, Marie, and Ben for the company in the canyon.

Finnish climbing 2008

Of course it's no surprise to hear that we were climbing throughout the year in Finland. December has been a bit grim, but otherwise Tony had been climbing in Finland during every other month. Anni joined on many of these trips. Highlights included two trips to Olhava, one trip to Kustavi and many to Revetenvuori and more local crags. We made a few first ascents. The first by Anni and Tony being the rather easy Heinähanko (F4+ PG) in Haukkakallio. Tony also made first ascents Mastodontti (F6b) and the rather surprisingly Tutu hard (F5 ), both at Haukkakallio and the latter done on his stagnight in a tutu. Unfortunately we're not publishing the photos here! We also repeated some great routes, Anni did fantastically well to climb Ruotsalaisten reitti and Salama (both long F6a routes at Olhava). Other favourite routes of the year included Urkkupilli at Revetenvouri, Sledgehammer at Falkberget and Leppakomiehenfriendi at Kvarnby. Several of the photos here are from Toby's blog and complete accounts of the various trips can be found on his blog at http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.com/ by clicking on the rockclimbing label.

Winter camping near Valkeala with Toby

On the crux of Mastadontti - the crack flares making jams feel insecure

Anni in action on Constant Gardener at Haukkakallio

Simon climbing Urkkupilli at Revetenvuori

February climbing in Rollarit

Spring flowers in Kvarnby

Olhava - a tranquil place to climb

Many of the climbs are accessible only by boat

Salama follows the obvious crack system running up the face with two traverses to the right. Ruotsalaisten Reitti starts behind the island and follows a rising traverse out of the frame.

July - Scotland

Anni had never been to Scotland. On our week tour with our good friends Gwilym and Caroline we ended up seeing an incredible amount of it, and still found time to go climbing and trekking.

3 small figures at the bottom of Spantastic (F5 R/X) at Flodigarry on the Isle of Skye. We had just abseiled down to do this rather unique route.

Anni following the exposed pillar, even seconding this pitch was serious as a fall would result in swinging into the opposing wall. Thanks Caroline for the fantastic telephoto snaps.

The easier (but loose) second pitch (F4+ R)

Steeper but safer; Anni did a fantastic job seconding this route. On the North West the sandstone sea cliffs at Reiff make wonderful cragging. (Unknown route about F6a+)

Castles and lochs - truly this is Scotland

A lone orchid beneath Stac Pollaidh

A wet hiker on top of Stac Pollaidh

The beautiful Smoo caves on the North coast close to Durness

The Ring 'o Brodgar Standing Stones - one of many visits to Neolithic sites

The visiting of such places involved considerable crawling underground.

Rackwick bay on the Island of Hoy

The Dwarfy Stane was carved in the sandstone by neolithic man without metal tools.

The Hackness Martello tower provided protection of a "more modern" kind.

The Glenmorangie distillery in Rosshire

The Magic Islands of Lofoten (Arctic Norway)

During the time the blog was dormant, many adventures went untold. Perhaps we'll find time to tell them, but in the meantime here is a sneaky peak at what has was missed.

June 2008: Tony and Simon were climbing in the North of Norway.

Typical weather in the North, but something we didn't see a lot of

Our trusty little Getz made it from Finland to the North of Norway.

Cruising up perfect granite cracks (about F5) on Bare Blabaer (Only Blueberries)
After the Creek this route lived up to it's name, the Norwegians describe a trivial task as bare blabaer.

From a small task to a slightly bigger one. Vestpillaren (F6a+ -11 pitches) forms the skyline.

The 1910 route on the Svolvaer Geita redetermined what man could achieve. Now it is "only blueberries" but following the classic route was an eyeopening experience.

Honest words.....

Steep sport climbing....... preparation for the Blue Mountains?

Last route - The Prince of Darkness 5.10c

Prince of Darkness ascends the Black velvet wall on the left of the photo.

In many ways this route was typical for me. Certainly the climbing wasn't typical. It was super hard - more of that later - but the way in which it was organised was typical. I had just done three days climbing in a row, two of the days had been multipitch and the last (a twelve hour day) had been especially tiring. I'd covered a lot of ground approaching the routes, climbed many vertical metres and was well due a rest day.

However, when you've one day left, a rest day is the last thing on your mind. I headed into Vegas the evening before to go to the Internet Cafe and saw an email from Joe (Joe from "A days sport climbing in Red Rocks"). We'd thought about doing Prince of Darkness and he said that he managed to get the day off on Friday and we should do it. Great, I thought, let's. But then the problems started. It was never the best idea. I had to be at the airport at 11am on Saturday, the problem being that it was Salt Lake City airport and not Las Vegas. The second problem was that Joe didn't have much equipment. The Prince of Darkness is fundamentally a sports climb, there are short sections of trad, but the protection is mostly bolts - and plenty of them (up to 15 in a pitch). I had 9 quickdraws, but was confident that I could make more out of spare carabiners, slings, prussic cord and even my gear sling. Anni had taken one of the half ropes with her (Two 60m half ropes would have been perfect for this route) and we were left with my 70m single for climbing, with the second carrying the 60m half rope in a rucsack (we needed two ropes to abseil the route). This system wasn't ideal but was workable. Most importantly, Joe didn't have a belay device; this problem we had to solve. You might be wondering what Joe was doing without such basic kit, but he was on a work trip and planned only to go to the climbing gym if time was available. He ended up checking out Red Rocks, and then, as is pretty understandable, deciding that he simply had to negotiate time off and climb. Red Rocks would do that to anyone. It did it to him, but for the want of a belay plate it looked like the plans were going to hell. You can climb without a belay plate. You can tie a munter hitch knot which does the same thing. The Germans do it all the time. I didn't like the idea because it kinks your ropes up something chronic, and on a 6 pitch 5.10c that is something you can do without. I'm not sure if you can abseil without a belay device. OK, I know that you can. I'm not sure if you can abseil safely without one, and that is why we were on a mission to find one.

After a gentle start, the route ascends the middle of the apparently featureless face

The gear shop didn't open until 10.00. No good. I wanted to be approaching the route at 7.00. Besides, I still had to get to Salt Lake City after climbing and therefore wanted (needed) to be back at the car before dark. It was late, I was tired and I wanted to go to bed. Joe, however, managed to persuade Bill from the climbing gym to lend him a belay plate. I just had to find the gym, pick up the plate, and give it to him tomorrow. I was tired (yes this is going to be a reoccurring theme of this post) and would have been quite happy to have thought "no belay plate, no climb" and gone to bed, but Joe had done his bit, and despite wanting to curl into my tent and sleep I managed to do mine. Finding the climbing gym in Vegas is not easy. Well not easy if you're a foreigner unfamiliar with the road numbering, unfamiliar with driving round large cities (I never felt comfortable driving in Vegas) and all the time are muttering to yourself, "why the hell didn't he bring a belay plate, I would have if I planned to go to the gym". I'm sorry Joe, but I would have.

Joe on the other hand, had to drive 3h to get to Red Rocks and that meant leaving at 4.00. Which in reality made my driving round Vegas at 22.00 seem like very little, and my whinging seem pretty pathetic. But I like to whinge when I'm tired. Besides, I really wanted to climb this route, and I really wanted to climb it with Joe. Firstly, Joe was a great guy (and I hope that we meet and climb together again). Secondly, we were sports climbing at a similar level. Well, he was climbing a shade better. Climbing with someone of the same level means that you can share the route more. The moves that you found hard, they would have found hard. You both can cruise the easier stuff and share the awkwardness of the harder stuff. Thirdly, although this route was close to my limit (and Joe's) I had confidence that both of us could pull it off. I'd spoken about climbing this route with Tacos and was less confident climbing with her. I wanted to share the leading, I would have had to do all the 5.10 pitches if I'd climbed with Tacos and mentally I'm not sure if I would have been focused enough after 3 days of hard climbing. Joe and I had climbed up to 5.10d. But it was hard. 6 pitches of up to 5.10c was going to be a stern test.

Before starting, damn I look tired

All the belays were equipped with abseil anchors and the protection was plentiful. This was about as safe as multipitch routes come, and a perfect way to experience harder climbing. The first pitch wasn't really anything, about 100ft of 5.6 trad. It felt easy and I put only a few runners in it. The second and third pitches were supposed to be the crux. Both involved long, delicate face climbing with small crimps and high steps. They were graded 5.10b and 5.10a respectively (although the latter was supposed to be sandbagged). The movement was identical through both of these pitches (crimp, crimp, high step). Sometimes odd sections were a little trickier (the crimps smaller, or the footholds poorer) but by and large the move was the same, every move was hard and I couldn't seperate the two pitches in terms of difficulty. We took one of these each. We both climbed better on lead and struggled on second (I suspect because of the bag). The climbing was sustained on perfect incut edges. I've heard the route critised because of the repetetive climbing, but I liked pulling on small edges and rocking onto small footholds and every move was quality and for me a challenge. A slight variation came on the second pitch when the route met a crack. This offered a brief phase of traditional climbing requiring the placement of natural protection, but for me, more importantly, the opportunity to jam one of my hands in the crack and shake the other one. It might look bizare but by shaking your hand around below your waist you give the chance for the lactic acid which builds up through climbing to disperse.

The fourth and fith pitches again offered similar climbing but it felt slightly easier. Perhaps the holds were bigger, the angle slightly reduced or perhaps we were just used to it. The last pitch had the 5.10c moves on it. The moves were short and sweet. We'd heard that after these moves the rest of the pitch was fairly easy, we both disagreed.

Looking down from the fourth pitch

We abseiled down and were back at the car for 18.00. We said our brief goodbyes and I set off on my long drive for Salt Lake City. I managed the 700 km (400+ mile) drive in good time. It involved driving for 2h and then pulling at a rest stop, resting (in the British sense of the word) in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours and repeating. This way I felt awake enough to drive. I was shattered when arriving at the airport and even worse when arriving in Finland. For many days my lower back ached which I think is a symptom of spending two days in semi-hanging belays. It was, however, worth it. The route and the company were fantastic.

The first of several abseils

Crimson Chrysalis 5.8+/5.9

This is a popular and classic line. It actually features in the top 25 routes of North America http://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/other/climlist/clindex.htm. This is the top 25 climbing routes not only the top lowland rock routes. The list also features alpine rock, alpine mixed and snow and ice climbs. It's also the easiest climb in the 25 list and accessible. This probably makes it one of the 25 most crowded climbs in North America and it was with this in mind that we left the campsite at 06.30. It's not uncommon for the route to have 4 parties on it. Whilst, this might not sound too bad the descent is to abseil the route and the thought of having people climbing below you, people climbing above you and people abseiling through you is unappealing.
The route goes straight up the Cloud Tower in 9 pitches. The climbing is consistently 5.8 for almost all every move. It is sometimes slabby, sometimes overhanging but most of the time dead plum vertical. It looks improbable for mostly 5.8 climbing and would be but for the jugs. British climbers call large holds jugs, Finnish climbers call them handles, whatever you call these - make no mistake they are big and easy to grasp. The climb mostly follows cracks which are used for protection and links these with bolt protected face climbing. I rarely used the cracks for climbing and only employed my Indian Creek techniques when not faced with a climbing wall sized hold. The climbing felt continous and fluid. The route was sometimes run out but the climbing was so intuitive that these were dealt with almost without noticing.

I did this with Tacos. After the previous days exploits we felt confident for something bigger. After only minor bush whacking to find the route, we were delighted to see that nobody else was there. I took the first pitch (which the guidebook claimed was run out), I disagree. I found the gear perfectly adequate for the 5.8 climbing. I think this was a sign of things to come as I was to power up the steep walls placing about 10 pieces in a pitch and feeling totally safe and in full control. I'd been sports climbing at .10d and on this route I could focus my full attention on enjoying the moves, the exposure and the fact that I was on the longest steep climb that I'd been on. We mostly switched pitches, but in such a way that I got the 3 ones with the hardest ratings. This suited me perfectly.

As we got higher the exposure started to kick in. I enjoyed watching my rucksac, which I left at the bottom of the route, get smaller and smaller until eventually (I didn't have my glasses) it became to small. Perhaps it's visible in the photo (I again don't have my glasses). To my delight, more so than watching the shrinking rucksac was that nobody else started the route. All day. As we got higher I was relieved to think that it would be us abseiling over other people, and not the other way round. I wondered what the procedure was. Surely, four on one of the hanging belays would be too crowded. Luckily, the situation never arose.

Tacos on the fifth pitch. On the abseil we got the rope stuck only once, which was no small achievement based on the plentitude of what I no longer saw as jugs but now as rope snaring objects. We started the hike out as the sun set and were almost 12 hours car to car.