As I was sorting out some of our pictures taken in Australia, I came across the first time I went to the Gorge in Mt Buffalo. It reminded me how much I love Australia and how much I especially love this place.It also reminded me that we had so little time to post on the blog and write trip reports. So in the meantime, let’s just share the beauty of the Australian Alps.

These pictures were taken in May 2013 as we were going to do the classic “Where Angels Fear To Tread”. I highly recommend this route to anyone willing to have a nice, easy, but very painful, day out in Mt Buffalo. As usual, Chockstone is your best friend when it comes to find advice, just check the trip report section (we posted the GPS coordinates for the route here).

*** Where Angels Fear to Tread 263m 17

An awesome line, the cracks just go on and on all the way. Amazingly, just as one crack fizzles out, another conveniently appears to the L or R, with the two connected by delicate slab moves! Incredible feature. The big downer is how painful the footjams get after 20m, let alone after 220m! It’s really L foot intensive the whole way too – your R foot is always smearing and only gets in the crack about 5 times. So be sure to take big beefy tapegloves and a full-on heavy-duty ankle-length left boot. I did it without tape gloves and with a normal climbing shoe, and it was PBF painful in the end! We started at 3pm and were up it in 4 hours, but for many parties it would probably be wise to allow at least double that. The pitch lengths are for how we did it, but for the first 140m there’s basically no stances so belay wherever. In particular, combine P4&5 as described if you have a few duplicate big cams.

(For the trip report on Ozymandias Direct, go there)

From Singapore straight to the Cathedral: a first taste of what Buffalo has to offer
Evening at the Cathedral:
Night at the hut: gear sorting and coffee
One of the most amazing morning of my life:
In the car going to Bright:
Where Angels Fear To Tread and the Angel Buttress:
A first glance at Ozymandias:

 

The Gorge, Mount Buffalo, Australia: Where Angels Fear To Tread (WAFTT) 17/265m
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