So the Tyndalls were off. After getting rained off the West Coast and a little bit of cragging in the Gorge at Launceston, Alex (Lewis) and I were back in Hobart with Thursday looking like good weather down on the Tasman Peninsula. Wanting a bit of an adventure, we decided on Talk is Cheap 210m 24 -established in 2008 by Simon Young and Garry Phillips, it tackles the steepest section of Mt Brown's intimidating, overhanging face. The grade of the pitches are 14, 24, 22, 16, 20, 24, 22, 19, 17, 8. In October 2009 Alex and I had climbed I've Heard It All Before 225m 23, so we had an idea of what to expect of the wall itself.On the 3rd of June 2010 we cruised down the Peninsula after a 6am rendezvous. We'd pared our gear down for a light and, hopefully, fast ascent; one 60m lead rope, a 60m half rope for the abseils, about 20 draws and camalots from .4-2. Gunning out along the track to the top of Mt. Brown we got soaked from the mildew on all the shrubbery on the walk. A heart-starting 40 minutes' walking brought us to the top by 8.30am. Again I felt excited but nervous as we racked up carefully beside the rap station. It is a big, and to me, fucking scary wall - it overhangs all the way to the sea - after the first rap to a ledge, it drops away to the surging white water below. We had made the decision that this time we wouldn't fix ropes, hence pulling them after each abseil, committing to the wall.
The initial short rap leads to the ledge on which I've Heard It All Before ends on - this time we would be stepping off the LH end (facing the cliff). After threading the rope and triple checking his belay device, Alex began the first of 7 abseils. As soon as he had stepped off the ledge, he shouted up "I've Heard It All Before looks like a fucking slab compared to this thing!". Soon after I heard "Off rope", ; I too re-checked my ATC and prussik, and slid down the ropes to join him, trying to not think too much about the air beneath my feet!
The wall really kicks steeply after these two pitches, and now for each abseil,Alex had to clip into bolts to stay attached to the wall. Unclipping these coming down second meant I had to do a gut-wrenching swing out from the face - fun times!Another four more abseils bought us to what the description called the "big chill-out ledge", where we regrouped and stashed the second rope and some water. We had thought we would need it for the 35m rappel but a single 60m had reached the belay fine. It was amazing hanging out on a decent sized ledge, looking up and around into the vast amphitheatre of rock. The water surged below us into a sea-cave right at the base of the wall, and every ten minutes or so there was a sonic boom as a swell completely filled the cave and forced all the air out - when this happened the cliff would seemingly shudder - all contributing to the atmosphere.
Below: Alex rapping the 4th pitch (16)
At ledge we had a discussion about continuing all the way to the bottom of the route - it was a intimidating place, with rock towering overhead reminding us we had to climb out, which combined with the sea allowed doubts to creep in about our ability to do the bottom 24 pitch. From Simon Carter's photos, and other people's beta, it sounded pretty hard. Another problem we encountered was that much of the rock was wet, some of it just slick and some saturated.
However we resolved to continue to the bottom of the 3rd pitch (22) to see what lay in store. Down Alex went, setting up a belay. When I came to abseil, again I had to unclip the rope from the bolts as I went. When it came to the bolt underneath the overhang, I took a deep breath and "1,2,3 GO!" - I was flying out over the sea - "This is fucked man!!!". But I loved it really! Joining Alex at the belay it was time to start climbing. Even though we hadn't gone all the way down, it was still amazing to be able to start climbing. Alex was psyched to lead, so he jumped on the sharp end and led off on a traverse left and up to the big overhang. He pulled through and up to the belay. I followed, finding the section under the roof pretty tricky and wet. Passing the belay in a semi-hanging alcove, I led up the 4th (16) pitch to the ledge (I found this a bit harder than 16, maybe hard 17).
We had a quick break and then Alex set off up the 4th (20) pitch. A few cams off the belay led to a thin and pumpy sequence of moves of which the final move was a throw to the next belay ledge; it was a rad onsight by Alex. I just scraped up it, then started up the second 24 pitch. Wet and dirty rock slowed progress and saw me struggling to clip a bolt off a sloping wet jug. I wimped out and yelled "Take!" - honestly, I was pretty scared. I dogged through the steep section of this pitch, but the angle soon eased to reveal the Pocket of Love - complete with a yellow toy Tellytuby!
Bringing Alex up, I handed over some cams and he traversed right to the start of the hand-crack on the 7th (22) pitch. Following this up the jams ran out and it transformed into a thin layback. "Watch me!" he called down but pulled through with another sweet onsight to the belay. I tried to follow quickly, however found the layback really tricky and fell, so yarded on a bolt and scurried up to the belay. The next two pitches (19 & 17) went pretty quickly with me resting on the 19 due to a bit of wet rock (and more softness).
At 2.30pm we topped out, 5.5 hours after beginning to rap in. Although we didn't do the whole route or do it all free (or I didn't free it to be fair), it was another wicked adventure on the Main Face of Mt. Brown that we both really enjoyed. It is an amazing place to climb: the route itself being awesome, which combined with the mind-blowing exposure at times and the sea booming many metres below, creates something special. Thanks is definitely due to Gazza and Simon for establishing the route, it is brilliant guys. We will be back to do the whole thing free when it dries out a bit!
Alex and I hanging out at base of the 7th (22) pitch having a rad time!
I've Heard It All Before video October 2009:
