"Mount" Arapiles

Susy and Tom finally caught up with us in the Grampians on Monday afternoon. Since Fred and I had already done a few pitches of climbing that day, he chilled out with my copy of "In Dubious Battle" in the van while the rest of us went and monkeyed around a bit in the evening. Afterwards, we headed off toward Arapiles and ended up crashing out in a farmer's driveway on the other side of the mountain which, when he stopped by in the morning, gave me a chance to learn something about farming canola and get the no-nonsense story on the potential plague of locusts we're facing this year ("media hype").

Since Tom only had one full day to climb we set our sights on a fairly big outing: an ascent of Arapiles most popular climb, The Bard, a classic 5.7 that ascends the steep buttress on the right side of the photo. Fred was feeling moderately apprehensive at the base, as it is a steep climb with a few notorious traverses, but he sees nothing but the summit once he gets his hands on rock. I ended up getting off route and skipping one of the traverses although the climbing we did was still a bit "tricky". The weather couldn't have been any better for climbing and we ended up doing the whole route in just two or three hours. With some communication difficulties Tom and Susy took a bit longer to finish while Fred and I sat on a ledge marveling at the flatness of the horizon.

Fred on the first pitch.

Unfortunately, Fred got a couple of small skin tears his bicep from the rope and wanted to have a doctor in town dress them properly to avoid an infection. We made a trip to the Horsham hospital and were then sent over to the medical clinic where treatment is 1/4 the price, although they ended up treating him for free. To make matters worse, both Fred and Susy seemed to have picked up some kind of bug at the clinic and were both feeling lousy the next day. Still, Fred insisted on climbing anyway so we headed off to the Organ Pipes, just a couple of hundred meters from camp. I put a top rope on Piccolo, a fun 11 (5.4/5.5), and Fred climbed about 3/4 of it before lowering off. Before he even made it back to the ground, he sat down on a small ledge and fell asleep drooling on the rock for at least 90 minutes while Susy ran some laps on the route and discovered that she likes climbing again.

That night a big storm blew in and soaked Fred pretty good in our crappy tent. We headed into town with the rest of the climbers fleeing camp and after sitting around all day made the decision to head back to Melbourne to dry out and resupply. Fred and I headed back out on Monday and climbed a bit on Tuesday. Even though he was still experiencing stomach cramps, Fred just had to drag himself up something that was fifth class before he could call it a day. The man is truly obsessed by climbing; I'm not.

On another note, Fred's been talking about stealing a sheep and killing it since he got off the plane and commonly picks out which ones we should take. I asked him if he was going to skin it and hang it in the campground and he said, "You know, I should. And that'd be a great rumor too. Can't you do that on the internet or something."

A Bit of Monkeying Around

Three days in the City was more than enough for Fred to be all rested up and itching to get his hands on some rock. Unfortunately, Susy was called on at the last minute to work Saturday night and I was then left to manage the Fred show solo for a couple of days. Both anxious to get out of the City, and with some of his vagueness rubbing off on me, I just chucked a bunch of stuff in the van and we hit the road. We drove most of the way to the Grampians before pulling off the highway to bivy on a small dirt road amidst the canola fields. Having done so at least a few times before, Fred rolled out the door into the grass and was asleep before I could make my bed in the back of the van.

The next morning we spun over to Summerday Valley, on the northern edge of the Grampians, and did a couple of pitches of climbing. Fred hasn't done any rock climbing since he fell off a horse a few months back and was a bit nervous about how he was going to feel but was looking plenty solid on the steep 5.6 that we did and totally stoked to be back out moving around in the vertical.

"Australia!"

"Some of these guys are doing all this 5.12, Moonlight Buttress stuff and I just can't keep up with them. And you know, I don't want to either."

Susy came out on Monday morning with our friend Tom, a motorcycle racing engineer in country for the Grand Prix. Before they showed up, Fred and I got three more pitches in; one of which he led, feeling a bit more confident.

Next up: some monkeying at "Mt." Arapiles to find out what Fred likes better and what he wants to do some more of. We'd like to head up to Moonarie in South Australia but it could be getting a bit hot up that way so might just hang out here for awhile and then over to Mt. Buffalo for a granite fix.

Fred's in the House

After almost two hours of searching we were getting a bit worried. He was already a bit concerned about the flights; Seattle to Melbourne is a rough trip even before you miss a couple of connections. I went to do another run through the baggage claim while Susy checked another gate and had him paged again. Walking down the escalator, I caught a brief glimpse through the columns of our missing climbing partner-in a clearing next to a busy carousel crawling around on his hands and knees. I walked toward him and could see that the contents of his pack were exploded across the floor and he was uncrumpling little pieces of paper looking for my phone number. I walked up to him, bent over and yelled "FRED!" couple of times with no response. I grabbed his arm and opposite shoulder. The look on his face when he saw me was absolutely priceless; purely amped and ready for "anything". Everybody should hope to be just like that when they're 87.