Simon Mentz reviews Adventures at the Edge of the World – The Epic Story of Tasmanian Rock Climbing by Gerry Narkowicz and Simon Bischoff It is hard to know where to start with this new book from Gerry Narkowicz and Simon Bischoff, but it would be fair to say that Adventures at the Edge of the World – The Epic Story of Tasmanian Rock Climbing is quite simply the most ambitious book on Australian climbing to date. Coffee table in size (eds:…
Chalk is chalk, right? Sometimes this can feel like a truism, particularly when most of us would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between different brands of chalk. However, truisms are only true until they’re wrong or, more relevantly, you run into some truly terrible chalk. While testing chalk by simply climbing doesn’t feel particularly scientific, we can report that Tokyo Power Industries (TPI) chalk is not terrible – in fact, we would say it is amongst some of the…
Moonarie is a special place, offering excellent climbing in a dramatic and lonely setting. Gerry Narkowicz spent Easter there leafing through the newly released guide to the Moon and ticking off classics Moonarie is a world class crag situated 450km north of Adelaide in the Flinders Ranges, Miles From Nowhere* to most people, but a place that every Australian climber should aim to visit at least once in their lifetime. Climbs such as Outside Chance (16), Pine Crack (19), Downwind…
We take a look at the DMM Ceros and the Grivel Clepsydra S, a couple of the locking ‘binas available to the good climbers of Oz. TL:DR DMM Ceros – better action than all of the Arnie movies put together; likely as unkillable as a Landcruiser Troopie Grivel Clepsydra S – fun, small, surprisingly intuitive but not for everyone The holy trinity of route climbing is the rope, the harness and the locking ‘biner. A unified tryptic keeping you safe….
It feels a lot like multipitch season. But to be honest, this is probably any time but winter as I am a big softy and don’t like being cold, especially not for long periods of time locked into going to the top and still looking at a few pitches to go all numb and sooky. There are some unique dilemmas that come with climbing multiple pitches and mostly this is about carrying stuff. No matter if that is what you need…
Angus Taylor reviews The Dawn Wall, which is currently showing around Australia. At first light, the Dawn wall is illuminated on the towering ship stern of sheer granite that is El Cap, and it holds all who see it in awe. The Dawn Wall film, in a similar way, shines with the brilliant light of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s burning desire to climb it. The result is much the same – awe. In what some called ‘the moon landing of climbing’,…
