Organ Pipes

Finally, I got my trip to the Organ Pipes. Gill had a day off, so off we trotted up the hill. We were going to do a three pitch 14. Since Gill is only new to climbing I was gonna lead it all. Which I was happy about - it would be a good confidence booster.

The Organ Pipes sits on the side of Mt. Wellington, the local Hobart crag. Its basically Fairhead overlooking a city, but you approach the crag from below instead of above. Other than that, its Fairhead...

The route got off fine, the first pitch was slow as I was still getting back into the swing of things, placing gear and the like. The switch over of belay went quick smoothly. The second pitch was fine, although I did get myself completely and utterly stuck in a crack.. it was almost a body width crack but with the rack on my harness, well lets saw I could neither move up or down and it took a lot of wiggling to undo myself.... As I continue up to the optional belay place I realised that I had used all my big gear and well there was no little gear on the climb. I put in two really dodgy anchors and was not happy, as I looked around to see what else would be a potential anchor I realised that was sitting behind a gigantic detached flake - how I missed that I don't know. So slinging both ropes around this, I felt alot more settled.

The third pitch, unfortunately, for me, was the toughest. I got half way up and then got really scared...I couldn't figure out what to do, again running low on gear, I was starting to panic and looking for alternative ways up. Nothing :(. There was only one thing to do, I had to commit to the climb, to get out of there. Yikes :(. With a couple of deep breaths, I did just that. I have never climbed so fast. Nothing like an adrenaline boost from a bit of fear to get you moving.

Happy with myself - we abseiled down as the sun was setting. It was a good day :)