Climbing: Part Last

So, after the hippy chili and the American drinking games, we walked a little distance down the road to a campsite where Matt had set up a campfire. I sat by the fire and watched as everybody and their dog got drunk and hilarious. Sadly, the drunken shenanigans weren't nearly as awesome as I would have hoped, I mean, what equation is better than drunks+fire=shenanigans? But we all sat around the fire, talked, sang, listened to Matt play his digeridoo, and a truly awesome time was had by all.

Me playing with the fireworks setting on my camera:

By 2:00 or so, everybody was either too liquored up or too tired to continue, and we all left to our respective places of residence: some just brought their sleeping bags with them and slept under the stars, some smarter individuals had brought tents to sleep in, and one very stubborn individual made his lonesome way back up the hill to the Wool shed. Yeah, that was me. Now, it's a simple walk from the campsite to the Wool shed in daylight, you start near the rock walls we climbed during the day, walk upwards along a white gravel path, open a gate, walk some more, jump two more gates into a cow paddock, cross the street, ascend another hill, and you end up at the Wool shed. Easy. Seriously. By Day. By night, on the other hand, it becomes somewhat more difficult, especially with a new moon. The only thing I could see as I attempted to walk home was the white gravel of the road, everything else was effectively black. Honestly, this was no problem, I rather enjoyed it; looking at the stars, alone, walking in the dark just thinking about nothing in particular. The tranquility was sadly brief. As I entered the cow paddock I remembered what somebody else had told me earlier, that these weren't cows, they were bulls, half-castrated so that they had no horns and a "happy" disposition. I like to think of them as half cow/half bull crossbreeds, becuase these were not exactly complacent animals. "Whatever," I thought, "they'll all be asleep and I'll just waltz on past 'em." It worked until I noticed that there was a cow just to the left of the gravel road. The great thing about gravel, of course, is that it's rather loud to walk on. So I got within about two meters of the cow/bull, and it stood up and stared at me. I stared at it. It made a muffled, angry "moo." I took one step closer to guage its intentions. It took one step closer to me and made a less muffled, more obviously agressive "moo."

I walked around the cowbull paddock, returned to the Wool shed, and went to sleep.

Earlier I promised to rant about the climbing rating systems. I think now's a good time to do so.

American: So, one day two climbers were out climbing a rock. They got to the top and decided that the climb they had just done was the most difficult climb in the world. So, logically, they called it a 5.10 (there's a reason for the 5 but I don't know it), and they would rate other climbs with respect to the highest possible difficulty, the 1o. Then another group of climbers went climbing and realized that the rock face they had just surmounted was more difficult than the climb the other guys had called a 5.10. So they called that climb a 5.11. Another group climbed another climb, harder than the first, but less difficult than the second. And thus the 5.10 a,b,c, and d were born. This retarded process has continued increasing ratings up to the 5.14d.

Australian/New Zealand: Unlike the dumb yanks, they decided that their system would start at 1, and continue with climbs that can be done without the use of the hands (stairs, etc.) up to a 10, after that point the use of hands is required. The climbs that I did roughly correspond to a 5.7, 5.8, and a 5.9 bordering on a 5.10. Nothing impressive, but quite fun nonetheless.

English/French: I know very little about them except that both systems are effectively the same, but the French started a little lower than the English, just to be different.

In case you can't tell, I rather prefer the Aussie system over the American system, mostly because it makes sense to start difficulties at one and do one point increments. It's really, really arbitrary and dumb to start at ten, add letters, and then decide to jump up one number after four letters. Bah.

Here's the wall that I climbed the second day, it's called Frogatt Edge. We had less time to climb on Sunday because some, admittedly bizzare, people preferred doing their homework for monday and getting to sleep before 2:00 over climbing up a steep rock-face. Weirdos. Oh, and they said something about being sore from climbing on Saturday, I don't understand 'em.

This climb was a 14, but it has the distinction of being the first route that I've ever lead-climbed. It's sort of a coming of age thing for a climber, it's like turning 16 and driving a car, or turning 25 and being able to rent a car. I did it without difficulties, and now when I get back to the states, I can lead-climb! Hooray!

This route was a 16, but it was really, really fun. Climbers like to name their routes cute or poignant names, this one's called "White Christmas." It was just chock full of really fun little balance and control moves and it had nice hand-holds if you could get yourself into the proper, contorted position.


This route was a both a 16 and an 18, one face of the rock was a 16, but the person who ran the rope ran it off of the wrong side of the rock, so you were forced to climb the 18 side of the rock face after the first half of the climb. We just called it a 17. No cute name for our hybrid climb, I'm afraid.

This climb I didn't get to do because we ran out of time. It was only an 18 with jugs everywhere, but it was a really, really long climb, so everybody spoke of it with a tone of reverence, or at least of respect. It's called "Terra Incognito."


And, for those of you who enjoy this kind of thing, here are some pictures of the second day's surrounding countryside:


After saying goodbye to the rock and shedding a single tear, we drove to Taupo, to take a quick bath in the geothermal hot springs that you can bathe in for free. But before we got to the hot springs, our driver, Jeremy, asked if we would like to look at Huka falls. Naturally, I said yes. The falls have a spectacular shade of blue that's nearly impossible to describe; it's as if tropical waters were stolen from the Carribean, filled with a brilliant cerulean dye, then dropped into a clear mountain stream to cascade, brilliant and singular, in the form of a forgotten waterfall. I thought they were pretty.

Apparently there were boat tours of the river and the falls as well, they may be worth looking into in the future. . .

After that, we finished our jaunt to Taupo, and the geothermal hot springs. Before I talk about that, however, how's about some pictures of Taupo?

The hot springs were pretty awesome. The source of the hot spring begins right next to the river, runs into some naturally forming pools (which make awesome seats), and flows into the river right next to it. So, within about 4 feet you have the option of sitting in Hot-Tub hot water, cold mountain river water, or a mixture of the two. I, being the person that I am, took the middle path, mostly because it was awesome getting both extremes battering your body at the same time. We bathed there, let the hot water cleanse our wounds, got out of the beautiful water, dressed, had some Subway, and drove back to Palmerston North, ending three days of awesome climbing, and even more awesome times.