MMMMmmmmm..... yogurt and a hot cup of licorice tea, life is good. It's amost 10 PM Sunday night and I got home about an hour ago. I am sore. I am tired. I am SOOOO happy. I got to go climbing all weekend!
Whanganui Bay (pronounce the "wh" like an "f") is a climbing area located on Mauri land on the south west corner of lake Taupo. It is a collection of ignibrite (ryolite matrix) cliffs right on the lake side formed after a pyroclastic volcanic blast. Geologically this basicly means lots of pumis, ash and hot stuff got VIOLETLY blasted into the surrounding valleys and as it cooled, formed a mix of slow cooled, hard rock mixed with oodles of exploded gas pockets. What this means to me as a climber is loads of varied climbs ranging from perfect cracks (formed while the rock was cooling) for jamming variois bits of my appendages into, rippled slabs to delicately wind up, and best of all.... massive walls of pockets which look like swiss cheese!
Malcom, the nice climber who picked me up (rescued me) for the weekend on his way up fom Wellington, was definitely a stronger climber than me. This was a cool experiance as that I spent the whole weekend really pushing my limits and getting "spanked" by some seriously hard routes. I did on-sight sending a number of 18 through 20s (5.9 through 5.10d) on both trad gear and bolts. I also got the pleasure of thrashing around a bit on a 24 (5.11d!) which although I didn't get the crux (grabbing the very top), I did make it one move shy of the top! All in all, it was an incredible weekend..... now back to the real world!