Sand and Stone

Not as far as it looks. ^_^

I have been going to the beach for the last we days (First day was 21st Dec) just to try and boulder the beautiful but illusive sand stone along the beach. Rock hard at the bottom but the higher you go the more the holds start to...... become tricky.

Each day I ended up walking a bit further and along the beach. Every day finding a new spot to just sit and chill or a boulder that provided some sort of climbable surface. I started to take the GPS along as I ventured out along the beach. ^_^ According to the GPS my last boulder was about 26km from where I started walking. Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself as that was only on day 3.

Day one I walked about 500m and there was what seemed to be an awesome overhang about 3.5 - 4 meters off the ground and it seemed manageable. At this point walking along the rocks I have been feeling and tugging on the stone about 2m off the ground,
hard and solid holds. A bit sharp at times but every hold had a sharp bit and a blunt bit. Aka. NICE!!

So I kit up and start to climb this beautiful overhanging wonder. Starts out easy. very crimpy but there are holds and feet all over the place. About a 1m above the dark line in on the rock right about where the overhang starts to really become a challenge the stone turns to sand and the holds turn to something else. The holds are still there and they still feel the same but try to put some weight on them and its like they just vanish and you end up with sand in your hand where a rock solid hold use to be.

It took me about 45 minutes to give up. This is after I broke off about every hold there was at the top. Also the hole in the ground where I was falling every time was starting to look like an open-pit copper mine.

Along the beach I found another overhand, about 4m high and even though the lighter soft center was all over the place it seemed to have a thicker harder "crust".

I was not going to let that fool me again, not till I have done some climbing on the rock. I ended up doing almost more of a traverse from the left along the edge all the way to the tip of the overhang and then topping out. Even though it took me about an hour to figure out it was not the most difficult thing I have done.








I was back the next day and this time I kept on walking. Walking till the rock changed into something that looked like a completely different world.

Not for climbing but pretty to look at. ^_^

I kept going till I found a slab that was put there by nature, man had his way with it and nature claimed it again.

After three days if I have not figured out this sand stone I was never going to. Breaking off one awesome hold, I had to re-think climbing this stone. After a while it dawned on me the only way I was going to climb this boulder was by displacing the pressure on the holds so evenly that at no point I was going to have my full weight on any of the holds. Slowly but surely I worked my way up the rock. Only breaking off one more hold, I managed to top out.

It all comes down to only using the darker stone. Never pull or stand on a hold without pulling or standing on 3 others or you will end up breaking a hold. It was such a game of balance that by the time I topped out I was so tapped I didn't know what was going on. ^_^

Chalk here and chalk there and now, HOLD!

The starting hold.^_^

View from the top.