Heres one for the endurance buffs!

With Summer approaching and the subsequent longer days we thought it a good time to suggest a Grose Valley challenge. Pierces pass is a great Spring/Summer crag with a lot of shade in the mornings and plenty of routes located near each other. It is the perfect place to maximise rock time as the weather gets warmer. We would like to suggest a challenge for climbers to climb a 1000m of routes at pierces pass in a single day. Note that all lengths and grades are from the guidebook. Our suggested circuit has the following legs:

1. Park car at car park of your choice
2. Climb Bladderhozen 110 23 (pitches or 21, 21, 23)
3. Rap back down Smegadeath and Walk to Smegadeath
4. Climb Ssmegadath to Rigby Hill 215m 23 (pitches 23, 20, 22, 23, 21, 22)
5. Walk over to Mirrorball area and rap in
6. Climb Mirroball back to ledge (don’t climb last pitch above ledge) 120m 19 (pitches 19, 18, 15, 19)
7. Rap back down Mirrorball and walk to Bunny Bucket Buttress
8. Climb Bunny Bucket Buttress 270m 18 (pitches 18, 18, 18, 8, 8, 17, 17, 17, 13)
9. Walk back west to top of Mirrorball and rap back to halfway ledge
10. Rap back down Mirrorball and walk to hotel California
11. Climb Hotel California 288m 21 (pitches ‘21’, 20, 17, 10, 18, 19, 20, 18 don’t climb the last short pitch)
12. Walk out along ridge and back to your car wherever you parked it.

This circuit does include 2-3 pitches of scrambling which may not be considered pure climbing but they are part of the routes. It also maximises the easier climbing but there are plenty of other routes that could be better suited to the circuit.

On completion you will have amassed:

  • 1003m of climbing
  • Racked up 564 Points
  • Rapped 520m
  • Walked about 6.5km
  • Climbed 31 pitches at an average grade of 18

Obviously there would be two ways to do it. One would be totally free climbing with no rests or pulling on gear and the other would involve aid climbing or rest on a pitch or two as required.

I think this would be a great accomplishment to achieve. I’ve done Bladderhozen and Smegadeath in a 5 hour day and was pretty wasted after that so to add 600m more metres on top of it would be great. Anyone keen to give it a crack or suggest an alternative circuit?