Kalbarri – routes in Stellar Wall area

Its amazing to live somewhere with so much unclimbed rock (even if the Golden lines were taken by visiting Victorians).  We climbed two new routes this weekend:

 

Kalbarri Bronze, 20m, grade 18.  Trad (one bolt at crux), Head up the really obvious blocky steep crack opposite Stellar Wall to bolt belay.  EDIT – JUST FOUND OUT THIS WAS DONE GROUND UP BY KATE SWAIN AND FRIEND IN THE EARLY 2000s WITHOUT CLEANING – MAD BASTARDS – ANYWAY NOW ITS CLEAN AND HAS A BOLTED LOWER. OUR ASCENT: R Wall, K Stübner 13th Oct 2019 (pretty sure this is a new route based on the fact that it took 4 hours to clean the loose blocks and sand off). The line is amazing, with fun steep moves – it feels more like a gym climb than a crack.  The rock is not quite as bad as it looks…

Kalbarri Bronze

FA

Lone Gum, 18m, grade 15, Trad.  Approx 50m L of Stellar Wall, head up the shallow corner/crack on clean orange rock; traverse slightly left to follow the easiest line to the beautiful white tree. FA R Wall / K Stübner 13th Oct 2019 (unless someone has done it?!)  The rock is solid with quite good small cams and wire placements. Rap off the tall white gum.  (If this route gets any traffic I’ll put in a lower-off).

Lone Gum

We also repeated Owen Davis’ classic Hollis Crack (16).  A #5 Camalot makes this route a pleasure.  I’d like to clean this and put in a lower off.