Multi-pitch on Mt Tibrogargan

Every time I drive to the Glass House Mountains I get struck by the same feeling. Driving along a section of road, you round a bend and the towering Mt Tibrogragen comes in to view. From the road the south-eastern face looks like the head of a gorilla, and I always get the urge to climb and explore the exposed cliff faces seen from the road. Having only single-pitch experience I had avoided the longer climbs that the mountain offered, but today that was to change.

Leaving Brisbane before dawn we arrived to the base of Mt Tibrogargan not long after sunrise and made our way to ‘Desperation Wall’ to begin our climb. We set off under clear blue skies on ‘Zeitgeist’, a 120m multi-pitch grade. I led the first pitch, a 35m (17), then sat on a nice ledge and belayed Joel on his way up. We swapped lead with Joel climbing the second pitch, a 38m grade 13, then I finished the route by leading the final 45m grade 15 section. Not the most difficult climb, but the longest I had done by a great margin so I was happy to not exert myself too much and concentrate  on my multi-pitch technique.

Arriving at the top we scrambled up past the final bolts and rested in the shade of some caves. We enjoyed the stunning view and the impressive cave formations before heading back to the ledge to abseil back down. Not having too much previous experience in rappelling down my heart in my mouth as I leaned back over the edge of the cliff and lowered myself down.

It took a longer than expected to abseil all the way back down but I was more than happy to take our time and make sure we did it safely. As we climbed with two ropes we were able to rappel down in longer sections, but it was a lot harder to manage, especially as we had to pass some climbers ascending. A few tangled ropes and a dropped belay device later (luckily we had a spare) we were on the ground and ready to return home.

I was very happy to complete my first multi-pitch climb, and can’t wait to go back for more! And thanks to Joel for literally showing me the ropes.

More photos here

Mud crawling and rock climbing in the Glass House Mountains

Discussing our climbing options for the day over a hot coffee on a cold winters morning, Chris and I decided to head to Mt Beerwah, where neither one of us had climbed before. We decided that the crag "Wayne's World" would be the best choice for a day of fun climbing, so we set off in my 4wd following slightly unclear directions into the state forests of the Glass House Mountains.

We turned off the dirt road down a steep rutted track that wound deeper into the scrub. We stopped and search in vain for a well hidden track that would take us to the Southern face of the mountain. Undeterred we turned around and took a different track back to the main road. We found another turn off that looked like it could take us where we wanted to be, but it soon turned away from our destination. 

We decided to head to another part of the mountain that we knew we could find, but on the way there I decided to put the Patrol through its paces off road.

This is what happened.

In my hubris I decided to drive through the first mud pit I saw, which happened to be a lot deeper and rutted than I expected. Barely past the steep drop off the Patrol quickly became stuck on its axles, and even if the wheels reached the bottom of the ruts the tread was too caked in sticky clay to get any traction. Lucky I had the foresight to pack my hand winch, so I walked the frigid muddy waters and started looking for my recovery point.

I found what I was looking for, anchored my winch to a strong tree and very slowly started to pull her free. Eventually we dragged her out of the mud without any further problems. There was a long divot in the mud where we had dragged the diff all the way through the pit, I had no chance of getting through on my own!

Relieved to be out we set off further along the track to make it through to the main road. Once the tyres had shaken off their mud coating we had lot of fun driving the rest of the way, through some fairly steep, degraded and rutty section of track.

It doesn't look as difficult on video as it was in real life, but the Patrol handled the rest of it with ease.

We made it to Mt Beerwah without any further scares, and made our way to 'Mosquito Wall', a section of low graded climbs where we practised abseiling and setting up top-belays in preparation for some longer multi-pitch climbs.

We called it a day as the sun was setting, we headed back to our meeting spot nine hours earlier where we demolished a family sized pizza in a few minutes.

We left our separate ways, I stopped at a car wash on the way home and spent 1/2 and hour with a high pressure jet hose scouring the underside of the to remove the severe amounts of clay all through the suspension and chassis rails.

All in all a fantastic adventure, well worth the mud, sweat and fear (of the winch failing).

A couple more photos here