Third Attempt at Mount Barney

Sometimes I can get by with normal adventures. Like the past couple weekends Oksana and I drove out of town to go rock climbing and camping. Sometimes I’m OK with an adventure race, or a cycle up Mt. Coottha, or a long run. I might even accept going to a new beach or town, or last of all watching a movie. But that’s all relatively low adventure, the pedestrian sort that enjoyably occupies time but does not terrify and challenge me. I’m pretty certain all will go well, nobody will die, and I’ll go to work on Monday. That sort of adventure.

But sometimes I get this itch, this strong desire to find some high adventure. To me, high adventure isn’t entirely safe or certain, is generally pretty physically demanding and it is entirely fulfilling. It also tends to entail the climbing of tall mountains with a heavy pack. That’s what I sought this weekend as I attempted a second attack against Long Leaning Ridge at Mt Barney. This time I’m prepared much better after my experiences last time, and I fully intend to summit via my chosen route.

Mt. Barney is a bit special to me, if perhaps because its summit eludes me. I have climbed a few taller mountains with certainly more vertical gain in a day, but I’ve found Barney to be incredibly approachable while at the same time as difficult as I can handle. I could certainly have gone up an easier, more trafficked route. That wasn’t the point of this at all. It may be a short mountain, but I’m going to attack it along its most interesting and difficult pathway.

Mt. Barney, much like many Australian parks I’ve been to, has been a choose-your-own-adventure paradise to me. If you’re up for kilometers of rock hopping with a camp by a pristine clear and cold creek, have at it. There are quite a few ways of attaining the summit, with some ridges more steep than others, and isn’t that the natural thing to do with mountains. Long Leaning Ridge has multiple knobs that must be attained, each becoming steeper and higher than the last. A benefit of climbing this ridge is that in between the vertical knob climbs the ascent moderates so your cardio can catch up.

The logistics of high adventure take careful planning, and I’m learning. Thursday Oksana and I decided to do this. We invited Nate Thursday evening, and he invited his friends at work on Friday. I had the Subaru packed full of solidified adventure gear. I snatched Oksana after work, and we were off in search of more. Logistics are terrible sometimes, or at least the things they make us do. We arrived at the Lower Portals car park after 9 pm, and we were all walking down the trail in the bright moonlight.

Nate only had a hand torch, while Oksana and I sported bright head torches. The poor two other guys had nothing, but the brightness of the moon allowed perfect navigation. We made a fast pace towards the campground and within an hour had attained it, much to the glee of us hikers. We set up our tents, sized for one less each. Our tent is a single person design which could barely accommodate us, and we’re special friends. Nate and his two friends from work squeezed into my 2-person tent, and they also decided to travel without an insulating floormat. Logistics again. Nobody slept well, but it could have been worse.

Children in the morning sometimes act excited and have a hard time thinking about the excitement of the day. They get all flustered and forget what they are doing and walk back and forth trying to do things that they’ve only half thought out. Then they forget what they’re doing, act confused, start doing something new, remember and go back to the original task but really because they’re excited about what is upcoming. Apparently I do that too.

As we walked along the trail, we attacked the first vertical challenge. I started breathing heavily. Ostensibly this could be due to the 23.3 kg (51.3 lb) load that I’m carrying. My backpack, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, tent, and stove are all super light, but I’m carrying a 70 m rope, my trad rack, quickdraws, biners and belay devices, and 3L of water. Plus a few other things. Nate made a comment about my heavy breathing, to which I informed him of my excellent pranayama form and how heavy breathing gives me power to run up the mountain no matter what I’m carrying. It’s important to project the illusion of success.

A rock hop along a creek or river is one of my favorite things in life. For those that have never experienced the sheer joy of exploring the course of a waterway from within and across it, I can’t recommend it enough. The basics are that there’s a bunch of rocks with water flowing around them. It’s a joy to run up and down, find perfect balance all along the way or risk getting wet or badly injured. Stepping on a loose rock is an extra challenge, because you must be dexterous enough to move feet all while not falling onto said rocks and the water. Maybe it’s this danger that attracts me to it, or maybe I delight in the grace with which I can hop across their faces like an elf, even with a heavy pack. The water was gorgeous clear, and it was quite low making the going easy and fast. Sometimes we would walk a hundred meters over millennia softened slabs and then we would pick our way up and down across the boulder field, using extremely active legs in the process.

The boys were going up Barney Gorge. I had described all the fun Oksana and I had in mind on the ridge, and I don’t think they were quite ready for it, so the gorge is a simple ascent route. It’s not easy mind you. There’s a lot of boulders and steep slab that must be climbed, and in a few places the waterfalls require extensive detours. I gave them instructions, and we discussed PACE plans then we sent them off. This left Oksana and I to depart up the ridge.

But first, the most important thing is to get naked and go swimming. If you’ve never been in this situation, you are just missing out on the joy of a freezing bath in a clear, cold creek before an assault on the mountain. We also drank water until our bellies were full, and then we filled up bottles so we had 3L each. The quantity of water we carry in bellies and bottles more than anything else drives the length of our stay on the mountain, and I wanted all the time I could get. Shenanigans complete, we picked our line up the ridge.

At last we picked the start. We bashed inward through low thick scrub until we approached the beginning of the first knob. We lost time attacking higher and higher before we were greeted with slab which is too steep, unprotected, and generally scary to climb. I tried the first two pitches with my pack on, but I quickly got myself into a situation that I wasn’t happy with. My experiences on the mountain let me understand that there will usually be some approachable route. I decided to take my pack off to explore one route quite capably. I feel like I’ve been becoming a more competent climber, but once I got to the crux at the same location with a 23.3 kg pack I suddenly didn’t feel so happy with life. I downclimbed, which was made even more difficult because I had felt the fear. That’s the real reason I’m here. I want the smell of it. I want the taste of it. I want it to surround me, usually for very good reason. And then I want to conquer it.

Finding a safe route up the first knob required a substantial detour, and then the vertical climb was on. The bushbash climbs are fun too, because there is no trail. For the most part things are navigable, and sometimes you just thrash through thickets of Aussie bush. The goal is to not thrash too hard, because we have to do this all day. Two hours in and we reach the bottom of the second knob. I acutely remember this approach, and while I was delighted at my trail memory of the scene and aspect of the mountain, I’m appalled at our rate of progress. I also know I’m looking at another hour up.

It was an interesting moment to look off to the left and say, hey we remember bailing out down that gorge. We looked at the route we took closely from our vantage point and appreciated the madness and genius of the decision. On this mountain you can safely progress any area that you see a line of trees even if the terrain is otherwise deadly steep. However this put us in new territory, and an hour of steady uphill bushbashing led to the third knob.

Again we detoured and detoured to find a way to approach this thing. To our left was a vertical, unvegetated wall, but below it was a green streak towards the summit. We couldn’t find a suitable belay, or maybe I just couldn’t convince myself to go down before we went up. I think I was just keen to use a rope to more safely explore some vertical routes that I wouldn’t otherwise have attempted.

I saw a hand width crack extending more or less for 20m upwards with trees and a few ledges. I figured if it was a dead end it could still be a fun climb. We roped up and I led upward with my pack on. The climbing wasn’t hard, but the heavy pack and abundant choss reduced my confidence in the route. After this I set up an anchor and belayed while Oksana climbed. We repeated this twice more and walked up onto a broad slab at the crest of the knob. It’s 2pm now, and we need food for the next segment of the adventure.

It was excellent that the knob helped us climb quickly, because our progress was rapid with only a slight incline. The ridge narrowed so that we were fighting trees for the right to stay on the safe and narrow. To either side the ground dropped rapidly with scarce vegetation. We could see the green road much farther below now and decided to just forge forward because it’s always easy to go down with a rope but not so easy to go up.

Our progress was quite rapid now, as the fact that trees could barely grow on a narrow ridgeback that we could barely walk on was in our favor, mostly. This open view was amazing, and we could see the fourth knob, Leaning Peak. This massif is quite large and steep. I was imagining my attack routes to take most advantage of protective vegetation. Our approach became very steep and we struggled upward in increasingly loose soil with large loose rocks and less vegetation.

As we approached the mountain I saw a narrow arête which looked epic to climb, but I wasn’t sure it would be fruitful. We worked upward and attained a good viewpoint, but timing was against us. We had made a few mistakes that cost us time, and now it was 4:30 and the light is decreasing just as we get to some scary vertical stuff. We edged up along that massive structure, looking so easy to climb as we got close. I talked about abandoning the climb, and Oksana asked for more time. We carried on and upwards. Then we both hurt our legs stumbling over loose rock. I had a blood blister that swelled to 2cm high before relaxing, but it didn’t forget reminding me that it was there.

Our decision was nearly made, because we knew there was nowhere flat for a traditional campsite. We also were down to 50% of our water which would be much needed just that night, let alone the next day. I knew we could abseil into the gorge. We wrapped the rope around a sturdy tree and tested it. That was an easy abseil over large slabs devoid of vegetation followed by shelfs of dense brush. 30m down went quickly. It was still a very vertical world here, so we used the rappel to find and test a sturdy tree as a new abseil point.

The time to flake the rope after each abseil was minimal compared to the time it didn’t take to carefully descend the mountain without rolling end over end. We rapped at least 5 times before walking made sense again. Now life seemed to become harder for a bit, but the going got easier. We had to rap two more times before we reached the gorge at roughly its middle point. Now we had a new discussion regarding our options. The certainty of water and relative ease of “down” made that decision easier.

What followed was two hours of rock hopping down Barney gorge in the pitch dark with only our head torches for light. We came to four instances where we decided to rap down which I feel saved us time and injury. We are weary by now. Approaching the creek, we will have been trekking for 12 hours with no more than an hour of breaks in between. My legs are beginning to not respond precisely to commands which makes it quite difficult to navigate this treacherous terrain. My body has made a valiant effort carrying this large load and navigating this difficult terrain all day, and we’re elated to hear the babble of water as the gorge flattens out onto the creek.

I can’t be bothered to find the campsite, and I knew there is this gorgeous flat rock perfect for a little camp. I found it in the dark and had the tent up immediately. A quick bath in freezing water and a change into night clothes brought me back to human. The world was a good and kind place, and I was at peace.

Until my back started spasms that were terribly painful. Each one was a dagger into my sides protruding out my navel. Then my legs started to randomly spasm. Even my shoulders were dancing and writhing with pain! Oksana, who was intricately entwined with me in the miniscule tent was kept awake by my twitching. She was lucky she only felt the motion, because I had daggers of pain with every twinge. I can’t say I slept too well here either.

The morning brought exquisite soreness. It seems that every muscle was protesting its lack of rest. Yoga was in order, and a painful half hour later we were loosened up. However I was stalling, not ready to shoulder my burden just yet. It was a glorious day, and we were on a beautiful clear creek in lovely mountains. This was the right attitude to have, because lo and behold Nate and friends appeared out of the gorge. We chatted a bit about how they had attained the East peak, but they were keen to get off as their trip was a tad more rough than ours.

We set out a half hour after them, and we moved stiffly down the river until we came to the slab slides near Barney waterfall. There were some people around the bend, but we wanted to get naked and take a bath so we did. Shortly one of them came walking towards us, and it turned out to be our friend Simon. He was leading a team to conquer Short Leaning ridge, and then join long leaning to attack Leaning peak like we had planned. A more serious injury caused them to turn back.

I should mention we put our clothes back on at some point before we talked to this group. They left before us which was great, because we could then inhabit the very best slab slide and freezing pools naked as planned. We had a long amazing lunch here, dipping into the pool to relax from the heat. Our muscles feeling better, we set off down the river at a good pace. Before we knew it, we were at the campground and reunited with Simon’s group who we followed to the car park.

After that it’s back to low adventure mode. A few hours driving, and a Korean feast later we were happily back home. We may not have attained our goal of the summit, but we definitely grasped at high adventure. Next time, we’ll go an easier way so we’ll make the summit for sure!