High Dive (23) ★★

This Saturday past I had the mighty pleasure of getting behind the camera again to take some photos of my buddies Sam and Jason on the awesome "High Dive" in high dive gully.

Kim Carrigan established this route in 1982, and what a smacker it is. Steep, overhung jug hauling on some awesome holds leads to a committing crux going around the arete. For 23, it seems most of the difficulty would be in hanging around to place the gear. I ended up doing a pinkpoint flash on preplaced gear and I wouldn't give it more than 22. I can see why Dave Jones was so confident in soloing it as a warm up everytime he wanted to do the harder climbs in the gully.

The gully itself is incredible to look at, so overhung, like an inverted staircase above your head, that's home to some thugging mega classics like "Lats in the Belfry", "Power Lies and Corruption", "You're Terminated"

One can only hope to tackle these climbs one day.

The gully is also home to the more achievable "A Taste of Honey". There's a great ABC doco from 1977 showing Baxter, Taylor and Thompson giving A Taste of Honey a whirl, it's well worth a watch:

https://youtu.be/OrvaYmUQiQo?si=km2bjBPnE7KWahgS

(Note the waist belay when Andrew Thompson falls off seconding, those guys had balls of steel)

Nevertheless, it was a super fun climb, so enjoy these piccies I took:

Riles - 02/08/2024