Moonarie: Dream Lines in the Desert.

About a week ago I got back from my first trip to Moonarie, a beautiful sandstone crag placed in the middle of the red desert, on the edge of Wilpena Pound about 4 hours north of Adelaide.

What a remarkable place it is. The dirt is red, the trees are scraggly and thin, kangaroos, emus, lizards and birds are in abundance, there's no internet at all. Total outback wilderness. There is some intangible quality in the air, a bit of uncertainty, a bit of excitement, and the potential for some great adventures.

The view from inside the great chimney, The Ramparts.

Each day would start slow. You'd wake up sore and creaky from the previous day, have breakfast, grab the shovel and head into the paddock across the dry river bed to do your business, pack your bag for the day; lunch, snacks, water, sunscreen, first aid kit, etc...

Then you'd have to grit your teeth through the 45 minute uphill walk to the crag from bottom camp. The first 30 minutes aren't too bad, just a walk up a slight incline, but the last 15 minutes are brutal. Steep rock scrambling in the hot desert sun. It doesn't get any better throughout the trip either. You'd be knackered and need a 20 minute sit down at the fork in the path at the base of the crag. Then grab your gear that you'd stashed the day before and head off for a climb.

The rock quality is quite interesting. Some parts seem quite Grampians-esque, some parts Arapiles-esque, and some parts are like nothing you've climbed before. The rock is quite grippy and textured, making lots of nice holds, but it was hard to read at times. You'd get nothing in places you expected holds, and you'd be flailing around and then suddenly find something amazing somewhere you'd least expect.

You got worked hard in terms of gear placements as well. The rock didn't offer up nearly as many bomber placements as our blessed Dyurite, often forcing your hand with runouts, and fiddly, intricate or marginal placements. The rock was friable in places, the odd flake peeling off here and there not being an uncommon experience. It all just added to the sense of adventure.

Sam and his van at bottom camp.

Our declaration to the world. Jason poses in the background, sleeping under the stars.

The first day started late. With springs in our step and sparkles in our eyes, we proceeded to do the first of many walks up the hill, totally laden with all our climbing gear. It was brutal. I'd decided to carry my things up in a soft canvas bag with no handles or straps, and so for an hour I was hugging my bag, scrambling up steep sections of rock and tripping over my feet. It was gruelling. Once we reached the fork at the top of the walk I collapsed on the ground, laying on top of this soft bag, I couldn't move.

After some lunch and a big sit, Jason and I set off to get a couple pitches in. We did a sketchy scramble up to the base of Vortex (17) ★★. We ticked that, which was a very interesting and funky old school crack, and The Buckets of Jism (19) ★★ which was a bit unremarkable. It was getting quite late and the sun was starting to go down, but Jason wanted to try The Flying Buttress (15) ★★★, a classic four pitch 15 following a gargantuan vertical slash that makes it's way up the front of flying buttress. I was hesitant but we scrambled up to the base and started the climb. I took the first pitches, and Jason linked the last two.

I was getting increasingly nervous and cold as the light dimmed. It looked like I was going to be holding this rope for a while longer yet. I shot up as quickly as I could the moment I was on belay, reluctantly passing one of my cams that had gotten stuck in the rock. Rushing to get down, we must have missed the decent gully proper and ended up doing a tricky section of vertical downclimbing and traversing to get ourselves grounded with the remaining light.

Tired and hungry and pining to get to bottom camp, we started rushing down the track, but in the darkness we lost it almost immediately. What followed was about a couple hours of slipping and sliding down loose dirt gullies, getting scratched and stabbed by bushes of a thousand thorns, before we finally found the track again and rejoiced.

The second day was one of my favourites. The plan was to spend the week projecting Durban Poison (25) ★★★, A mega classic mixed route going up the side of the great chimney, and out on to the arete. Alex and I took turns sieging the hell out of the thing trying to get the gear on it for the coming week, but I was relatively useless. It was just so mentally taxing. We had finally gotten the gear in up until the runout bolted section at the top, but I just couldn't get past it. There was about 3 or 4 meters runout between the bolts and I was taking huge whip after huge whip. It didn't help that the climbing was slabby with bad feet and bad holds either. I wasn't trusting of myself and I got really rattled. There went my plan of having my first 25 in Moonarie, I didn't want to touch the thing again.

However, afterwards I jumped on the prized gem, one of the best cracks I have ever climbed: Fingerknickin (24) ★★★. An ultra classic finger crack right next to Durban. I wasn't so keen on coming to moonarie originally but when I saw this crack in the guidebook I was like "Oh My God'. And it delivered. A bouldery, beta intensive jamming problem followed by 20 meters of the most flowy swimming imaginable up a splitter hand crack. I was up there like "Wow, this must be what Indian Creek feels like!" I dogged it the first try, and very intensely worked the beta, before sending it on the second shot. I was so proud of that. Later in the trip I asked Alex if he'd want to try it. He said he "didn't want to waste his time". His loss I guess. It was my favourite climb of the trip, and probably my favourite climb of all time. Definitely one of the best cracks in the country.

Sam on the belay of The Endless Pitch ★★★

The Campsite. Photo by Dan.

Rak's morning routine.

After a rest day on the third day, Alex and I headed up to the great wall on the fourth. It was so hot that day It was quite unwise of us but you only regret the things you never do.

We did the sketchy rope scramble up and set off up Outside Chance (16) ★★.

He's prone to a bit of dramatization.

I was following up with the rope on my back. I hadn't tied it properly so I could feel it slowly slipping off. Yikes.

I had worked it out with Jason and Sam to get some photos of them on the great wall, so I got in position on rappel. It would have been nice to shoot them in the sun but the light was leaving just as they were getting up it, so I had a bit of trouble with contract between the background and the wall.

The next day was kind of fun in hindsight. Jason and I jumped on Nemesis (22) ★★★, and it was kind of awesome. The first pitch was this interesting juggy roof thing, but I lead the second pitch, the crux and it was SCARY. You start by thrutching up in to this Flaring V chimney, with a thin little seam at the back that takes some marginal wires, before plugging a good cam in a slot and running it out a few meters to an undercling roof. On the onsite attempt I plugged the cam in and just couldn't bring myself to continue on with the thought that this cam is my only good bit of gear between me and the belay. I had to sit and then I got the beans on the second go. Back at camp they said they all heard my shouts as I took the smallest winger of all time on to this cam just out of fear of it popping. I committed on the third try and got it, but man it was run out. After that, Jason and I rapped off and hit goat crag on the way back to camp. Billy Bunter (20) ★★ was a hit and so was Bone in Space (23) ★★, I tried a quick onsite attempt and retreated when I fell so we still had light to get back.

KEBABS FOR DINNER!! Marinated in BBQ sauce. It slapped.

Day Six and we were getting sore. The days were long and hard work, Hiking up that hill every day. Creaky joints, dry, smelly and gross. It takes a toll on you.

I wanted someone else to experience this ripper crack of Fingerknickin, I'd been egging Sam and Rak on to try it, so they finally came up to give it a go. I climbed up to put the gear on for them and to rig the rappel and take photos.

After getting back to the ground, I worded Sam up for a flash attempt who was eagerly eyeing the line, He's just been around the corner on The Endless Pitch, and was checking it out.

His little smirk after pulling through the crux section, he knew he had it in the bag from there.

They don't call it Fingerknickin' fer nothin'!

During the trip, we had one thing on our list that we were building up to. In the guidebook we'd spotted this incredible looking roof off-width crack called Curving Wall (24) ★★ that looked just heinously fantastic. We'd coordinated a whole day around it. Sam and Jason would be off doing a climb, while Rak and I took the lead on Curving wall, by the time we'd get up there Sam could rig a rappel and take photos of us. So off we set, up the ordinary first pitch at around 10am. By lunchtime we were up there ready to start the climb. The wind was coming in hard and we were getting absolutely battered and we were both shivering and shaking from the chill.

I managed to get the initial crack, and slapped in a massive number 6 cam above my head, but I just couldn't work out the way to get in to it, despite Sam pointing out all the holds for me. I had been defeated and lowered off.

Manu and Alex were climbing up next to us, and had topped out by the time I lowered off. Freezing our asses off, I gave Rak the ultimatum. Either you give it a shot, or I can rap off and get the gear back. He shouted out to the others "Ok guys new plan, I'm going to lead it!". Their laugher was not swept away by the wind.

No luck either. So he lowered off.

Sam decided to lower off as well, and coming past us he gave us some crap for not getting up it. "Go on then why don't you give it a go???" He shook his head with a grin and kept lowering past us, he only got a couple of meters before he stopped, looked down at the ground, looked up at the crack, looked at us, and started dogging back up to meet us.

We had planned to bring a ciggy and a beer up to the crack to take some stupid and funny photos but it was already stupid enough of a situation as it was, so we had a beer and a smoke break down on the belay before Sam went up.

Manu and Alex looking on from below.

He managed to dog up the thing, but Rak couldn't follow. I had to run up to the top of the crag to lower off and get him a rope. We had to leave behind all the gear, Rak had gotten the Number 6 stuck in there too, he couldn't get it out, so I had to rappel down the next day to retrieve the gear, I nearly had a heart attack lowering down over a sheer 100 meter drop on a grigri, trying to tap out that 6 with a hammer.

We scored a ton of booty on the last day, Jason and Sam went back to get my cam out that was in Flying buttress, plus some others that were stuck on another climb. Sam had found a genuine Chouinard stopper that turns out had belonged to another couple of climbers at the crag who had their dad's old climbing rack, he was gutted to have to hand it back.

At this point I was just absolutely rooted. Every part of me was sore, I was tired, grumpy. We finished off with the classic Pine Crack (19) ★★★ which was wonderful, but I got a nut stuck and I nearly had a fit. Luckily Rak the nut surgeon saved the day.

BOOTY!

Overall, the climbing was absolutely brilliant. It was so much fun being in such a remote and beautiful setting. It was hard work, and I was happy to be leaving by the end. It was a magical place, it had a sense of adventure in the air along with the heat that dried out your lips and flies buzzing about your head. I'd definitely be spending my time at top camp next time. Anything to avoid that walk in.

Riles - October 2024.