Semi-radness

Headed back up Leaning Tower yesterday with Big Wall veteran Alex from Tasmania. Didn't send but had a rad time! It all went pretty well till the big roof on the 2nd-to-last pitch. Got there feeling tired but still with a bit of strength left and super-psyched to try one of the final cruxes of the climb. Unfortunately I misread the sequence of moves to get into the roof and flailed around trying different approaches before finally working out how to climb it. This was a bit silly as in hindsight the sequence is really obvious (and it's awesome! big moves up from a wet sloper to the roof underclings and then a few punchy moves before a desperate slap around the corner of the roof to a sinker handjam). I managed the rest of the pitch pretty easily and decided to come back down and try and free-climb the pitch cleanly. My arms were toasted though, I got most of the way out the roof before my foot slipped of a smeary hold and I didn't have enough juice left in my arms to hang on. Gutted, I fell and the Leaning Tower free ascent will have to wait for another day. It was cool to go to the top though, and great to actually get worked trying to free some pitches as opposed to just sitting around waiting for them to dry out. Conditions are getting better here now and all sorts of people are heading up on all sorts of routes. There's a log jam on Freeblast and a few teams are heading up to freeclimb.

In other news the gear is finally down from Freerider thanks to Crazy John and Crazier Anna. The haul bag was up on the wall for a few weeks and survived about three storms. Unfortunately the gear inside got wet and there's now an interesting white fungus growing on the lobes of the number 5 Camelot (sorry Adam). Zac and Elmar just arrived in the Valley and they look pretty keen.