New Routing in Hong Kong

Last weekend was the second weekend in a row that I’ve been helping my regular climbing partner, Nick Smith, develop a crag here in Hong Kong. Nick has already put in some serious effort to cut a path to the base of this crag and spent lunchtimes brushing lichen, cutting vines and digging out cracks but I feel that as a duo we managed to achieve quite a bit of work over the past weekends.



The bottom of the crag sits in a little grotto, guarded from downhill by a wall of rock. Originally the best way to access the foot of this crag was a relatively easy (maybe V0-ish, 6m-ish) corner boulder problem. Generally this would be a good warm up but after lugging 15kg of gear through the jungle, fighting with the undergrowth most of the time, having to climb, downclimb, climb, downclimb with gear gets to be a little wearing. By the end of the day, however, we had cut ourselves a nice path that, while not a footpath, was perfectly adequate and a lot better than the boulder problem entrance.

Also during the day we managed to make first ascents of three of the four traditional lines at the crag. The first was a layback, crack line with a hard start, a tree growing out of the crack at half height and a nice finish. Next I climbed the trench with not great pro lower down and quite a wide fist crack at the top. We both managed to place my #4 Camalot, confirming that it was a worthy purchase. Lastly I climbed the corner crack which offers quite good trad pro down the bottom and when the crack runs out, Nick's placed a bolt to protect the delicate finish. This is probably my favourite climb so far at the crag, although easy, is pretty interesting and engaging till the top. By the way, none of these climbs have been named yet so any help would be most welcome. We’re going for a theme of Hell/Hades/Satan/The Devil etc. Some that we’ve come up with so far are (all the god ones are Nicks): Looseifer, Crossing The River Styx, The Devil wears Prana, The Divine Comedy, Brimstone… Any suggestions left in the comments will be seriously considered and any that we use will win a prize*! (*prize may or may not be a handshake or kick in the shins)

Later,
Joe


The harder crack with tree at half height.

Lamma Island

Last weekend marked the 3 year anniversary of me and Hoi Yee spending inordinate amounts of time together and so to celebrate we decided to head out to one of Hong Kong’s numerous outlying islands. In fact Hong Kong has more than 260 outlying islands, many of which are uninhabited but we decided to head to Hong Kong’s third largest island (after Lantau Island and Hong Kong Island itself), Lamma Island.

Our day started with bacon and eggs on toast, a very unusual breakfast for here, replacing our usual weekend morning/lunch meal of either Tzuk (Congee) or Dim Sum. As a side cultural note, it’s actually difficult here in Hong Kong to buy bread with the end crusts. Most “loaves” here are actually half loaves with the ends cut off, probably only 7 slices in total.

Anyway, after breakfast we slowly got ready and headed to Central Pier where a lot of the boats / ferries to outlying islands depart from. Once aboard it was a short trip around the western edge of Hong Kong Island to reach Yung Shue Wan. It’s a very peaceful harbour town, built right along the edge of the water. Hong Kong’s only wind turbine peeks over the horizon and looks as out of place as I did at the ‘Hello Kitty Secret Garden’ which, incidentally, I went to last year.

It took me a while to realise that there aren’t any actual roads here, no cars, just narrow paved walkways. This is hammered home as we watch a mini-sized ambulance part the crowds on its way to somewhere. It’s actually kind of refreshing to think that there’s no cars here but the stacks from Hong Kong Electric’s Power Station (also peeking over the horizon) stop me from becoming too wistful. A quick tour along the main street nets Hoi Yee a handful of hippie-esk jewellery and a new bag, all I might add at surprisingly low prices for a touristy hotspot. We chow down some silken tofu that was okay, but not the best ever and return to our wandering. You’re actually able to walk to the village on the other side of the island and take a returning ferry from there but time was running out so we headed back to the ferry we arrived on stopping only to down a pint of bear-zuo (coke for HY, the waitress had never head of a ‘lemon, lime and bitters’), that’s beer for all you gweilo out there.

After returning to central we decided that instead of the separate Japanese noodles and post-dinner karaoke we had planned, we should follow the examples of chocolate and orange or car and boat, and combine the two. This ended up more along the lines of the second example, as eating while singing caused not so great crooning and the food was just plain not that great. Cultural note: Karaoke in Cantonese is called Cheung Ka-la-o-kay (basically “sing karaoke”) which (because Hong Konger’s are notoriously lazy with their own language) is usually shortened to Cheung kay, leading to a combined karaoke / dinner being called “kay buffet”. Karaoke here is quite an experience in itself and one that I thoroughly recommend, although in the future, I think I’m going to stick to separate singing and dining.

Peace out,

Joe

Hong Kong's only wind turbine peeking over the hill


Obligatory anniversary couple photo


Sunset over the harbour in Yung Shue Wan

Centralsaurus

SOHO Main Face, Cenrtral Crags, from www.hongkongclimbing.com

I was pumped up for a big day on the rock on Saturday to make up for not really doing any serious routes last week. I had a 'tick list' in my mind that looked ambitious but possible (just) with the first one the only one I'd done before:

• Lan Kwai Fong, F6a (Aus: 17/18ish) * - A warm-up route (but still serious) that I've done before.

• Centralsaurus, F6a+ (Aus: 19ish) * - A great looking thin line up the main SOHO face.

• Peel St, F6b (Aus: 20ish) *** - Supposedly the best route at Central Crags

• The golliwogal lives!, F6a+ (Aus: 18ish) (looks like it deserves stars) - A great looking trad climb even if a little dirty

• Independence Day, F6a+ (Aus: 19ish) *** - A really varied looking bolted route

As it turns out my climbing partner had hurt his back during the week so it pretty much meant that we weren't going to be able to get through this bunch and that I was going to be doing all the leading. I'd also decided that I was going to wear my helmet on every climb just because it's good practice, but don't worry about scaning the rest of this post, I didn't get a chance to "test" my helmet and hopefully won't have to!

So I started up LKF (route "3" above) which having done it twice before makes it pretty easy and a bit of a soft touch at F6a. No worries, I practically ran up that thing although as per usual Nick put my speed to shame. On to Centralsaurus! (route "7" above) I was a bit nervous and the bottom of the route was slimey from rain earlier in the week. After a false start and sliding off the first move once, I was on the wall and was so nervous you could practically call me "Johnny". Apparently the helmet doesn't make me more 'courageous' and in fact I didn't really notice it was there which isn't really such a bad thing.

[Spoiler Warning!] Route Beta Ahead:
So the route starts up a series of slight overhanging blocky steps with fairly good handholds to gain the main face where things die down to crimp-ville and for me: scare-town. The route makes very thin moves up the wall and a race between me and a half-chewed slug up the wall would've been hard to call. Eventually the angle softens a bit and gets a bit slabby although it's still pretty absorbing climbing. A few moves up the top slab and you gain the anchor, sadly for me this happens a couple of meters after the mid-point of my 50m rope meaning that a standard rappel would deposit me roughly 3-4 meters above the ground and probably with a visit to the doctor. In the end we had to make a diagonal rap to a station a bit further down and then set everything up for another rappel. Next rope: 60m, for sure. Here, I must apologise again to Nick for my --s--l--o--w-- siege of the climb while he patiently belayed with a sore back.

After my extended dance with fear up Centralsaurus we had barely enough time left for a single regular route let alone another haunting on the tougher Peel St so we decided to brawl with the relatively easier Club 64 (route marked 10). Again I lead, but this time the climbing proved to be easy but interesting with the toughest section the final moves to the anchor. Once again the route proved too long for my 50m rope and we rapped most of the way down the route into a bit of a gully wrapped the rope around a couple of trees and "batman-ed" down the rope. We packed up, my trad rack being solely for weight training yet again, and hiked out. Not the tick-fest that I was hoping for but I'm still pretty stoked with my lead on Centralsaurus. More photos to follow... I'll take some of the route next time I'm there.

Peace out,
Joe

Flight by Night

I decided that because it only took me 10-20mins on the bus to get to work I should try to run home one night and then back to work the next morning. HY's parents had also told me that there was a 'short-cut' via a trail that lead through the jungle from Hung Hau (where I live) to UST (where I work) so I decided that last night I should give it a go.

It being pretty late when I stated (around 7.30pm) and completely dark I decided to take my headlamp which worked for approximately 5mins before deciding to die. As it turned out those 5mins where all I really needed as once in the dark my eyes quickly adjusted. Google Earth tells me it's just over 3km from work to home, that's great I can handle that easy! Google Earth also tells me that the 'short-cut' takes a spur which rises around 40m vertical meters then descends more than 120m all in the 3km, also fine-ish, shouldn't be a problem. What Google Earth doesn't tell me is there's about 3 bazigilion stairs in that 3km and that in profile the route looks like a sine graph... sore knees aside the journey was pretty straight forward and the steep downward steps pretty much slowed me down to a pace where I wasn't wearing myself out (stopping for photos may also have contributed). In fact in was downright enjoyable (sore knees aside) to be completely isolated for a change, so I think this will become something pretty regular. I couldn't however bring my self to do the return journey at some ridiculous hour with so many stairs ensuring I'll need a bit more motivation than I had this morning. Good to have challenges to look forward to right?

Joe


The route



The view towards home

Monday Climbing

While the first day of the long weekend was spent at Disney the last was spent climbing at central crags. I was planning to scratch up my new trad climbing gear (Link to flickr) but it wasn't to be and I ended just lugging the extra gear all over slopes. We started out at Central Crags East and Austin lead the nose, an F4 with decent exposure and great views (above). We then went looking for Bird Nest Crag with it's promise of two easy trad routes but after walking past a great looking bolted route and slogging halfway up a serious rocky slope we decide to go back and give it a go. On the way back we noticed a trail further to the west so we followed it to find to rather new looking bolted climbs. Nick lead the first a great climb up a slab, across a knife-blade arête and a high step over an overhanging section onto a hanging wall... Hopefully my description has conjured up some images, otherwise I'll get some photos next time I'm there. The second climb was a very short slabby type route that was more of an access route for what looked like a great potential trad route. As it was the end of the day and the route looked very dirty we decided to leave it but on returning home I find that it has already been climbed and at a the fairly amenable grade of F6a+... Looks like I'll have to save it for next time...

Later doodz,
Joe

Saturday at Disneyland

Despite the AFL grand final playing live on cable on Saturday I went to Hong Kong Disneyland on the first day of my long weekend. I've been to HK Disney before but this was supposed to be a special "Halloween" extravaganzas.

I wasn't that impressed really... It was just basically the same old Disney with a new "haunted hotel" and "super creepy french fries". Not that there's really anything wrong with that and Disney's supposed to be about the characters etc but I'm an action kinda guy so having done almost all of the rides before there wasn't that much new stuff for me.


HY on the Madhatter's Teacups.


A photo of both of us in front of the fantasy castle.