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Black Sabbath FIn a...
 
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Black Sabbath FIn and Face RocknRoll crag Montagu

 

(@snort)
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Joined: 3 years ago
Posts: 22
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With Sebastian Prevost we did a free ascent of Iron Man and then also did the first pitch of  Into the Void in keeping with the Black Sabbath theme and that continues up the tricky offwidth.  It is maybe a ittle harder than 18  if you do not know how to climb cracks and do not know how to hand jam. Both routes are stellar for the grade and especially so for trad. The protection is excellent.

I am super surprised that Montague rock has delivered such good trad routes and a bolted lower off is at the top of the second pitch of both routes and 60m ropes gets you all the way down. 

I strongly recommend Into the Void  for anyone who wants to learn how to climb relatively easy cracks with good gear (up to the offwidth). I am quite confident on that kind of climbing so did run it out. If you are learning, take a triple rack one inch to 3 inch cams or break up the route into 2 or 3 pitches.  You need at least one no 4 or preferably 2 no 4 cams for the Offwidth of Into the Void or a 4 and a 5.

Then Iron Man, superb crack climbing, War Pigs a cruxy crack and arete climb and Paranoid a delicate steep face are added.  Both top end steep and demanding  21+ routes.   Good pro though.  

All the routes on the Black Sabbath fin top out on the pinnacle with the best option to climb up the front crack of the pinnacle, then move right on Jugs to the right arete where a bomber green camalot fits and then a delicate step uo left ascends you to easy rock.  Another easier option is to go left around the back and up but rope drag is prohibitive.

Mark Straughan and me also did 2 routes on the Pinnacle to the right on 30 March called Dying to Live 18 and Never Say Die 13 which was Marks's first ever trad lead and it was an onsight first ascent.  

The lower off is shown in the pic and found on the ramp up left of the Dying to Live pinnacle but this will be improved and beefed up in due course.  Remember that when using such a lower off the heaviest person with all the heavy gear goes first and tests is properly with a back-up.  The person without the back-up must slide down smoothly! 

 

Babaji and Iron Man topo front on low res
Black Sabbath East Face
Lower off from Dying to Live

   
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