I’ll see if I can persuade Mark to publish his account of the climb on this thread
Badlad's twisted my arm. Here my write-up of the climb from the 2020 expedition:
The word was that at Outrageous Junction there was an obvious continuation of the passage 20 m up the wall. We were pretty dispirited to find when we got there to scout it in the evening that it did in fact appear to be going straight back in the direction we’d come ! We did discuss giving up on it entirely on our return to the camp in Monolith passage because it didn’t look like a totally straightforward climb, but since we’d carted all the kit to near the end, we figured we may as well go for it the next day. Somewhat remarkably, the description was at least correct that it did look to be a big passage and it was about 20 m up the wall!
The next day, having dragged all the climbing kit through the aptly named Arm Stabber Choke, Si and I found ourselves beneath the passage entrance above pondering our options. The only real option to start the climb was 10 m or so left of the passage entrance, some 15 m lower. The floor was higher at this point than directly beneath the passage, but the horizontal distance would be a challenge. A longer but vertical climb was out of the question due to the absence of any usable rock. It really didn’t look good, but it was probably the least bad of our options.
After kitting up I reached a hand up to first ‘ledge’, which heralded an immediate cascade of loose rocks over my head. Not the best start. I waited for the dwindling flow of scree to peter out, allowing me to look up and reassess. It was the only option, so I reached up to clear more, again unavoidably cascading over my head on its way down. Sadly, this was a sign of things to come.
It felt pretty stressful just getting off the ground, which wasn’t too promising, and things didn’t exactly improve as I had to immediately traverse horizontally, playing a tune on the wall with the hammer before finding somewhere to place a vaguely acceptable anchor.
The ascent to the next ‘ledge’ was similar, and it was at this point that I realised that I was really just moving from one huge flake to the next. Nevertheless, another poor anchor made me feel a bit better before I came to the conclusion that further progress directly upwards was absolutely a no-go. Horizontal progress was the only way from here, initiating some hefty zig-zags in the belay rope. It was really beginning to feel like a fool’s errand.
A couple more poor anchors later left me at what seemed like a dead end in terms of possible routes, frustratingly with a ‘solid’ calcite face tantalisingly out of reach. Maybe the skyhook I had borrowed would be worth a go. I just managed to move up far enough to reach the calcite face, hooking the skyhook over the flake I was now on. This felt pretty uncomfortable, not really trusting the protection below, so two anchors were rapidly placed, followed by a minute thread.
Breathe.
I carried on, onwards and upwards, constantly on the verge of bailing. There was barely any choice of anchor placement at any point, just going from the least bad to least bad until, shortly before the largest looking ledge, the zig zagging belay rope finally had too much friction to overcome. Being ‘relatively’ happy where I was, Simon endured a loose clamber up below me to unclip the first few anchors, easing the friction enough for me to make progress.
I finally made it up to the (steeply outwardly sloping) ledge above, of course only after clearing loads of debris. I got a couple of anchors in and breathed a sigh of relief. Just eager to be back on the floor, I abseiled off without really looking around, de-rigging the dubious anchors beneath as I went.
I made it fairly clear to Simon once I was back on the floor that I really didn’t fancy the next bit. I didn’t know what it would involve, but I wasn’t keen! Simon went up to look, and unfortunately came to the same conclusion.
The ledge we had reached was not far off the level of the passage we were aiming for, but a huge loose buttress separated us from it. What looked like a relatively straightforward traverse from below turned out to be a total nightmare of hollow-sounding hammer blows and concealed cracks.
I naively volunteered to give it a go, deciding that it was just too unsafe to progress at or above our current level. The only way I was prepared to traverse the buttress was to gradually descend as I went, minimising the fall distance if anything gave way. This part of the “climb” was a bit unnerving, but an improvement on the initial ascent. More like conventional rigging than climbing, albeit on totally awful rock.
Sooner than I’d have liked, I reached the inevitable point where upwards progress was required. I had dropped a few metres from where Simon was now belaying from the ledge, but at least I was round the worst of the buttress. A direct diagonal ascent to the passage entrance was unfortunately not on the cards, with the band of completely useless rock that had initially prevented a vertical climb now in my way. The only option from here looked to be a vertical ascent from my current position up to a sloping bedding above me – the same that the passage was formed in, albeit higher at the point above me than at the passage entrance.
This ascent started off reasonably, relative to what had preceded it, but inevitably deteriorated as I went. The deterioration culminated in what looked to be the final crux move: the bedding above me looked tantalisingly like I could almost walk along it if I could get there, but there was nothing I could see that I could sensibly place an anchor in. After a bit of procrastination and desperately scrabbling around with my hands over the lip above me, I grabbed hold of a solid calcite overhang. Relief. From my position below the lip of the ledge, I couldn’t see what was there, but I could see the calcite above and was relieved to see it appeared crack-free and pretty solid. Feeling around there were various nooks and crannies in the calcite. There was bound to be
something I could get a sling round if I made the next move. Left with no other options I grabbed the calcite and asked for some slack from Simon. I heaved upwards, getting most of my weight on the ledge, and was immediately dismayed to find there was absolutely nothing to get a sling on! Precariously balanced and taking far more weight than I wanted on the hand gripping the calcite I managed to get an anchor in with my other hand. Finally, some real relief.
On a real high at this point I gratefully placed another anchor, providing enough protection for the exposed but gentle descent of the bedding, finally seeing me reach the passage entrance. To my relief, the passage continued as far as I could see, so I agreed with the others that I would go and have a quick check to see if it was worth them following.
The next couple of minutes gave me the real “Mulu experience”. I made the first footprints along a beautifully decorated 10 m wide, 5 m high phreatic tube passing a few inlets before it started descending into a larger space. This was certainly worth surveying. I rushed back and somehow Simon managed to derig my bizarre descending – ascending – descending route from his belay station and we could rig a straightforward pitch from the mouth of the passage to the floor. At least no one will need to climb it again!
Sketch of me and Simon nearing the end of the climb, drawn on a phone by Di whilst patiently waiting. Later this artistic activity would prove to have used a big chunk of the battery needed for surveying!
