Walking on the Twelve Apostles recently, I was reminded of a route I attempted with Leonhard Rust once upon a time on Valken Buttress. We did a lot of cleaning and abseiling and dogging and even banging in of pitons, but never put together a full ascent. I thought I would mention it here as an "open project", although not in the usual sense of a bolted line, but rather a line that I scoped out a lot (in the late 90s), but I haven't been back for 20 years now, so I would love to hear of someone opening the route one day. The concept of the line is to break through the middle of the prominent 3m roof that stretches across half the buttress, and go straight to the top.
We called the line Valken Frontal Super Direct (crazy, huh?). It starts as for Valken Frontal Direct Start, moving a couple of metres up and then scooting about five metres right onto a low belay ledge in the centre of the square brown slab, directly below the crack that goes through the middle of the prominent long 3m roof - this is the goal! Pitch 1: Straight up, using a shallow scoop as you near the roof, a short traverse left out of the scoop and a few freaky moves (21) to gain the base of the roof. Hand and foot jam through the roof (22), turn the lip and straight up the the steep little face for a few metres to a welcome rail (24). [ A hanging belay may be necessary on this rail. We dogged the lip of that roof for quite some time, so this pitch has not seen a proper ascent.] After this, move up diagonally right five metres to belay below a short steep white face. Pitch 2: Straight up the short steep white face (21), past an overlap (there may be a piton still there), and up to the halfway ledge that crosses Valken Frontal. Pitch 3: There is a white bulge directly above; climb the break either to the left or the right of this and up to a narrow ledge (20 metres, grade 22). Pitch 4: 25 metres, 17; straight up the face above; a pleasant pitch, wire-brushed in 2005, so hopefully still less lichenous than the rest of the headwall; the crux is the mantle onto the top of Valken Buttress, with your face thrust into a climbers friend thorn bush. It's a challenging, direct line, through what was then unchartered territory, and could be a worthy contribution to the routes on Valken. Have fun, kids - let me know how it goes. - Gareth Austin
Open project - Valken Buttress
Re: Open project - Valken Buttress
That sounds fun, a striking line. I hope it gets done.
On the same topic but a lot easier is an "alternative line" on Valken Corner that should be fun:
Do pitch 1 of Valken Corner (as per Cape Peninsula Select guide) and on the second pitch do the traverse and climb up the face to the left of the open book for about 10m (shared with the Valken Corner) and then traverse right at a good rail for about 8m and then directly up to the halfway ledge climbing on the face just to the left of the arete. I think it should go at about 20. This would avoid the loose gully on Valken Corner.
On the same topic but a lot easier is an "alternative line" on Valken Corner that should be fun:
Do pitch 1 of Valken Corner (as per Cape Peninsula Select guide) and on the second pitch do the traverse and climb up the face to the left of the open book for about 10m (shared with the Valken Corner) and then traverse right at a good rail for about 8m and then directly up to the halfway ledge climbing on the face just to the left of the arete. I think it should go at about 20. This would avoid the loose gully on Valken Corner.