This is the first bay on the left AFTER the gorge hiking track parking area.
It is
located (0.4)km from the start of the gorge and is easily identified by a yellow
"S" (wiggly road ahead) sign just past the pull off. Bay 1 offers both bouldering
and lead climbing possibilities. There are some decent cliffs, some of which
can be top roped from the guard rail using a few long slings. The bouldering is
an interesting (albeit small) venue which is actually UNDER the highway. It
can be reached by walking just past the yellow "S" sign and then down a
makeshift path on the left. The cliffs are actually directly below the car park.
To reach the roped climbs, you can walk down the hill (past the boulder) and
make your way along the river using a series of guide ropes. The other option
is to abseil from the guard rail and pull your rope when you reach the grassy
patch at the bottom of the crag. "Groovy Gecko" is the face you will typically
abseil down and because of it's location and easy grade, it makes a great "final
climb" as that you can opt to place a quick draw at the belay and continue up to
the guard rail. This enables you to belay the remaining people up the route
from the parking lot (perhaps while listening to the car radio even!).
Routes
| Reference | Title | Grade | Length | Pro | Quality | Alert | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1Nathen's project | 0m | |||||
This fun, possible 2 pitch line starts at ground zero on the left end of the cliffs |
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| 2 | 2Choss Heap | 0m | |||||
This seems like it would be a great line to bolt..... but the rock quality is poop. |
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| 3 | 3Mankey Brown Crack, 13 | 13 | 2 |
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What? A trad line!!! This line climbs the crack which starts at the belay ledge |
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| 4 | 4Trundler's Delight, 19 | 19 | 6 |
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This route gets a mixed review...... the first part of the first pitch is
or run it as one tall pitch, clipping one of the belay |
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| Erica's Delight, 17 | 17 | 13 |
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(variation) |
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| 5 | 5Erica's Arete, 13 | 13 | 6 |
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Originally lead as part of "Erica's Delight," this is also a great route by itself. |
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| 6 | 6Bling, 15 | 15 | 5 |
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Shares the first bolt of "Erica's Arete," but cruises up to the right on good holds. |
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| 7 | 7Groovy Gecko, 15 | 15 | 6 |
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This was the first route bolted at Bay 1. It was cleaned with the intention of |
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| 8 | 8The Gorge-us Arete (aka Ben's project), 18 | 18 | 6 |
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This is a "still to be cleaned" project with all the bolts (minus hangers) in place, |
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| 9 | 9Chainsaw Pants Massacre, 19 | 19 | 8 |
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This is a great line (probably the nicest in the whole gorge) with a lot of cool |
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| 10 | 10Have a Cigar, 18 | 18 | 6 |
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This is the bolted line just left of the off width. It starts with a left, hand jam! |
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| 11 | 11The Aweful Offwidth, 12 | 12 | |||||
This is the obvious, wide crack. Due to the size of the gear required to |
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| 12 | 12Andy's Arete, 15 | 15 | 6 |
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This is a super fun line which starts just to the right of "The Awful Off-width" |
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| 13 | 13Sticky Situation, 17 | 17 | 5 |
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Start up the bulge right of "Andy's Arete" and trend right up the low angle face |
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| The Bay 1 Boulder, -4 | -4 | ||||||
After many return visits, the holds that are still there seems fairly solid, the |
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