My Pheromone

Sometimes you don’t notice the things that are right under your nose.

This season massive fires burnt much of Australia’s east coast, including the Blue Mountains. The fires had a huge impact. Friendships were made as people banded together to fight the blazes and a sense of community flourished. Yet, a lot of beautiful green bush was scorched to black and local streets and cafes that would normally be buzzing with tourists were like ghost towns. Red tape appeared across many access roads and trails to our beloved crags – CLOSED. What do you mean we cannot go to Elphinstone? Diamond Falls, too? What about multipitching at Perry’s? Nope! What the fuck? This feels like Grampians. Where are we gonna go frothing?

There was one unforeseen positive, though: the red tape forced us to break our habit of going to the same places to try the same projects. I have now been to crags that I didn't even know existed, such as the awesome Sharon Stone in Blackheath, with its 15-minute approach (including waiting for your coffee).

With frothing lips and fresh eyes I thought, what about Porters Pass? One of the most popular crags around, anything we have missed there?

Doug McConnell and I scrambled towards the cliff edge and comfortably laid on our extra-padded-by-Xmas-feast ‘sixpacks’. Peering over the edge of the cliff I found the ‘solid ground’ we were lying on was not much more than a two-feet thick pancake overhanging Sail Away Wall, 40m above the ground. Argh! An instant shot of vertigo hit me. I scurried back from the edge and scouted possible anchors to rig a line to shoot from, then Doug and I went to find out what it is like to actually climb through this impressive roof on My Pheromone.

Surprise! It is really good. It’s long, pumpy and entertaining to the very end. It was bolted by Lloyd Wishart in 2004 as an extension of Wipe Out, a classic 25, which is an awesome piece of climbing on its own. Instead of doing the spicy traverse to the Wipe Out anchor you continue and kinda zig zag your way up, following a few corner systems before you need to fire up a few extra cylinders and fly through the roof and dyno for the very edge of the cliff. The grade is somewhere between 28 and 29, depending whether you split it into two pitches or not.

Doug gave it a good onsight attempt and fell a few moves short. I somehow got to the top but with none of the same kind of sending-it-fast vibes. It somehow did not matter, though. We were two minutes from the car climbing an awesome route. We gave it one more go until the humidity-heat combo made us leave. What a day out! How could such a route go under our radar for so long? How many more routes like this are out there (and by out there, I mean not very far)?

Flash forward a few days and I’m in the comfort of my living room watching massive drops falling from the sky. It is hard to believe that this saturated mud is the same ground that was threatened by fires just a few weeks ago. Fires, then floods, what is next? Maybe some kind of humankind-threatening virus? My phone rings.

'How are the fires mate?'

'Ah, all good man, now we have floods!'

'How is the climbing then? Have you got anything new for your VL column?'

I pause and think about all the photo projects I was psyched to get done over the Christmas break. Like the Grose Valley arête that has never been photographed or the night photo at Perrys that would probably be impossible to capture anyway…

'Yeah, sort of, but it is a bit... different. It is two minutes from the car, not really an adventure but really cool actually! Have a look and let me know what you think.'

We are so spoilt in the Blue Mountains.