The Ravages of Time - Chinaman's Bluff, Dart Valley

10 Pitches of crack and slab climbing.

The track up the Dart Valley skirts around three sides of Chinaman's Bluff, a massive bush covered rock rising 530m from the valley which has resisted the dart glacier in ancient times, forcing the ice to flow over and around it, leaving ice scoured walls 300 metres high to the north and overhanging cliffs on the west and south.

The road from Queenstown is now sealed past Glenorchy to the Rees River bridge and the gravel road to Chinaman's Bluff has been recently upgraded but the last five kilometres is still vulnerable to washouts after heavy rain. The Dart walking track reaches a small grassy flat after an hour and a small creek leads into the bush from midway across this flat, a further fifteen minutes in open beech forest to the base of the cliff where the route starts on a clear section of rock towards the left side.

In November Ashley Pickworth and I explored the approaches to the lower cliffs, climbing across narrow bushy ledges from the slopes on the right but we were stopped by steep rock and abseiled back to the base. On the left side we followed a dry creekbed up through the beech forest to a traverse right below a white rock wall to a narrow ledge which provides access to the main bushy ledge above the lower walls. On New Years Eve I returned with Andrew Mcfarlane and we cleaned and climbed the route over three very hot and dry days.

Gear - take a few medium to large nuts, a good range of friends with doubles on larger sizes and 12 quickdraws.

Route description

1. Once the clear rock wall is visible through the trees move to the left end of the wall to the cleanest steep slab, 8 bolts to bolt belay (17).
2. Traverse right along ledge and up a steep bushy section to next area of rock.
3. climb steep slab past bolt for 20m undercling roof and step right to hand crack, up to tree and bolt belay. (18)
4. Climb hand crack to overlap, stretch right and pull into fist-crack and up wall to belay above the bush (take Friends size 3 to 4 for belay). (19)
5. step to thin crack on right, layback to next ledge and bolt belay (17).
6. Left to hand crack, reach high on right to clip the first bolt, sustained grade 20 face climbing on horizontal quartz edges, 8 bolts to bolt belay.
7. Scramble up 5m or bush the along a pleasant ledge to the large overhang, climb the scrappy gully to the top of the block and take the airy but well bolted traverse out to the prow, (17) bolt belay (22m abseil from here to the ledge).
8. Step out onto the outer face, steep climbing past three bolts (19) to a finger crack which gives protection on the textured upper slab, two or three more bolts to belay at a tree on the ledge.
9. A pleasant slab, six bolts to a tree belay (16). Scramble up through bush for 40 metres to the base of the upper wall and up right to a tree belay.
10. 10 3 metres left to vertical hand-crack (20) and belay on small tree in the crack, this continues as an overhanging offwidth but we traversed left to the top of the cliff.

Descent - abseil from trees down the slab to the belay on the prow and down to the ledge. Traverse to the top of the lower wall and abseil down this, or continue traversing the bushy ledges descending gradually to the left side of the cliff (keep the rope on for this section).