Angus-Leppan

Most of the climbing is very easy but quite exposed. There are also some sections which have fairly sparse gear (coming from a sport climber at least), so you would want to be comfortable at the grade when leading. Especially for the crux move on pitch 5/6. It's about a grade 17 move (or 2) through a bit of a bulge but you need to place gear while you are effectively mid-crux, so it can get pumpy. Awesome rest right after the crux though.

Or so I have heard from the guy who did all the leading while I followed on top-rope.

Stijn wrote: Or so I have heard from the guy who did all the leading while I followed on top-rope.

You should see me climbing - snails get up quicker

The crux has a roof on it, right?

More like a bulge to pull through out of the cubby hole.

Mountains 6: 0 Andrew

Now that the GT is behind me, I can start focusing on having some fun and on working towards other goals. One of the things I really want to do is to combine running and climbing to link peaks together.

I decided to start with something small and with low commitment. The Sentinel can easily be done in a day car-to-car and seemed a sensible option. Now, despite numerous comments in the summit book to the contrary, I do not really like the Angus Leppan route. It can be best described as do 2 moves then walk to the stance. Repeat 6 times. This however makes it an ideal route to try solo. I figured I would be able to get up it easily enough on Saturday and then on Sunday I could see just how fast it can be done car to summit and back to car. That is the theory at least.

I do not want to down climb the crux of the standard route so I packed a rope, harness and belay device for the descent. I threw in a pair of climbing shoes because I know the crux roof move on pitch 6 is thin on the feet. With all that gear, it made sense to throw in a small rack as well. It would be really silly to be stranded on a ledge because I am too scared to go up or down. Then I threw in some food and some water and some warm clothes in case it went wrong and I needed to sit on a ledge all night waiting for a rescue. By now I had a pack that was heavier than if I had just climbed the route the normal way.

The trip up the zig-zags went well. The sun was out and was starting to warm up the air. I made steady progress to the base of the scramble on the approach. Here I put on my climbing shoes and also put on my harness with assorted gear. Rope stayed in the bag for now. At the start of the route I looked left at the Gendarme. Neil Margetts has been going on for ages that someone needs to climb it. So, I followed a highway through the easy scrambles and bushes to get to the enormous summit cairn. It is well worth doing – a small summit, good exposure and as a bonus you get a good view of the first 2 pitches of the route you can to climb.

Pitch 1 went smoothly as did pitch 2. Pitch 3 is very exposed and the rock not as solid as you might like. I had a few moments, but kept it together and was soon at the stance just before the classic traverse pitch. This is a bit more exposed and the moves a bit harder than I remember. I waited out a few minutes to calm down from the previous scare and set off. 5m later, I hit the crux move and after a good look, scurried back to the safety of the stance. After a further few minutes, I thought it through properly and pulled out the rope. The self-belay mechanism was clumsy but importantly I did not trip over the excess rope as I made my way across the traverse. This time around it was really easy – I had missed a previously hidden hand hold that made all the difference. My rope was only so long, so I set up another stance in the middle of no where. A return trip to the previous stance retrieved my gear and rope. I packed the rope away and mostly walked to the top of pitch 5. I decided to play safe and roped up for the final pitch. With reflection, I would have hit the ledge anyway so the rope did nothing. Except that it allowed me to do the roof move first time around without a pack on my back. Shortly afterwards I had abseiled back down to collect the bag and stance and climbed to the final stance.

From here, it really is a walk to the summit. I spent a good while reading through the summit book. Gavin Raubenheimer must be at nearly 50 ascents (if he has not done so already). Hannelie Morris has several ascents behind her, and I seem to have racked up rather a lot as well. The book has a whole host of exciting stories to tell, of people who have had a great or adventurous days out. Fantastic reading.

The current summit book (since March 2008) lists no other solo ascents of Angus Leppan, not any speed attempts that I could find. But, as the most climbed route in the berg, it simply must have a speed record - anyone know what is is. My guess will be on Mike Cartwright back in 1990's.

Having climbed most of the route solo, this may be of limited value. But, the following rack seems useful for this route:
Cams: 0.5 (purple) through 3 (blue). You could use a 0.4 (grey) cam as well
Nuts: I used a number 5 and a number 7 DMM nut
Slings: A long sling for the belay after the traverse, a short sling to reduce rope drag for the cam mid-traverse and below the roof on P6. Same sling can be used on the peg early on Pitch 3.
4 quickdraws is probably enough
You can leave the #3 cam at home and still have a good enough placement on both the traverse and the roof move. In each case though a number #3 will catch a truck so rather leave the number 2 (yellow) cam at home.

Oh - I scared myself enough on P3 that I drove home on Saturday evening to make sure I would not even consider another go at it on Sunday

Digging this out of the archives - it so happened that I was on Paradigm Shift while RobD made his ascent of Angus Leppan in Aug 2011.

Placing the magic cam after the crux moves of the P4 traverse