Column

mnt_tiska wrote: Best photo is probably in Malcolm Pearse's black and white photography book of the Berg.

Greg thats the one I mentioned that I will send you.

On 2 May 2015, Neil Margetts and I successfully climbed the Column via the Escarpment Arete. No doubt the route is a classic and a real challenge indeed! While much can be said about how to get up the peak, I wanted to rather start off by adding my two cents worth about how to get DOWN the peak, which can be psychologically very intimidating, and can also take up a significant amount of time, added to an already potentially long day.

We had hoped that abseil chains had been installed on the Column, as on Mponj, Bell, Cowl etc - but no such luck. In addition, we had no more abseil cord with us. All of it had been used up on the peaks we had climbed earlier that week. All of us were supposed to bring our share of ab-cord, but one of the initial three forgot to bring his share (we won't go into names). We had a quick consultation with Neil's brother and with Gavin Raubenheimer from the summit, about abseiling down the Escarpment Arete route or down Thomson's Route. Gavin's take was that both of them had dodgy abseils, but that the Escarpent Arete was slightly better. This suited us as we know the route now and we had some gear stashed at the start of the route. We were also not up for the abseil off the wrist-sized Erica bush stem on Thomson's route!!

The first trick is to get off the main summit and onto the subsidiary summit. We down-climbed the main summit unroped which proved do-able but very delicate and exposed - great care should be taken, and it may be better to find a way to abseil this. We did a spiral, first facing towards Monk's Cowl and then curling in towards the neck between the two summits.

The subsidiary summit viewed from the main summit:


There is a bridge with a big archway through it connecting the two summits. A large nest of tat is evident in the archway: this is for abseiling down Thomson's route coming up from the Monk's Cowl side of the neck.




There is a small, rounded but secure boulder on the subsidiary summit. It has a good lip at the back which stops the cord from slipping off. We donated a red sling. The abseil is done with your back to the Cathedral Range, down to the stance of the final pitch. We used one 50m rope for this. All the other abseils were done with 2x50m ropes tied together.


From there you reverse the 40m scramble (again unroped) between pitches 4 and 5, to the stance at the top of pitch 4 which also has a smallish but reasonably solid abseil block with lots of tat. About 1.5m above the block somebody has donated a large, well-placed nut which backs up the abseil-cord with an extension (this extension cord is getting old however and should be replaced if you wish to enjoy the benefit of the back-up).


This abseil takes you to the "large grass ledge with a big flake leaning against the back face" which is the stance between pitches 3 and 4. The flake is a bit unnerving. Neil went down first while I watched the flake for any signs of movement.


In addition to needing to abseil off the flake VERY gently, this abseil has three further complications. Firstly you need to angle slightly towards the Cathedral Peak side in order to hit the next ledge (rather than simply straight down). Secondly the last person to go down needs to adjust the position of the knot joining the two ropes so that it is already clear of the thick Erica/Heather bushes on this ledge in order to eliminate the risk of the knot getting stuck in the bushes while retrieving the rope.

Clearing the bushy ledge before the abseil route drops off vertically:


The last complication is that the next ledge (the stance between pitches 1 and 2) is under an overhang. We came down a recess slightly to the (Monk's Cowl) side of the ledge, and then clambered 3m or so up to the ledge as this line of descent was easier. Pulling the rope also didn't work well from the ledge - I needed to extend my anchor by 3-4m to the base of the recess, then I could retrieve the rope much mire easily. It may be possible to abseil straight down onto the ledge, though I am not sure, and it would make the angle of descent greater.

There are several pegs above this stance since this is the crux overhang. When we arrived on this stance on the way up, we were greeted by one of the pitons dangling off two long cords attached to a fixed piton, swaying in the wind above the stance. We speculate that someone must have abseiled off the two cords which were equalized between the two pitons, and that one of the pitons popped during the abseil!

Neil placed a small, but very secure nut which we used as the second anchor point. We sacrificed some of our slings to equalise between the nut and the fixed piton. This nut was paced in the interest of safer abseils, please don't steal it! A good red BD cam placement was used as a back-up anchor for the first abseil.

The sling attached to the fixed piton, the old cord, and the back-up anchor using a cam:


The loose piton in the blurry fore-ground, with the nut anchor in focus behind:


This is a snapshot from my GoPro video looking up at the anchor as I was starting off the abseil. The equalised anchor system being the V at the end of my ropes.

This abseil easily took us down to the neck at the start of the route, and even all the way down the approach scramble up to the neck. Care must be taken when descending this last bit as you start angling the rope to the side, which can then suddenly slip across the face as the angle increases - this shock-loads the anchor which should be avoided.

Hopefully this little guide will relieve some anxiety for others when climbing the Column.

That last abseil point looks super dodgy!

The RD describes "a narrow chimney" for pitch 4 which must be climbed. A detail about this chimney which is only mentioned in the spiral-bound print version of the RD is that a No 4 cam is required for this part. This is a size which none of us readily takes on a Berg climb and we certainly did not have one with us on this trip, since all I had read was the online version before the time. When we discovered this reference we were well into our trip already. It left both us with a bit of anxiety in the back of our heads. We decided we would have to jam a rock into the crack instead - but what if this was in a really desperate and committed part of the chimney? We split pitch 4 up into two shorter pitches as the RD suggests many already do. As it turns out, the No 4 cam placement is not far above the grassy ledge at the base of the narrow chimney (much to our relief), though it still required me (the honour of placing the rock fell upon me) to start climbing the chimney, stemming on slabby rock with my feet, somehow carrying a rugby ball-sized rock and jamming it into the crack - with the additional requirement of not dropping it onto Neil's head below. In the end it all worked out, and though the rock can be wiggled a bit at certain angles, its pretty solid on a downward pull. A long sling was duly slung around it and we thus successfully placed protection on this part without a No 4 cam - a move which otherwise would be fairly bold and which could result in a factor 2 fall about 8m with some bouncing on the ledge below. The rock can be removed in future, or it can be left there if you don't feel like taking a No 4 cam along.

Looking down at the rock slung with a red sling.

That is classic!

Was that a Black Diamond "rock cam"? Or the new VE Rock-master?

Its a Margetts-Sommer #23 hex.