Baroomba Rocks - Rock Climbing - Dec 2011

On thursday morning 15th December I headed out with my mate Joe to Baroomba Rocks for a bit of climbing. I just bought some new (mammut obsession) half ropes and wanted to practice some double rope trad climbing with them before heading to Arapiles later this summer. We searched the ACT Granite guidebook for a relatively easy route to practice half rope techniques and chose Possum (13) which is on the southern buttress. It's a 50m climb and the book describes it in 3 pitches with a traverse on the second pitch. The book rates it ** which helped with the decision.
We made the top of Baroomba about midday and headed down the gulley on the south side of the bluff. It was an easy walk down and on past Integral Crack, where I broke my ankle a couple of years ago. After a scramble along the bottom we we found Possum next to Aitchison's Needle. The best indicator was the 'FG' painted on the rock for 'Fall Guy' (18) which is next to the route we chose.
Probably the hardest part of the climb was the scramble to get onto the ramp at the start. After that it was easy up to the ledge and the first belay point. There was a fairly large bush to scramble around which was a bit of a pain. I had no rope drag using the half ropes so I pushed through to the second belay point at Possom ledge. The traverse from above the first belay point out right to Possum ledge was fun. I used a couple of cams and some nuts. Possom ledge is a great belay point with a large grassy area with a big tree right in the middle. I belayed from the tree.
The final pitch was an interesting scramble over a trapped piece of granite. It was fun for me but frustrating for Joe who was seconding with the backpack on. He spent a bit of time sitting on the rope. I think he must have been must have been txting his mom or something. We finished the route at about 3:45pm. We talked about doing Sunstroke (9) in the afternoon but after the extreme effort bagging possum decided to head back to Canberra for a few beers instead.
I've done a couple of trips out to Baroomba recently absieling and climbing. Because of all the rain a lot of the slabs are a bit mossy and vegetated. Equilibrium (17) is an easy warm up climb but on one visit this year I struggled for traction on the unprotected slab. I slid down a fair few metres and put some holes in my fleecy jumper. After two wet summers in a row hopefully 2012 brings a bit more sunshine.
Thanks to Joe and his iPhone for the photos!