Page 23 - 2003 AMA Summer

Black Orpheus
By Capt Cath Stephens
Black Orpheus (graded 5.9+ in one guide book, 5.10 in another) was by far the best route that Maj George Griffin and I completed. At 9 pitches and 450m of fairly hard rock climbing, it was an experience not to be missed!
The approach was a fair slog, hopping along a boulder field in a dry stream bed, then swift steep scrambling 250m up the side of the valley, trying to stay ahead of the American couple close on our heels. In the end however we were happy they were there; they had already recced the route the day before and knew where it started. The guide book simply said “Climb the obvious left facing corner”, which in a huge rock amphitheatre of left facing corners wasn’t too helpful!
I got the 1st pitch, which although graded only 5.7 was surprisingly hard; a warning of things to come! The climbing continued at a reasonable level, until a while later when we hit easy ground, and were able to move together, combining a few pitches into one. The rest of the route looked ominous however, disap­ pearing up a long chimney up to the summit, which was still along way above us. Although it was a sunny day the air was bitter, and with darkness upon us
by 5pm each day we were concerned to move quickly.
George had the good fortune (?) to lead the next pitch. As he was out of sight in the chimney, I had no idea what he was going through, until I set off to follow. The pitch was fantastic - sustained, steep, challenging for the entire 50m rope length. Had I been leading it I would have been a nervous wreck by the time I reached the end! It was also one of those typical American pitches, where you need the same size friend over and over again to be able to
protect it properly. Luckily someone had been
kind enough to
get a few of theirs stuck in the cracks, so had left them for future use, so George wasn’t quite soloing.
Breathing a sigh of relief upon reaching George on the belay stance, I gave him my
congratulations for a fantastic climb, sure that that was now the crux pitch over. A quick glance at the guide book informed me of my mistake; the crux was yet to come, and on my lead. Time was of the essence, and after a few brave attempts I handed the pitch over to George, who upset me even further by making it look easy. Morale was restored to me on my next lead however; 50m of fantastic layback climbing, with only a smooth rock face to balance off.
Happy with the day's climbing, we hit the top at 4pm. The guide book recommended a gully off to the right for the descent, stating that as long as down climbing
ability was of a reasonable standard
abseils would be unnecessary. 12
abseils and 5 hours later we
reached the bottom, having been
forced to climb back up to
rescue the ropes once, cut a
metre off each rope another
time they got stuck in a
crack, and finally abandon
them on the last abseil
when they got stuck
again. (Don’t worry -
we went back and
got them the next
day). Exhausted,
we made our
way back to the
campsite, and unanimously decided that we needed a day off!
Climbing al Red Rocks