The Bard

I just thought I would let you know that I went to Mt Arapiles today on a pilgrimage to set Morgans ashes free from a ledge 80 meters up a climb called The Bard.
This was the first climb Morgan and I did at Arapiles over 10 years ago.
I went with a Melbourne buddy of mine, Campbell, who has climbed with Morgan, but didn't know him that well.

It was a great day, starting at 5 in the morning, I had my tea and Campbell his coffee for the long haul, four hour drive to Australia's sacred climbing area called Mt Arapiles. We got there at 9am, geared up and walked to the base of the climb.

Somehow we beat the hoards of campers to the base of what is Arapiles popular, jewel in the crown, climb. By 9am on most days, you would have normally queued 3 parties deep waiting to get onto 'The Bard'.
We were expecting to have to wait a couple of hours to get started, and to be honest I was hoping that this would be the case because it has been solong since we've been climbing.

The Bard is a 5 pitch (a pitch is a section of climbing restricted by the length of the climbing rope), 120 meter vertical climb on a butress that overlooks the campsite and the Wimmera all the way to the Grampians about 80 kms away.
It is an easy to moderate climb, but very steep and exposed, which makes it a really special climb. It has a run-out (difficult to place protection) toe, an awkward traverse under a roof
with what seems like nowhere to put your feet, a belay on a ledge so small you have to hang off the cliff and a long techincal section of beautiful climbing on solid rock up to a ledge big enough to camp on.

This climb has got it all.

Except, it had been over three years since either of us have put on our climbing shoes so we had a healthy dose of fear. As we were preparing the ropes some other guy came over and started chatting. It turns out that he had come to Arapiles because his friend had died there a year
before and was on a pilgrimage of his own.

Tied to the two ropes, half a tonne of metal around my waste and Morgan in my pocket I set off up the toe.
The climbing didn't seem as familiar as I remembered it, my breathing became heavy and erratic and I started to use all my body parts to help the climbing, including my knee on a
ledge (not a generally accepted technique).
I was very glad to get to the end of my pitch, because the next pitch looked ominously hard.
Campbell followed and got straight onto his pitch - the 10 meter traverse under the roof. About halfway across he started breathing loudly, rather like during our last 20 km run. A little bit further andhis breathing turned to grunting, then silence when he made it to the end.

It was about now, I was wishing that the pilgramage was to our localcoffee shop in Northcote, but we pushed on. I started to become more relaxed and about 2 hours after we started I got to the main ledge. I spent almost half an hour alone up there before Cambell clambered up behind me.

I brought the funeral service leaflet and a pen, wrote a few words and left it under a rock under cover on the ledge. You can only get to theledge by climbing. I let ashes blow out of the film container and off the cliff.

It was a day that I will remember.
It was a day to say good bye to my dear friend Morgan.

Simon Dale