Petzl RocTrip 2011 China

Due to lack of internet access in the Getu Valley I was unable to post a blog, so Im making up for about 3 blog reports in one here. Hahaha this could be my longest blog yet, I'll do my best to not get side tracked and begin talking nonsense, but there are no promises!

The Great Arch on Sunset Getu Valley China

I should probably fill you in a month prior to my departure for China, as I made a few cool changes in my life. I started with a permanent move to Blackheath, Im lucky enough to be about 10 mins walk from Centennial Glen, 5mins from the shops and about 15mins walk from the Blackheath Bouldering Club which I joined before I left(PERFECT)! The BBC is an awesome training facility and It think will help improve my climbing a lot especially over the summer and has got me psyched to train.
I had no idea what to expect for this trip so I guess it was kinda difficult to really have a game plan but I figure everyone would be in the same boat, I definately did not train specifcally for anything on this trip but thought it was obviously going to be handy to have good indurance for the longer routes, so I just climbed alot and tried to avoid injury.
Ben and I spent a few days at Boronia Pt and made the most of some of the good conditions we had. Ben has been trying his mega project that starts up Big Wednesday breaks left through a gnarley desperate roof section and finishes up Tripe. One of the most inspiring looking lines in the mountains, thats for sure! I climbed a route called Don't Believe the Hype(31) pretty quickly once I figured out the crux move, just a kinda strange body contortional position for me but otherwise just a pumper. Then got pretty psyched on a route called Mechanical Animals(33) which gave me alot of trouble putting the crux sequence together initially, I havent really had a good crack with skin on my fingers but just didnt get one move, cant wait to go back!

The Legendary Wiz Fineron

A week before we left for China a good friend Wiz Fineron from NewZealand came and stayed with me before we left, we spent most of that time climbing at the Glen and Bardens Wiz was just getting a feel for rock again after a few injuries saw him miss out on a bit of climbing through out the year. I climbed Point Break(31) which is quite sharp but climbs really nicely. It is probably closer to grade 30. I also climbed my nemisis August 1914(29)......I LOVE this climb! I have never actually projected it but just tried it every now and then and always found the lower boulder quite hard, but nailed it on that day. Also got to work on a route called Search and Destroy(32). As you can imagine our skin was in top form for our departure..............

Lovely hands after Point Break

So, on Sunday the 23rd of October, skinless as Christmas turkeys we left our little home in the Blue Mountains and flew into Guangzhou the Capital of Guizhou(the poorest province in China). From there we    took a short domestic flight to a small city called Guiyang, as it turns out this small city is about twice the size of Sydney! That blew any plans of us getting anywhere by foot. Unfortunately our flight was delayed meaning we did not arrive at Guiyang until about 2 am.....fortunately spelean booked us in at the Novatel that night which was sweet! Yes....king size buffet breakfast!(little did I know this would be my last good meal for two weeks). The next day Petzl organised a bus to take team America, us and a few others to the Getu Valley where our awesome climbing adventures would begin. Getu is about a 5 hour bus ride from Guiyang where the road winds and roles through some incredible countryside. Limestone peaks appearing from every angle, I was just amazed at the amount of rock we had seen before we had arrived at our destination. The roads are just madness, but somehow seem to make sense at the same time.

Ethan, Andrew, John, Sasha, Emily, Marcos, Me, Joe.

Hotel Reception in Getu

On monday afternoon after a long bus trip, we finally arrived at the Getu Valley, a small isolated cute little town surrounded by Limestone cliffs that are just incredible. It is hard to explain in writing just how much rock there is in this area. After checking in at our hotel room we were invited to dinner and we all got to know each other. I must say the beer here is cheap 90cents a bottle! You can buy a main course meal for a little under $4 aus it gives you an idea of how cheap it is in china.

Cody Roth, Lyn Hill, Me,Gabriel Moroni, Wiz Fineron

The following week involved a lot of climbing in the great arch above Getu and at a separate crag called Banyangs cave. Both cliffs were around about 40mins walk from the village, if we were lucky we could hitch a ride which would shorten our trip quite a lot, however this was rare!
The arch is an incredible landmark with so much rock to see, Petzl have done an awesome job preparing not only this area but the half a dozen other crags that surround Getu.  Slopey Limestone pockets and tufas covered the vertical walls of the cave, while the roof consisted of endless stalactites and phenomenal multi-pitch routes. A very interesting style to say the least, the slippery limestone had many puzzled including myself for the first few days. This didn't stop Steve Mclure on sighting an 8c on his second day climbing in the valley.......impressive! Petzl athletes were attempting the 9a project on the main wall in the arch throughout the trip, Gabriel Moroni from Italy sent the project on his last day of the trip.
Banyangs Cave was quite different having one end of the crag steep and overhanging, while the right hand side was about 10-15 degrees overhanging on small edges, tufas and pockets.....COOL! Wiz and I spent the majority of our time at this crag.

Banyangs Cave Getu Valley

I was in the Getu Valley for less than 24 hours before disaster struck and my bowels turned upside down! After chowing down a Getu Village main meal i was given the urgent 2 minute warning which involved sprinting to the hotel room and dropping the kids off at the pool. Only to find that our quality toilet did not flush:-? yeah um yep ahh yeah um ye........sorry wiz.
So this routine continued over the next 6 days. I think my body had a lot of trouble adapting to the food, Noodles and pig fat for breakfast....rice and pork for dinner, very little in the way of good nutrition available made it hard for me to perform at my peak. So loaded up with Imodium and pepdo and my favourite custard egg puffs we made our way to the crags most days to do a spot of rock climbing.
My tick list for the trip was not all that impressive but when I wasn't pooing myself I was on the wall pulling as hard as I could.


Treblinka Pour Diego(8b/31) 4th shot
Ki Di Buzz(8a/29) 
Autochtono(7c+/28)
Drill Team(7c+/28)
Going with Buddha(7c+/28)
Loco de Noodles(7c+/28)
Calf(7c/27) flash 


It was so amazing and I felt so privileged to be able to climb along side some of the worlds best. I think the roc trip for me was more about soaking up the atmosphere and just meeting new people and enjoying such a great event.
During the roc trip Petzl had movies and short films playing in the evening with presentations from Dani Andrada, Chris Sharma, Daila Ojeda and many more. The vibe just felt really cool, climbers from all around the world, all in one spot for the same thing!

Wiz Fineron, Dave Graham, Liana Morgans, Me, Logan Barber at the closing ceremony.

During our second week we hung hung with team Five Ten for the stowaway tour, and did some more climbing, chilling and you guessed it POOing! The second week was a little more productive for a lot of the climbers, with Dave Graham and John Cardwell sending an 8c+. I think one of the highlights of the trip for me was spending time at the cliff with Ethan Pringle and Dave Graham. Inspirational to say the least.
Anyway, whilst the team was out crushing I had other things on my mind, in a desperate attempt to have my first rest day of the trip. I decided a nice warm(although it was cold) shower was definitely in need. As you do, I pulled the the door shut behind me completed my shower, brushed my teeth and went to open the door handle, only to find the door handle was some how stuck in the locked position! Holy shit, thats ok its just a bathroom, it cant be that hard to escape. Turns out I was wrong...no windows, solid brick walls a very solid door and wiz had gone on a day long exhibition to another town......F@*K! So after trying to remain calm and open the door with such grace, I began to panic after 5 minutes and after 10 I had exhausted every possible evacuation procedure that I had learnt from Bear Grylls. I had to resort to some form of aggression......

This was the door handle after I tried to fix it! This was by far the crux of my trip!


So basically I resorted to pulling as hard as I could on this poor little door handle until it exploded and then this shot was taken after I attempted to repair it.......Looks like new ;-)


Kevin from Five Ten did an excellent job organising our accommodation, transport and photos for the stowaway tour and without him it probably would have been a nightmare. So a big thank you to Kevin and Beau!

For me it was totally a bit of a culture shock, and just such an eye opening experience. Putting all of the climbing aside, these people live in what we would consider an extremely poor lifestyle.  Although they have their different ways of living, the many encounters I had with the locals were most pleasant, although we could not really understand each other they went far out of their way to accommodate us in many ways. It also makes me realize how lucky we are to live in our small climbing community with clean non-polluted crags. Although the climbing in Getu was great I was shocked at the amount of trash on the side of the roads and also at the crags. I was disappointed to think that foreigners who had arrived and participated in this event couldn't care less and just dropped their rubbish on the ground!
Anyway on a more positive note, I thought overall the event was excellent! Well done to Erwan and Petzl for organising such a top event and opening such an incredible climbing area for the world to explore! The roc trip  is to be held in Argentina next year and I can Imagine it will be unreal also!
Thanks to my sponsors Spelean and Climb On! for helping me out on this trip, with out them this would not have happened:-)


As for me, well back in Blackheath more psyched than ever ready to train super hard in the summer:-).
Ooooohhhh and I also have 640 climbing photos to sort through so I can put some action shots on this blog, the photos that have been displayed are just randoms I snapped off with my p&s.
Because I over budgeted for my China trip, I was able to by a laptop with an awesome movie editing program, which means finally I can put some short clips together........it only took a year!
So stay tuned and I hope you enjoyed reading my blog :-) Norry:-)