Rain, hail, and shine

It was raining most of the way out to the hill on Saturday. A lot of the time it can pour down for the entire journey from Christchurch yet clear up a few minutes before arrival. However, this was not to be the case.

We sat in the car for an hour waiting for the rain to clear. I was almost ready to bail, but Sebastian was determined to wait it out as it was the only day he could climb. We decided to go for a walk and see if we could find any dry problems. On the way we knocked on Pete's car to see what he was planning to do. He held up a 40 ounce of whisky with a grin on his face.

We soon bumped into Sefton, Steve, and Stu working on Punkage (V9) and Tricky (V6). It seemed mostly dry so I ran back and grabbed my shoes. Sefton managed to grab a send of Punkage in a handful of goes while Steve repeatedly hucked himself at Tricky until the job was done.

After a couple of hours at Punkage the rain started to subside. Pete could be seen skipping along in the distance to find some dry problems. The 40 ounce was nowhere to be seen...

Later in the day Sefton and I managed to repeat Quantum Mechanics (V7) and then everyone headed down to Crash and Burn (V10) to watch Stu and Sebastian battle on the very committing top moves.

As we started to get pelted again by some precipitation, we headed for the last dry problem at the hill, Fidel Castro (V9). Sebastian quickly repeated and dished out some beta for the rest of us. Although the beta helped, we were simply too weak. We struggled on the problem until the crux hold was saturated from the rain. Time to pull pin and bail...

Flock Hill Access

Flock Hill is the biggest and arguably the best field in the basin. Because of this we must take extra special care to ensure this resource is not taken away from us. Flock hill is NOT public land and climbing there is a privilege, not a right. The land is owned by Mark Fraundorfer and Lloyd Ferguson who have kindly allowed climbers to use Flock Hill as long as we follow a few simple rules. These include:

1. Use the proper access to the land. This means parking at the gate about 1 km down the road from the cave stream car park. Jumping the fence at cave stream IS NOT ALLOWED.


2. Prior permission must be gained before accessing the land. This is done by filling out the details of your visit and signing the provided form acknowledging that you understand the rules on which access is granted.


3. Treat the land with respect. This includes no littering, smoking, and bolting.

Once you agree to the conditions outlined in the form, it needs to be sent to Mark at mrf@wave.co.nz.

Lastly, please note that Flock Hill will be closed from November 1 to December 25 due to lambing - no acceptions.

For more information you can check out Phil's blog at flockhill.blogspot.com.

A beautiful day at Flock Hill.

Castle Hill ticklist

Thanks to Derek, I've got an inital ticklist to hand out. I'm hoping to get descriptions on the location of these problems and maybe even pictures to put together an even more informative and complete ticklist for all the fields. So stay tuned...

In the mean time you can quench your thirst by checking out the initial ticklist.

Jason Whitaker on Psychic Tealady(V8)

Bachelor of Castle Hill

STEP RIGHT UP, STEP RIGHT UP, and start on the path to getting the most prestigious qualification in the country - the Bachelor of Castle Hill.

The BCH is comprised of four parts, each containing harder climbs than the prevous:

1. Prerequisites (compulsary)
2. Majors
3. Honours
4. Masters (thesis required)
   

You can download the course from here.

David Kopp topping out the warm up arete at Flock Hill.

Welcome

Welcome to Castle Hill Bouldering!

This site is intended to spread the good news of The Hill. This includes (but is not limited to) Quantum Field, Spittle Hill, Flock Hill, and Dry Valley. Ideally, I would like to get input from keen local's who have been putting up new problems, finding hidden gems that may have been forgotten, or have simply had a sick sending spree.

If you are keen to contribute either by updating the site or sending me info, then chuck me an email.

Any constructive feeback would also be appreciated.

Enjoy!

Sebastian Loewensteijn pulling hard on Crash and Burn (V10).