Pro-Sports

I posted up some old climbing photos on Facebook recently and it got some memories stirring for the Rockrats which made me think back to some of the old craziness we used to get up to.  While digging into the archives of the Rockrats history books, I found these priceless gems:

Thin Man: Sim, give Derek some beta!
Simian Boy: USE THE JUGS!!!

Thin Man: Just pull the runner.

Lelek Le Grunt: Okay, here’s the plan. When I move up, you tighten the rope.

Fearless Leader, while struggling up a really pumpy route at Dairy Farm Singapore, drops a
classic on the belayer: OI PULL ME UP, MAN, YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING DOWN THERE!!!

5C Master, on the crux of Parang Buta, Comic: TIGHT! TIGHT! TIGHT! TIGHT! Phew, thanks!

Simian Boy: It helps when you tell chicks that you do rock climbing, until they realize that it’s the only thing you ever do…

Climber: Hey, did you hear about the guy who dropped his rope while threading the anchor and then had to have someone climb up to rescue him?
Fearless Leader: Oi! That was me!

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Back in April 2004, the Rockrats had planned a trip to Krabi which was cancelled at the last minute after some news about riots in the Southern border of Thailand. Extremely disappointed by the cancellation (especially since most of us had arrange our leave so we could score nine full days off for the trip), the Rockrats planned a marathon climbing trip that began from the summits of Genting First World Rock Climbing Gym all the way down to Singapore.

Although I followed them up to Genting for the start of this marathon trip, I parted ways with the Rockrats while they passed KL on their way down to Singapore. I had planned to fly up to Phuket, then travel down to Ao Nang by cab and take a boat across to West Railay.

Originally, we had booked an entire bus to ferry us from KL to Hatyai (on the Southern border of Thailand) because we had that many people confirmed going. Eventually, one by one began dropping out of the trip as news of the riots along the Southern border of Thailand sounded more and more hostile.

The funny thing was that I remember saying I would still be confirmed going as long as there was one other person going. In the end I agreed to pull out when I was told no one else was left on the bus but me. But after talking to a few others, they also said they had said the same thing - they would still go as long as someone else was willing to go. Here’s the strange part - we were all told we were the only ones left on the bus so we all agreed to cancel. Sounded rather fishy to me but I think someone didn’t want any of us to go…

Since I had already locked in my leave, I figured it would be quite safe to fly over the border and travel down from the north. And quite frankly, I saw no hint of riots while I was there.

Anyway, Simian Boy wrote an excellent trip report of what the Rockrats got up to while I was in Krabi. Told with his usual tongue-in-cheek style, I thought this was too funny to keep locked up in the archives of my rock climbing folders. Enjoy…

Friday, April 30, 2004.

We were supposed to go to Krabi today, but everyone was a little uneasy with the unstable situation with muslim rebels near the southern border. Between breakfast and dinner time, all 24 passengers on the bus had pulled out of the trip.

We met at the SS2 to figure out what to do next. Adrian suggested we bring 4 bottles of booze to Genting to see what would happen, and for some reason that sounded like the best of ideas at that moment so that’s what we did.

He-whose-name-shall-remain-unnamed decided to play bartender and managed to get most of the boys to drink an unhealthy amount of vodka and whiskey. As the hours went by, it was becoming apparent that the ladies were not drinking enough to get stupid with their items of clothing, so card games were thrown into the mix, but alas it never moved beyond chor-tai-ti. The boys, however were not faring so well with the sweet poison in their blood. The bartender himself was told to keep his clothes on by the owner of the apartment when he started acting out a joke involving a stripper. Undaunted, the barkeep went on to try to talk the boys into a game where some unlucky participant has to eat a cracker with ungodly bodily secretions in place of cheese dip. Inebriated though we were, we did not let this happen - as far as I can recall anyway. Poor Jason discovered that immunity to alcohol wasn’t one of his mutant powers and spent most of the night and following morning trying to transfer the contents of his stomach to the toilet bowl, but not through the usual channels. CJ felt the urge to join him in the early morning, but because his sleeping bag had ideas of its own, he almost didn’t make it to the bathroom.

Saturday, May 1, 2004.

The morning, among other things, always comes too soon when you’ve had too much to drink. We were all so out of it. The barkeep woke up with unexplainable cracker crumbs on his lips and some mysterious white gunk on his chin. We’d have gone straight back to bed if we weren’t so climb-starved from our failed trip to Thailand. We were on a mission to try all the climbs between Pahang and Singapore before the weekend was over and that meant there was little time to lose.

So it was with this sense of purpose that we valiantly attempted the overhanging walls at First World, despite the states our bodies were in. Boy, was that ever a pathetic sight! We were tired and sleepy and filled to the brim with roti canai but that didn’t stop us trying. We climbed with the grace of ten elephants. It was probably the first time in climbing history when a mantle move was employed to get up a 5B gym climb. Jason sat out the whole climbing session, although ’sat’ was probably the wrong word for it since he was in his sleeping bag. A crowd gathered round, not so much to see us climb, but to see if he was alive. Meanwhile, the rest of us trashed ourselves on the wall, slowly but bravely moving up the climbs like salmons swimming up a waterfall. I guess we were all dehydrated,…well all except for me who had the foresight to drink about 5 gallons of water the night before, which meant I got rid of most of the alcohol from my body, but it also meant I spent more time emptying my bladder than sleeping. I think the only ones who got in some decent climbs were the ones who drove up in the morning (Mike, Kim, Clyda and Evelyn) but then they had been sober the night before and that’s cheating, I say.

Late in the afternoon, we gave up on all that overhanging nonsense at Genting and decided to try and find some slabs in Singapore instead. We had it all figured out - we’d leave around dinner time and reach by midnight. We’d climb on Sunday and because Allsports is closed on Sunday, we’d shop for gear on Monday instead. For some reason, Kim got it into her head that nobody is supposed to participate in any sports on Sunday in Singapore. Since she’s new, we made sure she felt like part of the group by making her cop an embarrassing amount of flak for thinking that.

So we came down the hill, dropped off all the extra weight from our cars (dirty laundry, unneeded equipment, Shen), and drove down with sleepy eyes and weary minds to visit Kiat Hong’s folks at JB because we were too skint to rent a room. After what seems like 20 stops and 10 change of drivers, we arrive at Mr.Tey’s house six hours behind schedule, upholding what is beginning to become a climbing tradition.

Sunday, May 2, 2004.

The sleep is a little better this morning. We wake up in time to go climb at the Dairy Farm. Kiat Hong stayed home to spend more time with her family and Kim went shopping. The remaining eight of us took six hours to attempt (and generally fail) to climb three ten-meter routes at the Dairy Farm at Bukit Timah, Singapore. Out of the three routes, one remained unfinished by any of us, one was climbed by Lai (hangdog) and Jason (toprope), while the last one was something we all managed to climb but the fact that it was named “Boring and Pointless (6A+)” didn’t do much for our already deflated egos.

Feeling beaten, discouraged and badly in need of showers, we headed back across the border to find Kiat Hong’s family had cooked us a nice feast of … I forgot what it’s called but it’s like Pan Mee except, nicer. Yum! I can still taste it in my mind.

Just when I thought that was the highlight of the day, something happens that almost made me glad we didn’t go to Thailand. We were all feeling clean and fresh after showering and had hijacked the living room from Kiat Hong’s family to watch the telly and as we were flipping through the channels, we came across an advertisement for the Van Helsing movie. Kim got all excited about the movie and started asking if it was out already and when would it be out, etc. Jason, sitting next to her on the couch, put his arm on the back rest - his hand coming inches from the back of her neck - put on his Don Juan-expression and (God, it doesn’t do it justice even attempting to describe it here!) goes something like “So, you want to catch this movie?”

There was a moment of post-apocalyptic silence as we all just stared in disbelief before we broke out in this huge laughter of atomic proportions. Kim laughed along after a moment of awkwardness. At first, I figured maybe Jason hadn’t realised the appearance he had taken on with his body language and all. I would have given an arm to have had my camera with me then so I could have captured the moment, but it was in my backpack and as I started to realise Jason hadn’t moved (yet), I went to retrieve it but alas, I was too slow. Jason had retracted his arm and was explaining how he was joking and pretty much how we should be laughing at his joke and not him while Kim had moved to the kitchen where she spent the next hour enduring the heat from a yam-cake-cooking stove and discussing the finer points of yam with Mrs. Tey until she (or perhaps Mrs. Tey) couldn’t take the heat any longer. When she came back out to the living room, she sat on the floor, staying clear of all couches as though she has developed a new phobia.

Sorry Jason and Kim, I know I shouldn’t be finding this funny and I know it is insensitive and childish of me and I ought to just let it go and forget about it and move on but … you should have seen the look on your faces!

But, hey - look on the bright side - at least you now know how to make yam cake.

Monday, May 3, 2004.

Adrian had mentioned that he’d like to get back home before too late in the night. I decided to help us keep good time by waking everyone up at 8am, and keeping a semi-rigid schedule in my head and reminding people how much time they had left, so here’s pretty much what happened…

7:45am - Started waking people up and lying to them about the time.
8:30am - The last of the living dead decides to wake up, so we’re all making good time so far.
9:00am - Breakfast outside. It was good except Lai for some inexplicable reason, kept sending everyone’s orders back whenever they came so we kept having to order again and hope the frustrated food stall owners didn’t give us any ’special sauce’ with our noodles.
9:30am - 2nd Breakfast at Mr. Tey’s house. Yam cake and red bean soup. How did they know my favourites?
10:30am - Across the border to Singapore again and at Safra. The lady at the counter was this sweet old lady with sweet old granny glasses who took her sweet freaking time processing our tickets so it took awhile before we could climb. I was waiting for her to finish doing that while everyone went off to deposit their breakfast at Safra’s five-star lavatories. I was holding mine in and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it in when Adrian (fast as always) came out of the toilet to relief me of slowpoke-waiting duty.
11:00am - At the Safra walls finally. Okay, I figure we can get in some good climbs in two hours so I figured we’d leave at about 1pm. No problem. Only one of the routes had no ropes on it. I started to traverse on the warmup walls but that was getting me tired. Well screw that! If I was going to get tired, I was going to get tired climbing. So I took the rope and grabbed a belayer (Jason) and led up the juggiest wall (6A+ I think). Forgot to bring my chalkbag but as it turns out that worked to my advantage because it made me climb the steep parts in a hurry.

Everyone looked very tired climbing at Safra. I felt it too. I climbed about 5 routes and had to really flail up the last 3. I think it’s the heat. The little rocks and gravel they use to lay the ground under the climbing walls really act like a big stove slowly cooking us as we climb. I went through my 1.5 litres of drinking water in the first hour.

Richard pointed out that when we finished climbing, the whole place had quietened down. It was true. When we were on the wall, you could hear us yelling encouragement, spraying beta, making excuses and lastly, but most loudly, making rude complaints about the climbs (mostly juggy 6A and 6B climbs). Then we came off the walls and while waiting for everyone to finish cleaning and packing up, a few of us watched the hardcore Singaporeans train quietly. Some of them were climbing for difficulty training while some of them were training their endurance by climbing up and down on lead (unclipping on the way down) on what looked like 6C routes. They had a clever way of unclipping the rope with one hand which was to push the gate open with the rope (effectively clipping both sides of the rope and letting it all fall through the biner) which was much better than what we used to do (hold the gate open and then try to dig the rope out). We learn something new every day.

2:00pm - With everyone clean and packed, we leave the sweet overhanging walls of Safra.
2:20pm - We leave the Safra parking lot when Derek finally figures out the way to Peninsula Plaza.
3:00-ish pm - Yay, Peninsula Plaza. New rock shoes, here I come! But first, we eat.
4:00pm - With money in our pockets and food in our tummies, we head up towards Allsports but are sucked into two other equipment shops on the way up.

There’s something about the one-eyed shopkeep at Allsports and his assistant Igor (don’t know his real name) that just rubs me the wrong way every time we go there. Somebody mentioned that we cancelled our trip to Krabi and Igor said if we were afraid of dying we shouldn’t be climbing. What has that got to do with the price of eggs? Anyway, none of us could find any good shoes to get there. Richard pointed out how much more expensive the prices have become at Allsports. Some of the items he bought a few months ago have doubled in price. Same goods, same crappy service, new inflated prices. We ended up mostly buying Mad Rock shoes from Campers Corner instead.

8:30pm - We head out of Singapore to have dinner in JB.
11:30pm - We leave JB to go back home to KL. I found out that those chemical heat packs that Su Chin uses to warm her hands can feel uncomfortably hot if you sit on them. Derek slipped one on my seat as I was getting into the car. It took me half an hour before I realised what had happened. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the car or the air conditioner and I thought to myself - boy, this is going to be a long journey. Then I thought maybe I was dehydrated and just needed to drink more water. But soon, it became obvious that it was something else because, not only did it feel like my body was burning up, it felt like one of my ass cheeks was on fire. I was like “WTF, why’s it so hot under here?” and then I heard Su Chin, Derek and CJ laughing their heads off. Su Chin tried to play that prank back on Derek at the next stop but he was on to us.

4:00am - Derek, Adrian and Lai got us all safely home, keeping each other awake with the walkie talkies. Derek had to be especially alert. He had to hold back on a lot of crotch jokes because Kiat Hong’s mom was awake in Adrian’s car.

It’s been a fun few days. I doubt it could have been any more fun even if we did go to Thailand.

Popularity: 18% [?]

I was looking through my old files for the trip report of Gua Musang, when I came across another TR from Simian Boy that I thought was pretty interesting. It detailed a climbing session they had at Nyamuk one weekend - don’t know where I was, probably working or climbing somewhere else because it doesn’t sound like me to miss a climbing weekend.

One of the reasons I enjoyed climbing with the Rockrats was not only because of the fun we had in each other’s company but what we were able to learn through each other’s experiences. We often wrote trip reports after every rock climbing session and each member would contribute with jokes and personal thoughts about the session through mass group mailing.

Although we ragged each other a lot, there were also times of seriousness when we discussed climbing techniques and safety - for instance, learning how to detect core damage in rope. With each climbing session, we were not only improving our climbing abilities, but expanding our knowledge base on rock climbing in general. Of course, it also helped to have a gear-head like Lelek Le Grunt in the group who knew all the technical details of just about everything you might want to know. And if he didn’t, you could bet he would be able to tell you all about it the following weekend.

I digress, below is a copy of one of Simian Boy’s TRs, which, as always, was spiked with his tongue-in-cheek humour (with my annotations in purple italics). I thought this was a rather significant TR to include because it prompted some good take-home lessons which follow after the TR, when some of the other more experienced members of the Rockrats shared their knowledge on how to climb more safely in future.

Simian Boy:

Had an interesting day out with the FYC bikers, formerly climbers, at Nyamuk yesterday.

While we were getting gear out of the cars, I saw Ooi pull out his helmet and I immediately realised I had left mine sitting safely out of harms way at home, on top of my desk. I half-jokingly said that today was going to be the day I knocked my head on something and sure enough, I did on the first warm-up climb (Patrick’s 5b climb with the nasty layback - it’s called “Firestarter” in the area called “Fumakilla”). Since I figured Murphy’s law was already satisfied, I didn’t think too much about falling rocks and smashing heads for most of the remainder of the afternoon.

Ooi led the warm-up climb with no major problems, except for a short detour when he got distracted by some jugs on a neighboring climb. I went up 2nd on top-rope and hung like a horse, much to Mike (P) and Penn’s disappointment. For some reason, they had the idea that I had turned into something of a Spiderman during their short abstinence from climbing, able to scale single buildings in a single dyno. Mike went up the climb after me with no problems neither. Penn didn’t even try because Hong, Tung, Bird, etc were trying some 7As and they roped him in.

Anyway, Ooi offered to lead the 2nd climb of the day as well, the short route on the far right with the mantle crux before the anchor (this one is called “Because I Got High“). He had never climbed it before and he had no beta so he tried for half an hour at the crux and finally gave up. I went up and finished the climb with a little help from memorised beta. Mike, that f***er (sorry, sensored, we’re a family-oriented blog here), was belaying me and talking to Ooi the whole time and I had to fight sweat, gravity as well as him after I committed to a big highstep on the ledge. My left foot was right beside my left hand and my knee was almost touching my face but I couldn’t step up. I wasn’t tired and so I yelled for slack. No slack. Can’t move. Maybe it’s time to head back down and try again. “SLAAAAAAAACK!!!!” Ah, some slack this time. With his weight off the rope, I realise again how light I am, so I step up, set up the anchor, smile and get lowered down. Mike went up next and wanted whatever beta I could offer. I told him to just do what I did. I know he wasn’t watching. Nyah.

Mike got stuck at the crux for half an hour or so as well and Ooi was getting stiff-necked from belaying him and was standing near the edge of the ledge. I anchored myself to Ooi and sat with my back against the wall underneath Mike and braced my feet against a big rock on the ground. It was a comfy spot with a nice view of the town below and the rolling hills beyond it. Finally Mike gave up. Richard came along by then and had a go at it, conquered it and declared it a 5C climb, much to Mike’s chagrin.

Ooi went up again, and this time around, noticed some big holds about a meter to the right of the route. As always, he took the artistic license to chart his own course before rejoining the route a little higher up. I think somewhere in the middle of this side-adventure, he yanked out a small slab of rock about the size of a dinner plate, yelled “Rock” and threw it safely behind us. It landed with such a loud clunk before shattering into tiny bits, that his belayer (Richard) jumped a little further out of the way from the bouncing bits, which as it turns out, was a fortunate thing because immediately afterwards, a big slab of rock about the size of a 48-inch flat screen tv loosened itself just to the right of Ooi. What happened next, as far as I can remember was this - it came down the wall, smashed itself to small bits of various sizes its as it rolled and rubbed against the wall, like an ice block being chipped apart. Then the bigger pieces just sort of rolled and bounced around where me and Richard had been sitting and standing a few minutes earlier. Fortunately, that was one of the few minutes of that afternoon when nobody was standing at that spot. Mike, Ooi, Richard, me, Penn, 2 Singaporeans and 1 German were pretty much standing around there up until minutes before then watching the climber. Most of the rock that fell ended up landing onto the rope that Ooi was being belayed from.

(Please don’t follow the advice in this next section about detecting compromised ropes - you’ll read later in Lelek Le Grunt’s - our walking rock climbing manual - reply the proper way to detect core damage to a rope) Ah Loong came over and inspected the rope and pretty much gave us a crash course in rope-inspection and we found many weak spots on that new FYC rope. Basically, the weak sections go limp when we curl them into a loop. The more we looked, the more weak sections we found until we came to the conclusion that the rock probably couldn’t have done that much to that many different sections at once. We suspect it might be manufacturing defects or damage sustained during storage at All-Sports. Another thing about safety that I never knew about and just always took for granted. I wonder how many more there are.

Anyway, we lowered Ooi and retired the rope. It is the Beal Top-Gun pink 60m that was bought from All-Sports. It’s the same colour and possibly cut from the same original 200m as Adrian’s. Might be an idea to check that rope too, dude.

Anyway, I’m still a bit of a wreck. Weak ropes and breaking rocks.

Happy Climbing.

I don’t have any photos from that trip since I wasn’t there, but this is a shot of the belay area of Fumakilla.  This is a top-down view of the route “Firestarter”, while “Because I Got High” is off to the top left of the photo.

Rock Climbing Safety Lessons from our walking tech manual (edited by me because of Le Grunt’s excessive usage of colourful language which wasn’t really appropriate for this blog):

Lesson 1: Detecting weak spots and core damage in the rope

What Loong is talking about - where you fold a bight of rope and look for “roundness” – that’s (rubbish) dude.

What you should be looking for are flat spots, which means the core has ruptured a few strands. To do this, press the rope with your fingers and feel along the length of it. If it feels uniform along the entire length, the core is fine. If you feel a sudden flattening of the rope, let the rope owner know. It doesn’t have to be completely flat, as in sheath touching sheath, but anything that feels irregular or like a slight depression is suggestive of core damage.

A lot of ropes exhibit the characteristics that Loong described. Mine does, so does Shen’s. So does his own (sensored) rope! Did he retire it? Noooooooooooo…

What Loong described indicates slight sheath slippage. All ropes will experience that. Better ropes have less of it, not so good ropes will show more of it.

Lesson 2: Staying ON ROUTE

When you climb off route, you run the risk of venturing into areas that see virtually NO traffic and the consequences (as Ooi experienced with the rock fall on the rope – lucky no one was hurt!) - Rockfall, pendulum swings, etc.

Always stay on route and no cheating. Aside from the safety issues, it’s just bad form. It doesn’t help your technique or skill building at all, not to mention, can be downright dangerous.

Lesson 3: Belayers pay attention to your climber!

Please always be aware of your climber. I feel I shouldn’t have to say this again, but I will. When you are belaying someone, you hold that persons life in your hands. Your climber is bestowing a most sacred trust in you. NEVER belay someone because you feel pressured into it. Never do so because you feel you should. Do it because you WANT to. And when you do it, do it with free will and with full responsibility.

More tips from Holdbreaker (particularly apt from one who tends to break a lot of holds):

As to falling rocks - try to test the holds as much as you can before loading it. You will probably notice that whenever I move up and grab something, I tend give it a generous tug before loading it further..

Although, as Mutant Man later pointed out, some holds will still break because the force you exert on it when climbing is not quite the same as the force applied when giving it a tug.

Popularity: 39% [?]

I think of all the rock climbing expeditions I’ve ever been on with the Rockrats, my all-time favourite has got to be Gua Musang.  Although we had a lot of fun during all our climbing trips, this was by far the most relaxed because there were no expectations or a need to prove anything.  It was pure climbing for the enjoyment of the sport.

Gua Musang is located in the state of Kelantan in Taman Etnobotani.  It’s about 5 hours drive from Kuala  Lumpur and 3 hours by car from Kota Bharu.  I wasn’t the designated driver so I can’t really tell you how to get there, although there’s a description on Rock Climbing on how to get there.

There are dormatories located on site that you can stay at, but the nearest town is only a hop away so you have the option to stay there instead.  Even if you stay at Etnobotani, you’ll still need to drive to town to get food, unless you pack your own supplies. 

We were originally planning to stay on site but couldn’t find the caretakers so we ended up taking refuge in town.

Below: Simian Boy’s panorama.

One of the nicest features of Gua Musang is the ability to drive right up to the crag and park your car at the foot of Section A. 

Since the access is so easy, you can pack as much as you want (read: whatever fits into your car) and bring it along with you to crag - an eski full of beer if that’s your fancy.  You can bring along your camping chairs, or haul someone up to the anchor on top rope if they’re taking too long (just hook them up to the car and drive away - kidding!). 

If you’re bored, waiting for your turn to climb or just want something else to do, you can ride the horse in the nearby paddock.  Okay, just kidding.  I don’t even know if they offer rides or if the horse is still there since that was about 5 years back when we visited.

Gua Musang has five Sections - A to E.  We only managed to get time to climb Section A and C.  Section A is nice and easy with plenty of large, solid holds for you to take your pick from.  Grade ratings are all round 5B/C.  Section C was a bit more challenging, around about 6A/B. 

You can see from the photos that the belay stations for Section A and C are all pretty clear.  Section D which is the wall facing Section C (to the left of the photo above) shares the same belay area as Section C, but the routes look a lot tougher.  We didn’t get to climb Section D, but I think someone attempted one of the routes, albeit unsuccessfully.  Thin Man and I hiked around to check out Section E which had some pretty wicked looking routes that we talked about coming back to try when we were “better climbers”.  Unfortunately, that was my first and last trip back to Gua Musang.

There are also some pretty cool boulders slightly deeper in from Section C and D that are pretty interesting to boulder.  The ground cover is clean so they provide a pretty good area for some beginner bouldering.

Taman Etnobotani is also a training ground so they have an obstacle course in the park that you can try out for free. Well, it was free back in 2003.  I’m not sure if it’s still free now.

Stay tuned for the next post for the Rockrats’ Gua Musang 2003 trip report.

Popularity: 33% [?]

I’ve been down and out with a case of food poisoning so there hasn’t been any exercise for me over the last few days.  During one of my nightly episodes, I started mulling over the memories and I realised that I have never written about how the Rockrats got their nicknames.  So if you’ve ever wanted to know the story, here it is…

Thin Man - for obvious reasons.  You only have to see his picture to realise why he was dubbed “thin man”.  I don’t think I have ever met a guy who has a smaller waist size than I do.

Small Person - also for obvious reasons.  For such a little person, she really makes up for it with some very clever climbing tricks.

Simian Boy - well, it was originally Sim City which was a pun on his name, but I thought Simian Boy was more apt.  Don’t let that innocent face fool you - just check out those Pop-Eye arms of his.

Mutant Man - has a vestigial sixth toe (well, okay, so it’s more like a little nodule on the side of his foot) which we used to joke was the reason why he could climb so well despite not having as much practice as the rest of us.

Lelek Le Grunt - also for obvious reasons although you need to be present during a climb to observe (or rather hear) it.  You can tell Le Grunt’s on the wall from a mile away just based on his “grunts”.

Holdbreaker - is a real bomber belayer and also a great tester to check if the anchor can hold your weight - because if it can hold his, it can definitely hold yours.  Holdbreaker was dubbed so because he broke not one, not two, but several holds during the course of the Rockrats’ climbing history.

Fearless Leader - ploughs on to uncharted territories when no other Rockrat dares to.  Without Fearless, we probably would never have attempted to climb “Water on the Rock” at Damai and would probably still be climbing the 5Cs.

Cover Boy - well, just take a look at that pretty face and that should be clue enough for this nick.

Combat Girl - due to my signature helmet that I started wearing to all our climbs.

5C Master - after his famous quote “I’m gonna be the best damned 5C climber there ever was!”

Moo Moo Girl - the girl has bull strength!  Don’t mess with this one! 

Popularity: 28% [?]

There is a route over in Ridsect, Nyamuk, called 800 Bucks Down the Hill.  If you ever wondered why it was dubbed so, this is the tale behind the name…

Sometime towards mid-to-late 2003, the Rockrats decided to learn how to bolt a route.  Under the expert tutelage of route bolter Patrick Andre (whom you will have noticed bolted many, if not most, of the routes in Nyamuk), we set out to Ridsect - a relatively new section of Nyamuk that Patrick was trying to establish at the time. 

From the Rockrats were Holdbreaker, Thin Man, Moo Moo, Lelek Le Grunt, Simian Boy and Combat Girl.  Accompanied by Kevin and Patrick, himself, we set out early that day to accomplish as much as possible.  After briefing us on the tasks involved, Patrick got started setting up the ropes, while the rest of us set to work clearing up the place.

As you can see from the brambles behind Patrick, there was a lot to clean up (and if you think the wall was bad, you should see the ground).  Here’s a shot of Simian Boy trying to clear the access path to the base of the crag.

The belay area is a narrow strip of land with a natural drain between it and the wall and a downward sloping hill covered with brambles behind it.  The picture below should give you a fair idea of what the ground coverage was like:

While we were clearing up, some of the Rockrats got a little distracted and started goofing around.

Below: “Stick ‘em up and gimme all your gear!”  Thin Man threatening to slice Le Grunt and Moo Moo if they didn’t hand over all their rock climbing gear.

After a while, Thin Man decides he’s going to get rid of the evidence - Le Grunt about to be beheaded by one of the bluntest parangs around.

Figuring it was going to get messy and not wanting to have to clean up, he made Le Grunt lean over into the “drain” between the wall and the belay area.

Below: Private Moo gets her hands on a glue gun and starts blasting anyone and everyone in sight.

Lelek Le Grunt runs for cover but is cornered by Private Moo.  She kicks him into the drain…

…”Gimme all your gear or I’ll blast your head off!”

Meanwhile, some real work is being done by Kevin who is setting up a rope to bolt a route that would later be known as Otesanek (the route right of 800 Bucks Down the Hill). 

The FA of Otesanek was by Patrick Andre.  He named the route Otesanek after a story about a couple who so badly wanted a baby that the husband carved a baby out of wood (there’s more to the story but I can’t really remember any more - you’ll have to ask Patrick himself to relate it to you).  Otesanek has some tree roots running along it which reminded him of the wooden baby, hence the name.  You can see the tree root in this picture - it’s the long brown root at the right most part of the photo (it is also extremely tempting to use the root as you get towards the anchor).

I’ll tell you a little more about how to bolt a route in the next post.  This one’s about the route 800 Bucks Down the Hill.

After Patrick teaches us how to bolt a route using Otesanek as an example, we get to work on 800 Bucks Down the Hill.  We all get a chance to climb the route on top rope first and naturally Hold Breaker had to live up to his alias and break off a piece just as he’s getting started…

Le Grunt lives up to his name spitting curses all the way up:

I got the task of marking the spots where we would place bolts and Thin Man did the bolting using a battery powered drill.  Halfway up, the battery ran out so he had to send down the battery and get the spare sent up to him.  While sending down the battery, it fell out and rolled down the hill into the brambles.  We spent the rest of the day combing the brambles for the battery (not that we could do very much without being shredded to pieces).

Below:  The Rockrats combing the area for the battery.  Unfortunately, it rolled into the brambles and although Simian Boy eventually found it, it was out of our reach.

Since the drill belonged to Yuen Li from Summit Climbing Gym, we ended up having to buy a new battery for her which costed us 800 bucks.  Hence the name 800 Bucks Down the Hill - it was coined by the Rockrats, even though the FA was completed by Thin Man. 

And now you know the story behind 800 Bucks Down the Hill…

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I found some old trip reports from our climbing trip to Singapore in 2003 written by the Thin Man and Lelek le Grunt.  Lelek le Grunt’s report is rather comical, actually.  It is a pity Simian Boy didn’t write anything - his trip reports are always good for a laugh, too.

From Thin Man:

Day 1: Artificial wall climbing at SAFRA Yishun.

Excellent enterprise climbing walls with some very long, pumpy, overhanging routes. The walls are set up right smack under the sun, which means it can get pretty blistering hot in the late mornings. Everybody had good fun and performed well on the challenging routes.

Later on, went shopping for climbing shoes and gear. There’s a lot more selection here as compared to KL, and the prices are pretty decent as well.

Below: Cinderella’s ugly step-sister (aka Fearless Leader trying on a pair of climbing shoes at All Sports)

At night, we were back at JB for MooMoo’s house-warming dinner where we stuffed ourselves crazy!

Day 2: Outdoor climbing at Dairy Farm, Bukit Timah

Most of us wouldn’t have guessed, but right smack in the concrete jungles of Singapore is a natural park with very well-maintained hiking and biking trails. Managed to explore some really interesting bolted routes. The climbing gang had a field day testing themselves out against some of the more challenging routes and I guess everybody left with some unfinished business

Spent the night at JB, watched a late-night movie, and then an even later mamak session before trudging home for a couple of hours of sleep.

In all, another fun-filled climbing trip in the record books for the climbing RockRats.

From Lelek le Grunt:

I’m just filling out the blanks…

Day 0, Lai runs out of petrol again. Whatever happened to “I dont make the same mistake twice”?

Day 1, pick up Holdbreakers goods at his suppliers place (me reading map in the car), then on to Allsports and campers (me still reading map in car, getting sick), finally attempted to go to wisma atria to get some goods for mumsie (me still reading map, getting even more sick) gave up because of lack of time and head back over to MooMoos place in JB for makan (Me finally giving up the map reading and conking out in the backseat. Lucky didn’t puke.)

Day 2, Adrian takes a massive dump somewhere off the trail. 2 or 3 days worth if I’m not mistaken. Heres the sequence of events. Leaves car, walkes up trail with the rest of us, feels the urge, turns around, searches for toilet paper, can’t find it, runs back up the trail, asks moomoo where the TP is, gets told its in the glove box (the only place he didn’t look), says “DOH!” in the exact same manner as lai when he found his safety was locked on his harness, gets some tiny piece of tissue paper from Richard, runs back to car, doesnt make it, jumps into the bushes, says “aaaaahhhhhhh”…..

Also on Day 2 was this b**** (edited) of a slab climb. Its a nice 6a all the way to the bloody 1 foot crux move. Yes, just 1 FOOT! And that 1 foot is a 6C by general consensus. A mini matchstick width micro edge to stand on, a sloping mini crimp for the left hand and abslutly nothing for the right hand. Kenneth leads for us, but chickens out and swings over to the scramble on the left to finish the route to set up top rope for the rest of us. Next was yours truly. Hung for a bloody long time and finally managed to haul my sorry ass over the lip using my left foot all the way to the left. (cheating?) Next was Coverboy who tried and tried and tried, but finally asked for a haul. Well, 1 foot of hauling was all it took. Next was holdbreaker who had the same results. Sim tried and didnt make it either. Came off the climb and was royally pissed with us when we told him non of us made it up either. Shen managed to haul herself over the lip after some long hanging and cranking.!

Dunno how she did it though. 5C master tried and made it. All the way to the first bolt, which was his goal for the day. After that, feeling brave, he went on to the crux and died, with the rest of us.

Oh yeah, somewhere around that time, Thin man and Shameless were attempting this deceptively easy looking climb. I heard grunts and moans from thin man that rivalled mine! Later when Shameless was trying, Ho ho, it was a funny sight to look over and see lai swinging out. Look over again, and lai swings out again. In fact, everytime we looked over, we could see lai swinging out… Lai, that was by far, your most shameless performance ever. Runners were pulled, bolts were stepped on… and the best… oh man, pull on the runner, clip in to the bolt using the safety, unclip the runner, reach up and clip the runner into the next bolt, unclip safety, pull on newly clipped in runner…

Hmmm, dun forget the huge cinema we went to, when we were late. I remember someone saying “Hey, we are probbably 90% of the audience, can they delay just for us ar?” Turns out we actually WERE 90% of the audience. They didn’t delay for us though, we missed the starting. We also missed the ending because some lazy prick of a projector operator cut off the last bits of the show just so he could go home.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Okay, I promised to write about the Rockrats’ trip to Dairy Farm and here it is - a little late, but better than never…

I’m not really sure if it’s still open to climbing, or if it still exists (2003 was a long time ago, although I did go back subsequently in 2004).  As far as I know, it should be there, but I suppose you can ask at any one of the rock climbing gyms in Singapore to find out more. 

As for how to get there, here’s a map, courtesy of our Singaporean climber friend, Ken:

And his directions on how to get there (which I still have up until now - I never could part with my old junk and guess it comes in handy after all…):

1. Take BKE and exit at Dairy Farm Road.
2. When you see Dairy Farm Estate to your right, look out for a small broken tarmac road with a barrier denying entrance to the road (red star on Dairy Farm map).

You can park there but don’t obstruct traffic. Alternatively there should be parking a few meters down just before the road junction to Upper Bukit Timah Road.

Dairy Farm is an abandoned granite quarry that has been converted to a leisure park where Singaporeans can take their pets, go for walks and ride their bikes surrounded by greenery as opposed to the urban concrete jungle that fills up most of the island.  Dairy Farm contains natural and sport routes, although there have been a few accidents which put off a lot of climbers.  It might be wise to note that a lot of what I write here was true back in 2003-2004, but it’s been 4 years plus so a lot might have changed since.

What I liked most about Dairy Farm was climbing on granite.  A lot of granite routes are pretty slabby - just the kind of wall to turn on a slab climber like me.

So what does Dairy Farm look like?  Here are some pictures from our trip…

After you pass the barrier, there is a short walk to the entrance to the quarry as shown in the two pictures below.

Dairy Farm is basically like a big field surrounded by rock cliffs.  They have bolted and natural routes which you can read about on Rockclimbing.com, but I believe one of the more popular natural routes was called, “The Nose”.  There was an accident on “The Nose” which I heard about a few years back and I think the accident made a lot of climbers wary of climbing at Dairy Farm.

By the time we arrived, the Singaporean climbers were already warmed up with lots of climbing action going on.  Below is the first wall we visited - it’s a close up of the wall you see in the picture above.

We set up belay at another wall near a crack climb and a route called “Mermaid” which I was later to get acquainted with.  Here’s Simian boy with a canine friend.

Ken took the lead with a rather featureless, slabby route (check out the crack climb on the wall beside him - it’s a natural route so we couldn’t try it since none of us had natural pro)…

…while the rest of us watched with baited breath.

Then each of us took turns attempting this slabby route, with Holdbreaker leading the way (sort of looks like he broke off a feature from an already featureless face).

Then it was Lelek Le Grunt’s turn.

Meanwhile, Thin Man leads a second route.

He gets conned into stepping on the tree by sneaky Simian Boy who convinces him it’s not really cheating only to tell him he’s lost his flash after his foot connects with the tree.

Then I second it.

A Top-down view of the site we were climbing at:

My attempt on Mermaid:

I liked Mermaid because it was a route that required grace more than power.  It was tricky but possible and with each attempt, I got further.

Until I finally managed to clear the first part.

Thin Man tackled his first ever 6C route on top rope.  Only he and Fearless Leader had a chance to attempt this route.  Some climber was projecting this route because there was a piece of string threaded through the anchor that allowed us to put up a top rope without having to lead it.

Thin Man almost at the anchor.

Fearless Leader on belay and me taking a break before my final crack at Mermaid.

Moo Moo having a chat with Simian Boy’s canine friend.

I located an entry I wrote about our little excursion to Dairy Farm that I completely forgot all about. 

Dairy Farm is a beautiful glade surrounded by climbable rock formations. It feels like entering a portal into a different realm from the concrete jungle city of Singapore. At the wall that we climbed, I felt rather reminiscent of the Australian outback. It was so picturesque, I felt content to never leave. I wished we could have stayed there longer to climb more of the sites.

There were two routes I wanted to lead, but the fear gripped my heart and stopped me in my tracks. I wondered why because I was not afraid the night before. I thought that by now it would be easier to climb with reckless abandon because there was no longer anything to hold me back. Patric wanted to solo a scramble to set the rope for us, but I felt distinctly uncomfortable watching him scale higher and higher without the proper gear. I was not sure why I felt protective because a part of me felt that it should have been me up there, instead of him. In the end it was Kenneth who set up the rope – climbing the conventional way. Even then I could feel my breathing stop when I watched him at the crux.

My first climb was set up by some Caucasians. I thought they might have been from Australia because I heard them talking about an Australian Math syllabus. The accent wasn’t Australian, but content of the discussion felt distinctly so. They threaded my rope through the anchor so I wouldn’t have to lead. The funny thing about granite is that the holds are difficult to see from the ground and the climb looked much harder than it felt. I think I could have led the route, but unfortunately, I lacked the mental for it.

I followed David up another route to the left, stopped short of the crux and bailed. It was a nice climb, but no guts and no glory for me. Just as well because I later went back to it on top rope and found myself peeling off the crux countless times. In all, this wall felt like it was created for me. It was the kind of climbing I liked – like “1st July Special” at Whitewall – a lot of footwork to supplement the fingers so my arms never feel pumped.

Some very loud cries drew me down to watch the Thin Man work a 6C route. Sitting on that rock, I could feel the serene energy of the vale pervade my very essence. Each breath I took revitalized me as energy seeping into every last inch of my body. I closed my eyes, focusing my mind, tried to send some of this renewed power surging within me to the Thin Man. Don’t know if it helped, because I went back up after to have a crack at the “Mermaid”.

I liked the “Mermaid”. It’s challenging because it requires balance rather than power. All the moves are within my physical ability to achieve rather than some crank move beyond my muscle capacity.

The Rockrats at Dairy Farm.

Popularity: 58% [?]

Here are more photos from the archives of the Rockrats.  These are from our first trip down to Singapore to climb, which I believe was in August, 2003.  I remember because we went down in 3 cars and someone had this wise idea of sticking Merdeka flags to our cars.  The glue wasn’t very strong, so the flags were gone by the time we arrived in Singapore.

We planned the trip after meeting a bunch of Singaporean climbers who came up to Damai to climb one weekend.  They invited us down to climb in Singapore giving us details of two places that they frequent - Safra Yishun, which is an outdoor artificial wall, and Dairy Farm, which is a natural granite quarry turned recreational park.

I’ll post the photos from Dairy Farm in another post.  Below are the ones from Safra Yishun…

There are two sections to the place - a boulder wall and a vertical climbing wall.  You can see why the Singaporean climbers are all so strong - every single wall has an incline of some sort.

Here’s a view of the vertical wall with the boulder wall in the background.  It’s a shot from the beginner’s side with the power routes on the back.  You’ll notice that even the so-called “easy” routes have inclined sections. 

Here’s a shot of the power routes:

Jugs or no jugs, these walls are still a challenge to climb - especially when you’re a slab climber like me…

Here is Fearless Leader seconding for a change:

And 5C Master on the not-so-5C route:

This shot was taken after my very painful climb to the top of the overhang.  I gotta thank Ken setting up the top rope and for hauling my behind up the rest of the way…

How to get to Safra Yishun from Woodlands Checkpoint (thanks Ken for the directions):

1. Take SLE and exit at Yishun (exit 3)
2. Turn left into Lentor Avenue
3. At the next traffic junction turn right into Yiahun Avenue 1
4. Take the next left turn, into Yishun Avenue 4
5. Continue until you see SAFRA Yishun. Turn right into carpark (marked with red star on attached map).
6. After parking, proceed to main reception on ground floor (near the huge staircase).
7. Pay S$10 climbing fee
8. Walk up the stairs and across the suspension bridge to the climbing walls.
9. Present receipt at office.

Popularity: 38% [?]

If you ever wondered why we call him Hold “Bomber” Breaker then this picture speaks a thousand words:

Yup, the climber that you don’t see in the picture is Holdbreaker.  If ever you wanted to test if an anchor is bomber then Holdbreaker’s your man.  Send him up first and if he makes it down in one piece then I reckon your anchor’s about as bomber as they get.

Popularity: 10% [?]