Redcliffs Climbing in Summer

Like all stories it started with an idea to visit some more remote crags of Queensland. My first step is always to go and search thecrag.com for cool areas I haven’t been too yet, and this is where I came across a crag called Redcliffs. The name can be misleading to some as it is not in the area of Redcliffe but rather in the middle of White Mountain National Park located northeast of Toowoomba. Redcliffs features around 80% trad climbing and 20% sport climbing, which poses a question if the trip is worthwhile as I am not a trad climber, and the simple answer to that is of course. Every crag deserves at least one visit and maybe there will be a story in the end. 

The next step is to convince someone to actually go with me, this took a few weeks with some constant hassling of my friends, with Iain agreeing to go with me. You may ask why people wouldn’t want to go and it is because this crag has a reputation of having hostile locals that bash in your car windows. So at least most of my friends had a head on them and didn’t want to risk it. Iain and I devised a plan of how we should access the crag. The original access was a 15-minute walk in from a road, but this is where those angry locals were located and so we decided to use the geographical features of the landscape to our advantage. There is a creek that is right beside the cliffs and can be accessed “easily” by another road.  

Iain and I woke up extremely early and left Brisbane at 5am so we could walk in while it was still cool. We arrived on a road next to a train line and parked the car, heading out at around 7am. We headed down bush bashing into a valley and crossed a creek only to then realize we had crossed the river too early and then had to back track up the valley, with it being early in the morning all the grass was wet and there were an uncountable number of spiderwebs. Puffed and sweaty we then headed down into the right valley to cross the right creek, supposedly there were some cairns (small unnatural plies of rock to indicate the right direction) on the way we were to follow but we hadn’t found any. The walk up onto the next plateau was quite a mission! There were innumerable bushes and creepers blocking our path all covered in dew, at least we were getting bathed in mother nature’s sweat. 

We finally found one of the cairns and were able to follow it and past 2 more cairns. There was no obvious path, just spiderwebs and bushes all around us. The bush was denser than the open eucalypt forest like Harvey’s Marbles. We finally reached the creek to which the cliff face is next to, we scrambled down the hill and crossed the creek. We then just needed to follow along the creek until we got to the bend with the cliff face. We also saw some awesome potential for bouldering all around the river edges. 

The walk along the river went by fast and we could see the damage from the floods and how high the water had gotten around 3 weeks before. Huge pine trees knocked over and flash flood debris scattered on the edges. 

We finally saw the wall and wow; it was quite beautiful and something unexpected along a riverbed. We then put our heads down and made it to the base of the wall, where we had to scramble up 20 meters of loose soil and rock. The sun was now out, and we immediately flaked the rope to get on the first climb. A grade 17 climb named Falcor, I didn’t enjoy the climb that much, but this could have been the nerves and knowing how far we were from help. We soon realised that we had no insect repellent and were being eaten alive by the midges and mosquitoes. The next climb we jumped on was “We’re Here To Put The Fun Back Into Fundamentalism” and it was a 19 with some weird mantles and even horizontal fist jams. I really enjoyed the second route but now the sun was blasting the wall and we decided to go find some other climbs. We headed up to the top of cliffs by going around the side and taking in some spectacular views as well. We ended up trying a 21 with an extremely powerful start, you jump up to the start holds and then bump your right hand twice more, then clip first while having terrible feet and mantle up, some technically side pulls until you hit a horn which you sling and then mantle up to another ledge where you can fully rest. The rest of the climb is a very chill crimp slab for 3 meters. I was able to dog up and Iain got the send on the second go. 

There was one more climb we wanted to attempt but it was in full sun and had no anchors and so we decided to just head out in daylight. The way down on the other end of the cliffs was sketchier and so we decided to simul rappel from a tree, the tree was big and solid and so I didn’t feel worried about that. We threw the rope down and attached ourselves with a grigri, however we didn’t attach a sling between us and, then as we started lowering, I went down slightly faster, and Iain got pulled up as I then fell fast about a meter while Iain got launched into the tree. Iain was holding onto the tree for dear life and so I had to rappel down so Iain could let go of the tree and rappel down as well. It was a harrowing experience that I wish to never have again, if I had hurt myself badly it would be a call to the emergency services.  The tree was also way bigger than it needed to be, so Iain had a hard time holding on as he could not hug the tree, so I am lucky. We then had to do another rappel to the riverbed and this time we were linked together. 

The walk out was not as bad as the walk in, it only took us one hour and we had a sunset as we were driving home. It was a great day out adventuring and it also opened my eyes as to how easy the walk-ins of the popular crags are, they are appreciated a lot more now.