You gotta love Bryden Allen. In the Australian trad milieu, "FA: Allen/Batty" is code for "great route." Hence my interest's always been piqued by "Out and Beyond," an elusive little number on Belougery Spire's east face. (The big face. The one which makes you feel like a copout when you top out on "Vertigo" and peer over the other side.)
Here you've got Bryden Allen, you've got an awesome-looking, big-ass Warrumbungles cliff, you've got good numbers (15 and 250). And you've got the cool name - this climb's gotta be good!
It is, of course. On Friday, we turn up at Pincham at around eleven, and are in bed at Balor by midnight. (With new stairs, getting to the hut is a no-brainer.) At six we're up again, and by eight we've found the climb (we hope). Looks alright - though we can't see much - so I lead up.
It's just an access pitch really. We get to a ledge and confront a most intriguing-looking traverse. Phil stays the course though, climbing a good 30 metres right and four metres *down* as he disappears around the skyline to my right! I'm psyched to follow.
The ground drops away as I climb out and around. At the belay I trundle a TV-sized block - you know, for fun. The ensuing explosion on the scree below is impressive and smoky. Phil looks pensive and says "that's food for thought."
Two more classy pitches, straight up. It keeps getting better. Then it rains - crap - and I take a detour into a scrub gully. (Once Phil's hacked his way through, it's dry again.) We've gained a large dihedral, a major feature on the cliff.
From here it gets a bit confused. Beta, collected from no less than three different sources, is still not enough to find us our crux pitch. The "balancy hand traverse below an overhang" is nowhere to be seen.
What we do get is a nice slab pitch, followed by an easy traverse (which brings out my inner wimp), and then a buttress with great views down. By now, we are up there! Phil gets the summit honours on pitch eight, though it doesn't yield without a fight.
Break out the deck chairs, as our notes suggest. Well, not quite, but we do hang out for a while. I'd rather be up here than down there. I'm feeling that contented, post-climb mellowness. Savour it. Aahhh.
We sign the summit register (twice this year for me!), then head to the rap station. Screw with ropes for a while, and we're down. Another goal in the bag - this year's been OK that way. Tomorrow we'll dream of Phoenix while climbing a chosspile, but for now it's food and slumber and good memories of a great climb. Thanks Bryden!