[This Off Belay story originally appeared in Alpinist 92 (Winter 2025-26), which is currently available on newsstands and in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up the hard copies of Alpinist for all the goodness!–Ed.]
I HAD DECIDED TO drop out of a respected business school when I boarded a plane to Australia in 1975. I’d already taken a year and a half off, which was fine with my dad, but quitting now meant that future education would be on my nickel. No screwing around this time.
New Englander Steve Arsenault had turned me on to Australia. He had been on a tour of duty during the Vietnam War and made side trips to the Blue Mountains outside Sydney. I’d also met Aussie climber Rick White and others during my visits to Yosemite and the United Kingdom.
On the plane, I packed a single 150-foot 9mm rope. The thin-diameter ropes weren’t rated as single ropes back then, but if my entire kit for six weeks could fit under the plane seat in front of me, it was going south.
First stop was Brisbane, where Rick lived. We traveled to the Warrumbungles, Wyberba, Mt. Maroon and the Glass House Mountains. It took a few days to get over the considerable jet lag and the prodigious population of poisonous snakes, but soon I was climbing into new grades of difficulty.
An all-night drive from Canberra landed us at the Pines campground below Mt. Arapiles on Easter weekend. By then I’d met Humzoo (aka Ian Thomas), and my primary partner was Ray Lassman, with the backup crew of Smarty (John Smart) and Mr. Boobs (Norm Booth). They were all keen to bamboozle me one way or another. The offwidth roof crack of Kama Sutra on Bluff Major, the highest point on Mt. Arapiles, seemed perfect.
The climb starts out with a traverse left above the overhanging route Scorpion Corner. I protected the first moves for the traverse that Ray would have to negotiate, but after that I placed only a handful of gear. I was free flowing without a care in the world. There were a couple of carrot bolts without hangers, but nobody clued me in to these. The feeling of freedom and lack of drag that I enjoyed from the 9mm rope was about to work against me …
Just as I was getting to the top, Ray screamed that I was running out of line. I was able to reach over the top and place a piece of gear with a runner, but I would need Ray to climb some of the traverse to clip it to my swami belt. About as soon as I clipped in and got Ray on belay with my Sticht Plate, he was off, flying through space on a massive pendulum swing. At first Ray was spronging about, not really concerned … until we realized he was not going to get back on the rock anytime soon. Meanwhile, the skinny rope, sawing into my groin, was now precariously close to pulling my sensitive bits into the belay device.
The last piece of gear was about forty feet below me; I contemplated how I was going to reverse twenty feet of delicate 5.10 moves with Ray’s 150 pounds hanging off my swami. It must have looked funny: me bellowing at Ray to stop screaming and flailing while the others tried several times to toss a rope with a locking carabiner to him as he spun in circles.
Eventually our three friends got a rope to Ray with an elaborate tie-in that ensured everyone’s safety but mine, and pulled him over to Smarty’s shoulders. Slowly, I stood on my toes to get enough slack in the sling to unclip, then I carefully down climbed delicate face moves for a few breathless minutes, hoping not to take an unbelayed eighty-footer as Ray’s weight bounced on the rope with each downward step.
Once Ray was safely untied, the four of them were off to the pub to embellish the story any way they chose, and I was left with serious abandonment issues as I reclimbed the airy finishing moves, dangling the unanchored rope behind me.