The hardest routes in Townsville Recently, Doug Hockly completed his project, A Mighty Eructation (26) on Wallaby Wall at Mt Stuart. The route is quite sustained up a gently overhanging 25m wall passing three rings and lots of natural gear. It is the hardest route at Mt Stuart, and the hardest on Townsville's mainland.  Not happy with that, Doug, over a period of a couple of weekends, ticked a new route on Magnetic Island (off the coast of Townsville) which has gone at 26/27, making it the hardest route in the Townsville region. The severely overhanging, all natural-gear line named Brudal ascends an 8m granite boulder and was originally found by Steve Baskerville, who showed the line to Doug. Doug led the route on pre-placed protection, but plans to lead the route placing the gear as soon as possible.	Victorians invade Frog! You heard it here first! Beware Queenslanders! Rumour has it that a huge Victorian contingent will be heading for Frog in mid July. The majority of the Araps permanents will be crossing two borders to siege the fine lines of Frog. Add to that our very own cross-border-raiding Neil Monteith and his Victorian followers and it should be a packed campsite!  Legendary muscleman HB is already here. The last weekend of June saw HB thrashing away on Whistling Kite (31), still to no avail. No doubt he will nail it soon, or already has by the time you read this. That weekend also saw him cruise Moorhead's classic arête, Hard Nose (25) amongst other things.
Kangaroo Point re-bolting   Some climbers would be surprised to hear that not all bolts are safe. Especially when they take falls again and again, such as the carrot bolts on the classics of Kangaroo Point.   Darrin Carter, editor of the latest guidebook (and cover boy of this issue!) has been hard at work maintaining some of Kangaroo Point's well-climbed routes. Here are some details: Surrender: new lower-off Love Hurts: replaced lower-off MOBS: last two bolts replaced and new D-shackles Idiot Wind: crux bolt replaced (original was very loose!) Brisbane Bitter: replaced 3rd and 4th bolts (crux is now a FH) and a new lower off chain Kiwi: replaced crux bolt   All the cash required to finance such ventures comes straight out of Darrin's pocket, so if you'd like to help, you can make a donation to the cause at K2 in Fortitude Valley.	Above: A sunny and characteristically populated day at the Point.
Save-the-tree anchors at Frog Those of us that climb at Frog have no doubt come across the fantastic save-the-tree anchors at the top of routes. They usually consist of chain or cable sheathed in plastic. There are now 21 such anchors on Frog, making it easier for us to pull our ropes, and saving the poor trees that get hammered by rope-burn. These things are not cheap, and once again, the person responsible for installing these is Darrin Carter. Please show your support for this vital venture by chucking a few coins into the "tree moneybox" upstairs in the climbing section of K2 in Fortitude Valley. Donating hardware is also helpful - talk to Darrin in K2 about doing so. Please note: Those climbers doing Plume and Termination, when you finish, please walk along the ledge and rap from the Witches Cauldron save-the-tree anchor as opposed to using the trees at the base of these routes.	Upcoming guidebooks In other Frog news, a new guide is coming out. The producers (from down south) are currently lining up advertisers, so we should hopefully see the guide on shelves sometime this year. Development at Serpent continues apace. Over 35 routes exist there to date, and a "guidelet" to the area is in the pipeline (admittedly, this is potentially a fairly long pipeline). The production of the guidelet should see this crag gain significant popularity among SE Queensland climbers. The long awaited Glasshouse Mountains guidebook co-authored by Darrin Carter and Lee Skidmore is 25,000 words in length and is mostly complete. Several issues remain including photos, layout, advertising and production. While no date can be set for release of the guide, readers should know that it is well underway. If you have any information that is not in previous Glasshouse guides, please contact Lee Skidmore.
Frog pegs The dodgy peg that was added to Plate Tectonics after the first ascent has been removed. The two original pegs in Yeah Yeah Yeah have been removed, but are going to be replaced soon. Late breaking news! No pun intended. Details are at this stage very sketchy, but sometime during the last week of June, someone had a serious accident at Frog Buttress, and a story was telecast on the news.  Reports range from "well known, experienced Victorian climber" to "abseiler". Someone who was interviewed by the news team stated the accident occurred when two cams pulled while the person was lowering or abseiling. The result? A substantial grounder causing spinal injuries and a helicopter rescue.	Cliffcare meeting Tuesday 29/6/99 saw the first meeting of Cliffcare, an association like that of the same name established in the Blue Mountains. Presumably, this first meeting was to determine the level of support for such an organisation up here in Queensland, and whether it would be worthwhile establishing one. Keep your ear to the ground about this, and please show your support by attending any future meetings. John Gardener (the resole man) is the person to contact about this, but failing that, speak to the staff at K2.