Eric Duggan and Kim Hessell spent a week at Arapiles in Mid October. We met up with Glyn Jackson and Lara Wilcox (both NZAC members from Canterbury and Otago). The weather was fine and hot for the week (climbing into the 30’s - which wasn’t too bad but it did irritate the flies!). Highlights for the trip were Eskimo Nell (120m grade 10), Syrinx (170m grade 10), Brolga (100m grade 16 slabs), Muldoon (13), Plimsoll Line (22), Frenzy (21), Lemmington (19), Tannin (19), D-minor (14), Little Thor (20), and Pilot Error (20). Actually, the whole week we were there we didn’t bother climbing anything unless it had at least one star! The free outdoor barbeques in Horsham were quite good as well. In early November Eric Duggan, Peter Rowe, and Malcolm Mcgechie tried to climb Mt Arrowsmith via the standard route from the Cameron Valley. We walked into Cameron Hut in just over 4.5 hours in hot weather. That night the clag came in though and a light rain started to fall. At 2am the next morning the weather had cleared so we had a quick breakfast and left at 2.30am. Unfortunately there was no freeze and soft snow turned to knee deep breakable crust at about 2000m. We turned around just under East Horn (nearly 2370m) at 6.30am, with our last 100m of climbing taking over an hour. Although we didn’t reach the summit we were treated to nice views to the east at dawn. We were back at the hut at 8am and then walked out in very hot conditions. Eric Duggan
