Bunny Bucket Buttress

Monster, achievable rock-climb

Bunny Bucket Buttress, 270m, Grade 18 sport climbPierces Pass, Blue Mountains

Ken Eastwood, nearing the top of pitch 7

For those who love vertical adventures, here’s one of the best days out you can have within a hop, skip and abseil of Sydney: a 270m towering mid-grade climb that is pre-bolted. That’s right. Most long routes in the Blue Mountains, and in fact elsewhere, are trad routes (meaning there are no bolts, and so you need a full rack of gear, and frankly I still haven’t scraped together the $1200 minimum for a proper rack) or are heart-stopping, finger-crimping extreme routes suited only to hardened (generally young) climbers who do nothing else but climb ridiculously hard routes.

This beautiful eight-pitch adventure, given the maximum five stars in the excellent Blue Mountains Climbing guide, 2010, was established in 2005. Originally a rich harvest of old “carrot” bolts, it is now fully ringbolted, with each bolt a comfortable 2–5m from the last. There are no hanging belays – all reasonable ledges, and the sixth and seventh pitches are up a gorgeous vertical headwall with plenty of “bucket” holds.

Earlier this year I had the absolute pleasure of experiencing this route – for hopefully the first of many times – with 21-year-old Blue Mountains Adventure Company guide Eric Butler. 

Eric Butler

Eric, who often chooses to climb and walk barefoot in the tradition of his grandmother Dot, aka “the barefoot bushwalker”, was on a day off, but had always wanted to do the route. I’d met Eric while climbing and doing a story on Warrumbungle National Park for Australian Geographic (http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/warrumbungle-national-park-victoria-.htm).

An excellent climbing partner and great bloke, Eric is always calm, in control and happy to trade leads. We met at the top Pierces Pass carpark off Bells Line of Road, walked down to a few hundred metres before Walls Lookdown Lookout, then veered left on the thin track. This track takes you to the legendary “lunch ledge”, a precipitous eyrie with a multitude of climbs going above and below.

Eric sets up the first abseil

Eric had scored an excellent AND IMPORTANT bit of beta (intelligence): most people rap down the climb called Mirrorball, but many then have had nightmare starts to their day as their rope has become stuck when they try to pull it down after them. You’re better to stick on the Lunch Ledge for an extra 5–10 metres until you reach the next abseil station. The double abseil is a little tricky because the ledge and abseil point below is 45m down and 5m to the left (facing in), so send the most experienced abseiler first. And KNOT YOUR ROPES.

I was freaking out a little at the top of the abseil. 

I’ve never really loved abseiling – that thing of completely trusting the rope, rather than just having the rope there if you fall. Plus, I knew full well that the climb next to Bunny Bucket Buttress had seen the death of a climber in 2009 when incorrectly placed bolts pulled out of the rock. And there were fires elsewhere in the Blue Mountains, and I knew once we committed, we had a long way out. Eric’s light and seemingly spider-web-like 8.5mm ropes (rather than my 10.5mm ones) also meant that I rocketed down the rope faster than I expected.

Pierces Pass, showing the vegetated lunch ledge

From the bottom, it’s just a couple of hundred metres walk along the base of the cliff to the start of the climb, which is marked BBB.

Bunny Bucket has a few great surprises, and I won’t spoil them all, but the starting move is almost the hardest move of the climb. It’s a weird, foot-free, bouldery move and a mistake could be quite serious, as it’s over a small drop. But it is achievable in a variety of ways.

The first two pitches are fairly short and similar, the third slightly harder with holds a little more difficult to find. Pitch four is easy and fun, and pitch five more like a bushwalk (Eric had no shoes by this point).

Pitch 6 was my hardest lead, with an odd, almost foot-free traverse under an overhang, then disappearing around the overhang up onto the headwall. For me it was an awesome but achievable challenge, and Eric had the grace to at least pretend he struggled with a couple of moves.

The seventh pitch has those beautiful jugs for most of the way… until the last few moves when you are starting to get pumped. The fairly small ledge at the top of this pitch is definitely worth a bit of a quiet contemplation, some lunch, and a break to enjoy the view. 

Ledge at the top of pitch 7

From there the last pitch is unusual but relatively easy at grade 13.

There are plenty of big routes in the Blue Mountains, and some other classic fun routes (such as Sweet Dreams of course) but I don’t know of any mid-grade sport climb in Australia that is as big as this. It took us 7.5 hours to get back to the car from the time we left it, and we didn’t dawdle, but just enjoyed a superb day out, on superb rock, with superb company.

Happy climbing.

Apologies that these photos aren’t up to my usual standard – I borrowed a small point and shoot camera that appeared to take blurry shots. Clear photo of me by Eric Butler.