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<guide><text class="heading1">Articles</text>
<text class="text"
        new="false"
        number="null.">This page contains articles on Jamming and English grades and an original account of the first ascent of Third Bird by Lyle Closs.</text>
<text
        class="heading2">Jamming on Dolerite by Ian Snape
</text><text
        class="text">For those finely honed athletes, body sculpted in the gym, but daunted by the prospect of 'the jam', here is a simple chart to aid progression through the art.
</text><text
        class="heading3" new="false"
        number="null.">Pre-school
</text><text class="text" new="false"
        number="null.">Two of the lower graded jam cracks on the Pipes can be found in the Johnstone's Knob area. Gear Freak and Pipedream, both 16, provide a straightforward pre-school in the art. Shelter in the Storm (17), just to the L of Pipedream, also involves the odd jam, but it's possibly under graded
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        class="heading3">Jamming test pieces
</text><climb extra=""
        grade="17" name="Chasm Wall Centaur " number="1"
        stars="">The test is whether you chose to jam it at 17, or crimp the crux at 18. If you chose the latter, stop here
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="19" name="Battle Cruiser " number="2"
        stars="">One jam that's very difficult to avoid
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="18" name="Ano's Sojourn " number="3"
        stars="">This short sustained little test piece is a good intermediate jam test that has seen many failed attempts to layback the crux
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="19" name="Punk " number="4"
        stars="">Like Ano's...only more of it. A climb that used to be mostly straight hands in yesteryear, is today a fist jam in places, and is tomorrows offwidth as the column continues to move. Do it now before it moves up the list.
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" name="Icarus " number="5"
        stars="">What a line. Tape up.
</climb><climb extra=""
        grade="20" length="" name="Opportunity " new="false"
        number="6 ."
        stars="">Described in the guide as 'surprising'...a must do before Jam Test #7.
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" name="Tartarus " number="7"
        stars="">A combination of tricky manoeuvres that requires strength, endurance and the ability to let go to place runners. A climb that commands respect. 
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" name="Daedelus " number="8"
        stars="">An offwidth that is rarely climbed. The first of two Henry Barber routes that have a reputation that is probably well deserved. As intimidating to look at as to lead.
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="22" name="Savage Journey " number="9"
        stars="">Best led without cams for that Barber experience. Sustained excellence.
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" name="Galah Performance " number="10"
        stars="">A magical line full of old school charm. Widely recognized as being high in the grade, this little climb has dished out more spankings than Madam Lash. 
</climb><text
        class="text">Generally considered by those experienced in the art to be at least two grades harder to on-sight than Icarus (test #5).
</text><text
        class="text">Congratulations, you have know shown the mental fortitude to jam when it's not needed, you have climbed 'surprising' jams, shown respect and successfully climbed cracks that require strength, endurance and a comprehensive repertoire of jamming techniques. You are now qualified to confidently tackle any of the harder crack climbs on the pipes.
</text><text
        class="heading1">And a comment on Grading... again, from Ian Snape
</text><text
        class="text">For those from the UK who are confused by the cunning simplicity of the single digit Ewbank grading scheme, and prefer complex algebra involving letter and numbers, here is a selected comparison chart with examples to help the transition.
</text><climb
        extra="" grade="21" length="HVS 5c" name="Blood on the Racks "
        stars="">A few bouldery moves with a runner every 10 cm above your head
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="21" length="E3.5c" name="Farewell to Arms "
        stars="">Sustained
</climb><climb extra="" grade="19"
        length="E1.5b/c" name="Malignant Mushroom " new="false"
        number=""
        stars="">A tricky move with good protection
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" length="E3.5c/6a" name="Tacho "
        stars="">A hard move with barely adequate protection - Yorkshire E3
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="19" length="E1.5b"
        name="Just a Little Bit Longer "
        stars="">Consistent climbing never too far from protection
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="20" length="E3.5c,5b" name="Icarus "
        stars="">Sustained and well protected.
</climb><climb extra=""
        grade="18" length="VS5a" name="Incredible Journey "
        stars="">Short pitch with a few metres of jamming
</climb><climb
        extra="" grade="19" length="E2.5,5a" name="Battle Cruiser "
        stars="">Sustained and tricky crux
</climb><climb extra=""
        grade="17" length="HVS5a" name="Chancellor Direct "
        stars="">Delightful
</climb><climb extra="" grade="17"
        length="E2.5b" name="Suzerain "
        stars="">Not at all like Chancellor
</climb><text
        class="text">The astute pommy climber will note that some climbs graded between 17 and 21 in the comparison table would be given HVS on a UK mountain crag. Well, you don't need to be climbing 17 to experience quality HVS climbing on the pipes. Nefertiti (15), Moonraker (16), and Xenophenese (16) amongst others are also in the region HVS 4c/5a.  
</text><text
        class="heading2" new="false"
        number="null.">Third Bird by Lyle Closs </text><text
        class="text" new="false" number="null.">I am pounding at the keyboard,. My fingers flail in the air between words. I am immersed in Astral Weeks. A chaotic jumble of semi-comprehensible prose batters out of my senses onto the paper.
"Fucking come on!" The door bursts open. Ian Lewis wants to climb. I want anything else but. It is chilly, grey. Hobart and autumn glooming. He stands in the doorway of my bare, rented student room, looks at me with amused annoyance, his eyes half closed. "Get your arse out. Come on, it's time we did that fucking line."  
I am hardly awake. "Fucking hell mate. It's cold!" 
"Fuck it, get your arse out of here. It's not fucking cold." These are our articulate years. He walks in and starts shoving nuts and slings into my old pack. "Christ almighty. Come on."
I moan and push the rickety table aside, start to haul warmer clothes on, pull on my Blundstone elastic sided boots. Wishing for something else. Something beyond the close walls of Tasmania. I throw my PAs at Ian - he shoves them in after the climbing gear. Jeff Burgess grins from the door.
"You want to climb! Get out of the fucking car!" Lew abuses us. We clamber out of Jeff's dad's old FB Holden. The salmon pink car has been painted using an old vacuum cleaner spray paint attachment. Jeff scrounged the home-made leather seat belts when his dad installed modern nylon belts, and made us leather climbing gear belts to go with our two inch wide waistbands. We slouch up the dirt and boulder track behind Ian, up to the walkers track under the Organ Pipes. Hands shoved into pockets against the cold breeze. The herb-like smell that comes from I know not which plant clings to my senses. The re-growth still struggles five years after the bestial bushfires of '67 when the sky turned to Hades and the mountain's green paradise had turned to skeletal shapes and blistered rock. There was, as usual, no-one else on the cliff.
We stop on the track to admire the line. A narrow spear of shadow - 100 metres straight up.
It's cold, so the leader's hands are warmed by the adrenalin of the sharp end, but the second's hands suck cold from the stone, the mind less engaged because of the security of the rope above. I lead the first pitch, up and around the small overhang. Ian leads the second, up the clean crack to a small ledge below the overhanging off-width. Below us, enjoyable climbing. Not enough to test fear.
I struggle up into the off-width. It pushes me out when I want to go up. There's a jug on the lip, but it leads nowhere. I struggle back down, grunting, annoyed. Ian takes the rope from me, and is soon immersed in the crack, a powerhouse of determination. I shiver on the belay. Somewhere down below Jeff sits on a rock, watching. Somehow Ian grinds up and through the off-width, and soon grins from the ledge above. I shudder and head into the rock again, but at the off-width my hands have become clubs and I make the mistake of grabbing the hold outside the crack, can't get back in and I'm swinging in space. Grab the rock, haul, Ian hauls, grunts and I am standing on holds again, fingers in armpits. Half unfrozen, I climb up to the belay, then fingers in armpits again and I growl and yelp as the blood jerks back into my fingers' veins.
The air seems warmer as I lead above Lew, on small holds, almost face climbing. A small hold breaks and I swing briefly from the jammed knuckle of the little finger of my left hand. Exhilaration swamp me as the sun half-shines through the clouds and makes the weathered dolerite a warm orange. The stone's surface that fabulous dolerite friction that needs no chalk. Out on the face of the world, with moves hard enough to work the mind and muscles to a slow lilt of careful movement...it takes the spirit closer to the soul. I belay in warmer air at the top of the climb and lean over to watch Ian climb up. His slow grin saying how much he was enjoying the climb, the day. Two crows skimmed by the crag lower down. "Hey Lew - two black birds." He looked out at them and nodded. "Three black birds is bad luck isn't it?" I called down. He shrugged. Seconds later a third crow sailed effortlessly past us. "Hey Lew!" He looked up. I pointed out at the gliding bird. "Third bird!" He shook his head and returned to the grace and ease of the pitch, a delicious comparison to the grunt of the overhang below. Such a time we had. Such a day, before our separate times of madness. A climb's perfection clawed and clasped from cold Tasmanian days. So many days, and so few. On such days the rock is warm or the nevé firm, and the air hints of something beyond. Something almost reached. Almost. 

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