Burnt Ridge
15 minutes
Afternoon sun
Sandstone
Introduction
Burnt Ridge is one of the several reserves of public land at Pelham, up behind Elderslie. It has a range of freestanding boulders and caves on reasonable rock. The whole area was burnt out in a bushfire in 2018, so is quite open and easy walking at the moment. No doubt the scrub will return over time. There are plenty more problems to be done, bring a brush.
History
Found and developed by Jon Nermut and Dave Humphries in 2020.
Access
Drive to Elderslie, and continue on Pelham Road (C182) to Pelham. At the top of the hill, turn right onto Sonners Road.
About 3km down this you pass Mayfield Rd on the left. 100m past this there is a quite large burnt stump on the right hand side of the road - see the GPS point. Park here next to the stump, you probably don't want to leave any valuables in your car here. The drive is 45-50 minutes from Hobart.
From the stump, walk SW along an old reserved road, which lets you walk legally through a small strip of private land into the reserve. Eventually this leads to a more formed road, follow this down the hill until it ends. From here follow some pink tape W over a couple of escarpments to find Fire Boulder (see GPS point). Or head straight down the ridge to find Banjo Boulder just on the West side of the ridge. The walk is about 15 minutes.
GPS
Pavement Boulder
Directly above Fire Boulder, on the escarpment.
Take the left arete to the top.
Jon Nermut 2021
Classic slab, straight up.
Dave Humphries 2021
A more circuitous way to the top.
Fire Boulder
A fantastic large boulder that pretty much overhangs on every side, that is just down from the escarpment on the west side of the ridge. The pink tapes lead to it.
Fire Boulder Top Side
Start down to the left, on the choss. Climb out the bulge, then right to finish as the other problems.
Jon Nermut 2021
Low start on side pulls, then straight up.
Start on the big hold to the right, head up left.
Sitstart on lip and pull over.
Sitstart on lip and pull over.
Sit start at the square cut hold, head up through the fresh rock at the bulge and mantle to the left. Originally a stand start at V1.
J Nermut 2021 (stand) and M Hitchcock 2021 (sit)
Sit start on the RH slot and LH micro pocket. Up and over bulge via the higher pockets.
Originally a hang start on the higher pockets at V5.
D Humphries 2021 (hang) and M Hitchcock 2021 (sit)
Sitstart on the arete. Hard couple of moves off the ground using a finger lock in the slot, then good holds to the top.
D. Humphries 2021
Irony Boulder
Straight downhill from Fire Boulder.
Irony Boulder
Banjo Boulder
From Fire Boulder contour across the hill southwards for ~100-200m to find this nice looking boulder.
Banjo Boulder
Left side stand start
Sitstart left of middle
Jon Nermut 2020
Sitstart right of middle. Up to good holds at lip, then thin edges
Jon Nermut 2020
Sitstart on RHS of boulder
Dave Humphries 2020
Slopey Boulder
Just to the south of Banjo Boulder.
Project - left arete
Up the middle of the boulder to tenuous top out.
Dave Humphries 2020
Project - follow lip of roof on right side of boulder. Pretty hard.
There are various other chunks of rock which haven't been developed yet:
* If you head downhill to the creek from Fire Boulder and upstream a bit, there is a large cave on the other side of the creek which has some big roofs, probably with double digit problems.
* On the other side of the ridge from Banjo Boulder there are a couple of roofs
* Downhill from there at the other creek is more rock