Ben Cossey recently knocked off what is probably the hardest boulder in the Blue Mountains, And The Ass Saw the Angel, V13. When Alex Megos climbed the second ascent in 2015 he said it could be V14. It’s a burly boulder with each of the 15 odd moves being properly hard. We fired Ben a few questions to find out a little more.
Ben, great job on knocking off And the Ass Saw the Angel, V13/8B the other day. It’s a boulder you found many years ago, it must have felt good to do. You looked smooth on the send! Can you tell us a bit about it?
Hi there! Cheers. Yes, I found it yonks ago now, so it was nice to do, yeah. I felt pretty good on the send actually because I've been using it as outdoor route training and not really fussinng over the send as such, so I had it dialled as buggery.
I found the area on one of my many wonderings through the Ukulore Valley about 7-8 years ago. When Mylah was little I'd go for a quick quest in search of boulders after getting home from uni but before picking her up from school. It's a really radical dihedral feature. A steady intro of V10/11 leads to quite a hard snatch (the crux) to a hit and miss outro. I wasted tonnes of time on this actually trying a really dicey drive by to a pocket but finally managed to sort the sequence the way you (Tom O’Halloran) do it via a steady rock-over. It's a real classic, if it were in the Gramps I don't imagine Ammagamma would even register on peoples radar as a quality V13.
The try before the send you completely minced up your hand on the final move. You fell off, hand covered in blood and you must have been cooked. Any sane person would’ve called it a day and gone home. What made you pull back on?
The gnarled up hand that didn’t hold him back. No excuses
Yeah, it was funny. I actually came off there about 5 times, normally with more blood. My hand got infected and it really hurt to put in the slot for the last move. I had already thrown in the towel, not intending on having another shot because of the wound, but like I was saying before, I've been using the line as route training, sometimes trying various links up to 15 shots a session so I decided just to pull on again for the sake of training, it just happens that I did it.
I have been setting the timer for ten minutes, having a shot as the alarm goes off, by no means enough rest to feel recovered but I think it did the trick over the past few sessions, increasing my capacity and enabling me to make the successful "last ditch effort"in such a sorry state of bloodiness...had I not done it though, I would still have said "hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes", and had a another burn regardless of the infected flesh wound, for the sake of training 😄
You’ve done a ton of exploring for boulders in the Blue Mountains and been at the forefront of development in the Ukulore. When you first saw this piece of rock, did you think it would hold such a gem?
When I first saw it actually it was pretty dark (because it's deep in the forest) and there is a really fine black lichen on the rock so it was hard to see it for how awesome it really is. I could tell that the rock was schtonkin' so I thought it was likely to be amazing. In the morning light though you see it more clearly and turns out it's pretty good.
There’s also a big link up on that boulder to do. Tell us about it.
There is a V10 to the right and a V11 to the left and there are linking moves between them. So there is the potential to link the whole wall together into a mega-link. I'm not sure if I have the fire-power at the moment to do it but seeing as though I'm using the wall as training for routes it makes sense to pencil this link into the hit-list too.
What’s got you psyched now the climbing season is kicking off here and you’re obviously in top shape?
Victory beer. Mountain Culture Status Quo hits the spot when you grab the top
Yeah, I'm pretty psyched at the moment. I feel for the first time in ages I have a work/life routine that facilitates some degree of focus on climbing towards my limit again. It's been a bit of a road and a juggle the last few years, so I feel pleased to feel I have some space to try and climb at my limit again, which I'm not sure if I've ever done...to be honest, I feel like a dog with 900 cocks, I'm that psyched.
I'm pretty keen to keep going to the Jungfrau, getting route specific fitness, keep training across the road at Lee's and then get stuck into a route project I have at the Glen called Fixin' To Die. I broke it last year, making it a lot harder at the start. It went from being a two move V11 to a three move V"have only just done the moves"....?13/14, so it'd be nice to spend some time on that, link the boulder first off then keep going into the 34 climbing above that. I think keeping on keeping with regard to the training I'm doing on rock in the Ukulore will put me in good stead for that route. It's a really efficient way to train for me at the moment, getting tonnes of specific fitness in, and it's fun!