words by Charles Edelstein
pic by Garrreth Bird
It was the triangular panel on the Timerity Buttress that attracted me to the east buttresses above Yellowwood Ravine in the first place, and my ambition was to fire a pitch straight through the middle of it. But when I did the first ascent of Another Fck’n Time, I couldn’t for the life of me see a direct line through this panel, and I was forced off to the left. The Timerity pitch on the right flank of the panel is one of the best climbing pitches anywhere, but also did not quite strike through the middle. Then, some years ago, I noticed a weakness between the two routes. I fiddled around on a top-rope, and although there was a short 5-metre crux section that I failed to work out at the time, I realised that the middle of the headwall would go.
Then, in March this year, young Luke Eberhard went off-route trying to climb the Timerity headwall pitch, and was stranded at the crux for what seemed like hours. I could see him from afar, where I was climbing Prime Time Direct with Madeleine Sorkin, one of the visiting Americans on the 2017 AAC/MCSA exchange meet. Jimbo Smith and Maury Birdwell (another one of the Americans) had just completed in fine, quick style, a free ascent of Show Time (25), and tossed Luke a top rope. He then proceeded to complete the pitch claiming that he actually managed to free all the moves – something I was not made aware of at the time.
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