Jacques Beaudoin challenges himself in NSW's Gardens of Stone National Park

When Jacques set himself the bold challenge of a new, fiendishly difficult trad line in NSW’s Gardens of Stone National Park, climbing photographer Jared Anderson came along to document the final, successful attempt.

In December ’23, I realised a long term wish of onsighting the very inspiring line Sacred Ground (23), Gardens of Stone National Park, in a single 63m pitch. I had taken visiting Queenslander Lee Prescott with me that day, and showed him the track to nearby trad climb Supercrack (24) so he could get ready to climb it whilst I was packing up. On his way, he stumbled across a monster 15m offwidth roof crack. 

He was frothing propulsively like a puppy presented with treats as he exclaimed, “Look I found an unclimbed mega classic! Silver [cam size #4] all the way!” 

“We’ll come back to it,” I said, “I’m keen!”

I did a bit of research to find out if the line had been done before.

Turned out this daunting line has been scoped by numerous keen crack climbers, including the first ascensionists of the classic Supercrack, Lucas Trihey and Bruce Cameron, in the mid-90s. According to Mike Law, “The guys who did Supercrack thought that it was pretty extreme, and they were the keenest crack climbers of the time. And they had no big cams …”

“Well, extreme cracks are my trade,” I thought. “And I can sort the gear out.”

Unfortunately for Lee, he soon set off to Tassie. So instead I headed back out there with Fanny (Nathaniel Glavurdic). I told him to pack all the #4s he could get his hands on, but at the base of the crack I was quick to realise that Lee’s judgment had been a bit off-size. In fact, even our #5 weren’t big enough. 

To my surprise, Fanny decided to have a go anyway. I belayed as he headed up into the cave, with no prospect of gear placements, and barely able to see in front of him. About 5m up he reached the roof, and found a sizeable boulder wedged into the chimney, which he could use to set up an anchor with smaller cams. Gear at last! 

From there, he started a journey through a horizontal chimney where he had to part with his helmet as it wouldn’t fit in the chasm. 

As he progressed away from the boulder and higher into the chimney, he found a narrower section where he could fit two rattly #5s which he didn’t put much trust into. 

Nevertheless, he proceeded through the chimney and emerged with a crazy transition from squeeze to underclinging the lip of the crack with opposed footwork underneath. At this stage (and frankly well before this stage), it was quite obvious that no other gear would fit before the end of the offwidth section, and he was only at the beginning… 

I was happy to see him retreating, and in a heroic effort managing to reverse the move back into the chimney towards the #5s which he inspected, adjusted and loaded slowly so I could lower him to firm ground. 

“We’ll be back with #6s,” I thought to myself.

Unfortunately for Fanny, he too set off to Tassie (or wherever). I then went on a campaign to secure six #6s. Luckily Zac Vertrees lent me three of them!

I returned to the climb with yet another passing Queenslander, Zac Trembath, to attempt the route. Unlike Fanny, I had the luxury of being able to shuffle a #6 all the way up to the chockstone and the start anchor. From there, I could have taken my helmet off and followed Fanny’s steps towards the #5s he left behind. 

I chose to try another way though, and approached the chimney differently with my upper body squeezing just under a constriction. My feet scraped the steep wall under the crack, desperately feeling for footwork I couldn’t see. That was slightly unpleasant, but it got worse—there was no more gear available for a few more metres, and I knew the next move would be spicy.

It was a crazy transition from inside the chimney to outside. This was where Fanny stopped, and I was now in uncharted territory. I could see from there the chimney was closing down to offwidth, and the prospect of more than welcome gear placement gave me some wings.

At this stage I was secretly glad that the underclinging technique worked and I didn’t have to do that Wide Boyz business. I took a chance on a powerful long reach further along the crack and to my relief found a proper rest jug inside. 

While resting, I found a good crimp further ahead and that was good enough to lead me to the last section where higher footwork allowed me to power layback to the end for the first free ascent at an improbable grade 24—Land of the Giants.