Disclaimer: This is not an official nor professional report, just a what we saw and experienced.
As mentioned in the previous entry, we already checked some of the crags which we found in online topos, but because of the information we found on the internet, we wanted to visit the crags first, to check the quality of the bolts and anchors, at least from the ground.
Many old anchors in the spot. No lowering rings on the top!! Common practice for cleaning is downclimb. New routes are also available though.
theCrag.com
Based on the information from theCrag, Harau valley is a conglomerate rock area with 12 crags and in total 71 routes between 5b and 8c+ (french grades). But most of the routes are between 6a and 6c+, so perfect for us.
We both have not climbed since we left, so the plan was to find one crag which offers mostly easy climbing to just have a relaxing day on the rock.
First, we visited the “Echo wall”, this crag is located directly on the main road in Harau valley, across a bunch of street stands with food and souvenirs. The crag basically only offers three climbs, for the others (see theCrag) we couldn’t see bolts. Some seemed possible in traditional style, the rest of the routes, at least we think, have been removed (no sign of chalk or anything).
The second crag we checked was the “Camp side”, it supposed to be the second biggest crag in Harau (after “Echo wall”) with the perfect grades for us. When you arrive at the crag, just park near to the house in front of the crag. There should be NO fee to be paid!
The crag contains three sectors, but the first sector (directly above the parking) is not equipped with fixed anchors. The other two sectors looked, at least from the ground promising. Both had new bolts and fixed anchors. The right part of the wall seems to be nice for warm up, all routes are between 5b/c. In the left part are four routes graded 6b/c.
Sadly all other crags are very small with less then ten routes, so we decided that “Camp side” is perfect for one day of climbing.
Next day around 11 a.m. I tied into the rope and went up the first warmup route. The route was super dirty but still ok-ish, although when I reached the top, I saw that one of the anchor bolts was moving a lot, so I decided we gonna move on to the next route. I looked to the routes on the left and right. From the top, the left route looked like a complete garden, so I decided to go for the route on the right.
As I saw the route from the ground I was not so happy anymore with my decision. The route was also in the need of some heavy gardening, but I wanted to climb, so I started to climb anyway. The rock was super crumbling and after the first bolt, I felt because a foothold broke. I continued for another 2 bolts but it just became worse, only dirt and loose rock. So I decided to climb down. Sadly there was no other better option to climb for us, so after that, we decided to leave Harau Valley earlier and go to other town for some time at the beach. We felt that it is just smarter to stay longer in Tonsai (Thailand) than to force climbing in Indonesia.
After the decision was made I could not resist to at least climb one of the 6b/c’s.
The one I climbed turned out to be very nice. It turned out to be very nice, short and bouldery on small holds.
To sum up the climbing in Harau valley:
- Not many new routes, a lot of old bolts
- Hard to find information on the internet
- A LOT of potential for routes
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