Free Venezuela Big Wall (Jan - Feb 2012) - George Ullrich

In January 2010, Peter Rhodes, Kinloch Mason Earl and I, George Ullrich, had an incredible experience on an attempt at establishing a new free climb on Cerro Cathedral in Patagonia.

We (George Ulrich, Kinloch Mason Earl, Sam Farnsworth and Siebe Vanhee) have now set ourselves a new and even more exciting objective. To establish a hard free climb on a Tepui (tabletop mountain) in Venezuela.

A big factor behind our motives for this trip is that it has to be adventurous; this is where Amuri Tepuis comes in. The first climbing expedition to this Tepui was by John and Ann Arran in 2008. Previously to this, not even the locals had ventured into this part of the rainforest. They established a 10 pitch route called Amurita (E7 6b) to the left of a 600m high un-named waterfall (John Arran - “our most adventurous big-wall expedition yet”).

Speaking to John about his numerous expeditions to this part of the world he suggested that the wall behind this waterfall would yield the hardest and most overhanging big-wall free climbs on earth.

So our objective is to free-climb this 600 meter high, 35degrees overhanging wall behind the waterfall on Amuri Tepuis.

The approach to the south face will require chartering a Cesna plane then bushwacking for 5 days from the nearestIndian Community. The wall will be tackled ground up in capsual style, attempting to onsight (failing that, red point) every pitch during the ascent. our aim is to spend any time up to two weeks on the wall, this will give us enough time to wait out any bad weather spells and find the best line up the face.

John Arran - “the wall behind this waterfall could yield the hardest and most overhanging big-wall free climbs on earth.”