International Climbing meet and Rock Rally Du Toit's Kloof 21 to 28 AprilDear MCSA members,

Boulderers, Sport Climbers, Couch climbers, Social Climbers, and even Trad climbers; TATWOCians, COCK and Bull members, Hikers, Ramblers …….. Have I missed any one? Oh yes Indoor Climbers!

There seems to be general agreement to hold the international rock climbing meet and Rock Rally from the 21 to 28 around Cape Town. The meet will be a joint venture by the Mountain Club of South Africa and the commercial players in South Africa. So please could you post the events on your websites and any newsletters you may send out electronically or snail mail.

Anyone that gets here will be accommodated and transported to and from the climbing venues. Participants should email me their climbing CV’s or more importantly their present standard of climbing so we can match them with appropriate venues and routes.

Hellfire crag, the designated area for the meet, has a decent mix of sport and trad and also virgin rock for first ascents to cater for all tastes and abilities. A rock rally competition will be held over the weekend and decent prizes (including quality climbing ropes and shoes) will be awarded to those putting in the best effort (and not necessarily those that climb the hardest routes). The route scores will be weighted according to technical difficulty, sport vs trad, accessibility, seriousness and commitment. Anyone that on-sights Prime Time direct or New Born on Yellowwood amphitheatre is likely to win the competition! (Bear in mind that Newborn is grade 29 sport and Prime Time direct is only 24 trad but the on-sight of Prime Time will score at least 20% points more than the sport route next to it; Ged Desforges will verify the validity of that…). Even if they don’t win, the award for any on-sight of Prime Time direct is a bottle of Lagavulin 16 year old Malt whisky by yours truly and I believe that Jeremy Samson has put a similar bounty on Newborn. But the on-sight has to be done in a day!

There will be several social events that promise to be entertaining and all submissions are invited.

We look forward to your participation. Every endeavor will be made to assist in transport from other provinces but local transport and accommodation will be provided.

Please diarize and RSVP to me at CEdelstein@gmail.com .

There will be a nominal entry fee of R50 per person for local participants but the fee is waived for our international guests. (We shall make em pay in another way, won’t we!) Each participant will receive a smart T-shirt as well as other user friendly goodies.

The entire event will be organized on a voluntary and a non profit basis. All proceeds, including any cash sponsorships will go into the direct overheads, prizes and partying.


Let the games (that climbers play) begin!











Charles Edelstein

What awesome news ... at my first trip to Boven recently the local climbers convinced mew that these Rally events are totally awesome. I was worrying about convincing my climbing partners to travel to some distant venue with me (Boven is a fair trip from CT),

I'm at work and don't have access to my copy of Western Cape Rock... will there be routes at the lowish grades I climb? I have little hope of onsighting anything higher than 18 and redpointing 20... I think that I want to compete at all when I'll have been climbing for about 6months when the event rolls around is amazing all on its own. Perhaps getting in on the action at all will be my prize.

Also, how long does the event normally run for (the whole thing including all the activities on either side of the main rally? I need to put leave in it will spill over into the working week.

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I don't think, therefore I'm Not

Hi Charles,

Is there time to become an MCSA member before then?

Kind regards,

Pierre

Not: In reply to you, the emphasis of these rock rally's is to get people together, inspire them and to have fun. The bell curve applies to climbers as much as anything human. And that means the vast majority of climbers are not comfortable with grades over 20 or 21. There will be something for everyone. From rock jock to plodder.

The vast majoirty of routes at Hellfire are easier than 21. That does not mean to say they have been clibed before.....

So I can almost guarentee you will not leave dissatisfied or disappointed

Pierre Joubert: reply to you.

You do not need to be a member of the MCSA or any club to participate. But if it inspires you to join the MCSA, then that's great. There are apparantly only 25 or so members under the age of 25 so I hope you have a little youth on your side but if not it won't count against you!

Everyone is welcome to participate....

And sorry about the typos in the previous post...

Still under 25, but only just

That sounds great. Another thing, my trad rack consists of 3 cams and a set of hexes (for now at least), and my trad leading experience even less. Will it be possible to get onto some trad routes and get some how-not-to-die protips from more experienced leaders?

Hmmm, where is the best place to supplement my trad rack with some cams?

Pierre

Pierre, the more experience the better. I suggest you join and MCSA meet or two. (Go to the website http://cap.mcsa.org.za/)

As for gear. This is not essential as one would be able to share gear with whoever you end up climbing with and there are quite a few sport routes for you to do too.

There are three main outlets for trad gear in Cape Town.

CityROCK: info@CityROCK.co.za (www.CityROCK.co.za) in Obz

The Dave Davies has a retail outlet in Cavendish called Seven Summits https://www.mountainmailorder.co.za

And then there is ORCA in Claremont.

You can expert advice from all these outlets. CityROCK is an indoor climbing gym and very viby with lots of young people coming and going and very few have i-pods glued in their ears or have their fingers clicking cell phone keyboards. So people still communicate normally there.

MCSA Rock Rally Du Toits and Hellfire, April 2009

The Cape Town section of the Mountain Club of South Africa will be convening a meet and rock rally in Du Toit’s Kloof region from 23 to 28 April 2009. The meet is open to everyone and not limited to club members. The MCSA Du Toits Kloof hut will be used as a base for most of the activities.

The event: Du Toit’s Kloof sports some of the finest classic country trad routes, some wickedly good crag trad routes and some very challenging sport routes. At the end of the valley near Rawsonville there is a completely un-developed boulder field second to none. And finally, there are several easier sport and trad routes to cater for all needs.

The rally will be held over 36 hours and there will be several categories. The meet and rally is intended to be enjoyed by climbers of all abilities!

A variety of super prizes have been pledged by our sponsors for each category.

A number of social events will take place:
Tuesday 21 April at the Cape Town MCSA clubhouse;
Saturday 26 April at the Du Toit’s Kloof MCSA hut sponsored by Black Diamond;
Sunday 27 April at the Du Toit’s Kloof MCSA hut sponsored by Petzl.

Costs and transport: There will be nominal entry fee of R50 per person to cover permits and the like. Transport will be provided from Cape Town to Du Toit’s in the morning of the 22nd and returning on the 27th and accommodation is free.

If there is sufficient interest a subsidized 10 seater bus will be travelling from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the morning of the 21 April 2009 and returning from Du Toit’s Kloof hut on the morning of the 28 April 2009. The cost of the bus will be limited to R600 per person for the round trip if it is fully subscribed.
Up country climbers can also apply for an air ticket subsidy from City Rock to an amount of R200. All you need to do is purchase the ticket, print the receipt and bring it with you or email it to Charles@CityROCK.co.za and you shall receive a R200 cash refund when you arrive at the event.

RSVP: Send your climbing CV as soon as possible to CEdelstein@gmail.com so that permits can be obtained and transport arranged.

Further details can be obtained at: http://sites.google.com/site/rockrally2009/

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Climb ZA - Administrator