Well done Hilton and Guy!! Inspiring stuff!



Indeed!

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Chuck Norris wears Ueli Steck pyjamas

Yesterday (Thursday) Guy and I did the first ascent of a new route at Yellowwood. Judgement Day is a very, very challenging 10-pitch route on the steep walls on the right of the amphitheatre.

I have previously climbed the whole route in pieces with various partners (Alan Ross, Bruce Daniel and Karl Hayden) and in May last year I rope-soloed the first six pitches before being stormed off. I had intended to do the rope-solo FA until last week when my morale started flagging. Good thing.

I had thought that we might free a 35m consistently overhanging wall that I had previously aided with Karl. Guy was the rope gun and was heroic - but couldn't pull it off. He was very stout but following a massive dyno took a good whipper into air. In the nearly 2 hours that he took leading the pitch he rested on the rope maybe a dozen times. He did all the moves free.

There were some very, very scary leads.

Our timing was:
up at 3:30am, start walking at 5:15am, start climbing at 8am, top-out at 7:30pm, back down at car at 10.15pm, home by 12pm.

We're both pretty broken and spent.

Sounds awesome

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Climb ZA - Administrator

BOOM! Next time Alex Honnold looks over his shoulder he's going see Guy coming past at full speed

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Chuck Norris wears Ueli Steck pyjamas

Gosia did a fine red-point of "No Longer at Ease" 25 with Douw. I then followed the route with relative ease except for a little of difficulty doing the crank at the prong that has gotta break off some time. This is one of the few trad routes around the country that is - in my view - perfectly graded for the on-sight. Most trad 25's are graded for the technical difficulty and are much harder to on-sight.

Gosia is sponsored by sponsored by Black Diamond, Saltic and Beal.

Well done Gosia.

Micky Wiswedel sent Point Break (29/30) at Supertubes in Bad Kloof this weekend.

On Saturday he kept falling on the last move of the route including one fall whilst next to the chains!! Each time taking a big whipper as he was not clipping the last bolt.

On Sunday he went back in warmer conditions. After two attempts he was feeling broken and ready to give up, luckily some encouragement from Julia seemed to be all he needed and he sent the route.

Below: Micky Wiswedel on Point Break (29/30) in Bad Kloof
Photos by Live Lundemo

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Sweet! Go Mickey!
I see Panda is excited as ever

The Ledge on TM was busy yesterday with climbers all over Fountain Ledge. Willem Le Roux and I, short as usual on house points, blasted up Sweet Dreams 21 and Boltergeist 22. Boltergeist has a very long move on each of the cruxes and for the first time I managed to slip off the first crux and plummeted several metres with a soft descent due to the low fall factor.

Wonder how other vertically challenged climbers like Gosia find this move? It is certainly harder than any move on Africa Arette or No Longer at Ease if you are less than 163cm tall.

The Ledge on TM was busy yesterday with climbers all over Fountain Ledge. Willem Le Roux and I, short as usual on house points, blasted up Sweet Dreams 21 and Boltergeist 22. Boltergeist has a very long move on each of the cruxes and for the first time I managed to slip off the first crux and plummeted several metres with a soft descent due to the low fall factor.

Wonder how other vertically challenged climbers like Gosia find this move? It is certainly harder than any move on Africa Arette or No Longer at Ease if you are less than 163cm tall.

David wade just sent snapdragon (29) and panty slapped (28) this weekend at boven! well done Dave

friday afternoon myself and arno van der heever shot up TM after work (thanks to the cable card!), deciding to give "touch & go (20)" a go. we started on the route around 5:30pm. took me forever to lead the first pitch - i just could not find any good gear on the crux but eventually got a good nut in the uneven rail. arno took the rest of the leads to speed things up; we thoroughly enjoyed every brilliant pitch! he swung into the crux sequence as the sun sank into a field of fiery clouds on the horizon - some bold moves to get to "the best stance in the universe" and great relief! the last grede 16(?) delicate (run-out) traverse was done in very low light; i got on it in pitch blackness due to the clouds streaming over us in the pumping SEaster, and because i forgot my headlamp (again) i had to climb it in braille! nearly sh@ myself deciding on the long exit route, barefoot and in the dark, saw us back at the cars only at 00:10. great way to end the week!

touch & go is a fantastic route and we are super excited to know that there are many more on TM!

We are still looking for some of the stronger joburg climbers to get on Pierre Carters old project at the upper portion at Kings Kloof. Dylan Vogt sent it on the 31st Dec 2011 and has proposed a grade of 29. He has called the route "Avarice". We await some grade verification.

Tony Dick and I, cranky ole gobblers aka Turkeys were joined by Nadine Methner at the Ledge. And yes, she did walk up! We did Wet Dream 22 and Mellow Steady Flow with Nadine styling the top 23 pitch on Mellow a pitch rarely on-sighted.

If you’re planning on doing a country route, make sure you know how to do the descent!
Brenda Marx and myself climbed ‘Exposure in F Major’ on Saturday. We left the Du Toitskloof Lodge at 6:30am. We got to the start of the route at about 8:20 and started climbing shortly after. The route went like a dream and what a dream it was. The first 2/3 pitches are bit grotty, but then it cleans up and becomes thoroughly enjoyable. I had walked up TM the day before and climbed Jacobds Ladder with a lot of sweating in the sun. I found that I was still a bit dehydrated as my hands started cramping halfway up the route. We topped out at about 16:00 to an amazing view with TM clear in the distance. I had done the route once before with Brent Russell, but hadn’t paid enough attention to exactly how you find the descent gully. In my mind it was a hop, skip and jump slightly to the left and “tadaa!”, there you are…oh, how wrong I was. We started heading toward what I thought to be the descent gully. It turned out to be a waterfall with a sheer drop close to 50 meters…not the right gully. We walked back up the ridge and then proceeded to wander around the top of for 3 hours looking for a possible escape. It was at this point that Brenda’s survival instinct kicked in. She started heading for the main river running through the valley below. We followed this for a good 45 minutes when we were cut off by another 20 waterfall. We headed up left over a ridge and found another, dry gully and started down this. I don’t think we would have proceeded if we could have seen what we were heading down. It involved sliding down 60 degree, heavily vegetated slopes, traversing grotty faces on the sides of 5 meter drops and I even had a frog leap straight into my face while hanging on to some sandy holds. Brenda’s amazing navigation was what got us out of this fix. We eventually made it back to the N1 and arrived back at our car at 23:30. 17 hours of solid missioning. Broken!

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Chuck Norris wears Ueli Steck pyjamas

Mad Mike almost pulled off a flash of 'Out to lunch' (24) in very hot conditions yesterday - way impressive. He fell on the last move, not bad for a surfer who doesn't climb much! Snort and him then complained that the crux of the climb was hauling up the Dark Horse with a group of cheering girls egging them on from the Cable car

I did a new route, Butcher Bird, in Upper Tonquani on Sunday. RD in the wiki.

NAILS!!!!!! But Awesome route!! Take along your steel pair if you try this route!

Dark Horse (Neil Havenga) and I went up Klein Winterhoek on Saturday and yesterday climbed the first route on the amphitheatre - The Times They Are A-Changing which was made by Dave Cheesmond, Chris Lomax and Greg Lacey in 1978. They spent two days on the wall and used quite a bit of aid.
In '83 Chris, Greg and Andy de Klerk freed the 12 pitches and graded it G2.
It's a fairly serious route with some hard run outs with very little gear on some sketchy rock. Some hard traverses were 15m without kit.
We had the RD from the 1983 journal which is written in usual Chris-style. We were able to find the right mountain and the right pitches in the beginning (well, after doing one complete wrong pitch and having to lower off) but after the fifth pitch we didn't look at the RD again.
The new walk-in arrangement is very desperate. We had a complete bundu-bash epic.
After departing the top camp in the gorge at about 9pm we got down to the horrendous vegetation at around midnight. At 2am we collapsed in the dirt in a ditch under one sleeping bag. It was cold but Dark Horse is a pretty good spooner. At 6am we were going again. Finally made it out utterly spent.
The route is definitely worth doing (once).

Squeaks, (Richard Halsey), Dave Vallet and I climbed The Edge of the Ledge(23) and then Richard and I did a very satisfying ascent of Africa Arette (25). Richard on-sighted both pitches in fine style.

Some new routes that I have done with others at both Table related mountains in the last month. Most of them are on the wiki.
As per usual, feedback on routes and grades is welcome

TM: Matador (25), Fun Factory (24). One pitch, at about 24/25 done of a big route thats in the pipeline...

Tafelberg: Ghost Rider (24), Flying High (24), Shy Zebra (23), Pinstripe Sweet (23). On the main wall: Freedom Feather (21) and a 22 that we are still naming.

Enjoy!

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One life, one body. Use them well.

Go Richard Halsey. But hell that looks commiting for a 21.

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You may still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not. Cat Stevens

Heng - he is showing off of course.

I had the privilege of watching Gosia and Julia on-sighting Africa arete (25) on Table mountain a couple of days ago, just amazing! Snort dragged me up it yesterday and it made me respect what they did even more. A pretty bold on-sight IMHO . Snort did a fine lead without clipping the peg on the first pitch.

Well done girls and Dark Horse
Go Snort, even Dave Birkett and Tinnie clip that peg

In Font, Arjan De Kock sent an 8B called Gourmandise and 8B+ called Kheops Assis.
One is a classic power problem, the second a classic Font Sloper.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

The first pitch of Africa Arête is rather sporty with the peg there as you clip the peg from a good low lay-back hold with good feet.

There are two excellent small cam placements at the level of the peg round to the left but you have to place them blind off finger tips and poor feet and then do a pull-up on tips to check em. Adds a grade to the route.

The peg is getting rusty and although it is still good it won't last forever. Been there for about 10 years or so. Question is should it be removed because people implicitly trust it and there is quite a run out before and after and it is at the crux.

One day some one is gonna fall there and break that peg and take a monster fall. It has already stopped a lot of plummets. I have broken or pulled out at least 5 pegs in my career that were placed in good rock and away from the coast.

For those who have an interest in new routes on TM - been a busy week in the office:

The Reckoning is located near the top of Platteklip gorge (RD en route). I have not had this much fun on a route in a while. It has a flake, roof, cutloose, layback, steep arete, rough slopers, and a gymnastic crux a little bit above gear. I rope soloed it (yes, I got gripped) so no-one else has been on the route yet . I think it is probably 24 when you know how the $%^ to do the crux, so 25 is probably fair for onsight.

Prowling is a long pitch near the top of Right Face - RD on wiki. Long, steep line. Pity about the rest ledge . I have dragged 3 people up it, feedback seems that 26 is probably fair for lead/onsight. Go do it and let me know Joe said I must have a warning that if you have man sized fingers it is nails or impossible - depending how chubby your digits are. You have been warned.

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One life, one body. Use them well.

Power on Squeaks. You are definitely gonna be lambasted at the next Scorn committee meeting for climbing way too well....

Tony Dick is still flying up tricky routes at age 64 and we did Tweedle Dee 22/3 and The Good Doctor 22 at the Ledge yesterday.

You continue to inspire Richard!!! Good work.
Looking forward to getting on these.... when I'm a bit bigger and stronger...

Hector Pringle and Andrew Porter did an impressive onsight, one-day ascent of Oceans of Fear on Klein Winterhoek last week. For desserts they soloed the Frontal route the next day.

[Well done fellas - quite an outing! BTW we wrote your ascents in the summit book yesterday. We had an incredible trip. Guy is writing an article]

Thanks Hilton. Just for the record, we onsighted the route-finding, but aided the three hard pitches. There are only a handful of people in the world who might come close to an onsight free ascent. As a redpoint it is still a monumental achievement. We were gobsmacked at the amount of work AdK must have put in to make the FFA, and Clinton who did the 2nd FA. There is nothing normal about the climb. The pitches are all sideways and upside down so working the moves is a logistical nightmare. Never mind the 3 hour fynbos bash to get there, the loose rock on the lower and upper pitches, the lack of anything ledge-like at all, and the difficulty of convincing someone to go up there to belay you.
The Frontal is a must-do world-class classic. 1921? So far ahead of its time.
We have much to be proud of as SA climbers - every route on that hill is or was cutting-edge.

Photo by Joe Möhle