The Eastern Cape offers mostly single pitch climbing on either hard Dolerite or Sandstone/Quartzite. There are more than 700 sport routes, thousands of traditional routes & few bouldering areas (e.g. Alicedale). There is a lot of potential for new route development.
About the Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape as a South African Province came into being in 1994 and incorporated areas from the former Xhosa homelands of the Transkei and Ciskei, together with what was previously part of the Cape Province. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London.
The landscape is extremely diverse and the Eastern Cape gets progressively wetter from west to east. The west is mostly semi-arid Karoo, except in the far south, which is temperate rainforest in the Tsitsikamma region. The coast is generally rugged with interspersed beaches. Most of the province is hilly to very mountainous between Graaff-Reinet and Rhodes including the Sneeuberge (English: Snow Mountains), Stormberge, Winterberge and Drakensberg (English: Dragon Mountains).
The highest point in the province is Ben Macdhui at 3001m – the location of South Africa’s only Snow skiing resort, Tiffindell. The east from East London and Queenstown towards the KwaZulu-Natal border – a region known previously as Transkei – is lush grassland on rolling hills, punctuated by deep gorges with intermittent forest.
PDF Topo Downloads
- Alicedale.pdf (455 downloads )
- Beacon-Bay-Pompies-Abotsford.pdf (365 downloads )
- Bobejaankop.pdf (285 downloads )
- Buffalo-River.pdf (242 downloads )
- Cape_St_Francis_bouldering.pdf (243 downloads )
- Compassberg.pdf (283 downloads )
- Fort-Fordyce.pdf (252 downloads )
- FREDDIE.pdf (281 downloads )
- Grahamstown-Grots.pdf (243 downloads )
- Grahamstown-Thornkloof.pdf (296 downloads )
- Grips.pdf (272 downloads )
- Hogsback-Hog-1.pdf (415 downloads )
- Hole-in-the-Wall.pdf (303 downloads )
- Howissens-Poort-Scoops.pdf (216 downloads )
- Kirkwood.pdf (272 downloads )
- Kouga-Wilderness.pdf (234 downloads )
- Lady-Slipper.pdf (275 downloads )
- Lalapanzi.pdf (216 downloads )
- Masakane.pdf (223 downloads )
- Morgan-Bay-Guide.pdf (271 downloads )
- NSA-Guide-Dec-2013.pdf (331 downloads )
- Slipper-Boulders.pdf (270 downloads )
- Troll-Boulder.pdf (224 downloads )
- Tsitsikamma.pdf (392 downloads )
- Van-Stadens.pdf (310 downloads )
- Waterkloof.pdf (296 downloads )
- Windmill-Hole.pdf (287 downloads )
- Yellow-Sands-Inkwenkwezi.pdf (236 downloads )
More Info About Climbing in the Eastern Cape
The Climb ZA – South Africa Rock Climbing Routes Wiki has detailed info on climbing in the Eastern Cape.
Please, can you fix the download links? I tried a few links to no avail. None of them seem to work…
Please can you fix the download links so we can see the routes?