Ice climbing at Sani pass (Drakensberg) Jul 2007

After work I drove to Dean’s place to leave my car. Robert arrived at around 18:30 and we quickly packed to leave at 19:00. Traffic through Johannesburg was surprisingly slow but beyond the N12 things eased up a little and we drove well, arriving in Pietermaritzburg at Carl Fatti’s place at 01:00 in the morning. Carl opened his cottage for Dean and me and Robert slept in the back of his bakkie. We got up early the next morning and had coffee and rusks before leaving for Sani pass.

Day 1 (21 July): We arrived at Sani pass at around 11:00, went through customs and drove up to the top. There was a lot more snow on the slopes compared to the last time I was in the area and three weeks previously, the Sani flats must have been covered with about a metre of snow. We parked at Sani Top Chalet, dressed properly and packed our bags. Then we walked the 3km over the top to the gully where Cool Bananas and a few other ice routes are located. We set up an abseil point, got all we needed and abseiled down the ice waterfall. We dropped our bags here and started scrambling down the ice and grass slopes to about 150m below the escarpment. The ice was not in the best possible condition, but there was enough to climb on. Setting up our first stance at the base of a short WI2 pitch, Robert led to the base of the next section and I followed second. It was my first ice climb ever and it was entertaining to note all the differences to normal rock climbing. I slipped once on the first pitch but managed to hold on to the ice axes. The first pitch was very short (about 10m in all) but when I got to the top I was so exhausted I had to sit down on a rock while Robert belayed Dean up. We then moved to the second pitch but I was feeling distinctly tired. Luckily it was a while before it was my turn again and on this second pitch I fared better, managing to get to the top without slipping. However, when we got to the base of the third pitch, a taller, steeper wall, I felt sick. Declining to belay Dean, I sat down on a rock and felt extremely nauseous. Thankfully the feeling soon passed but I had enough climbing for the day and decided to walk out on the grass slopes the rest of the way, taking pictures of the other two as they climbed. When I made it back to our packs I sat down and had some water. It started to get cold as sunset was approaching fast so I put my beanie on under the helmet and waited for the other two. When they arrived, we packed up and headed for the last difficulty before the top. We had to climb another ice waterfall topped with a rock scramble. But it was getting dark when Robert finally roped up to lead it. He struggled a little up the steep ice and I was wondering if I was going to make it. After reaching a ledgy area with a cave to the side, Robert took off his crampons and led through the rock scramble to the top. But we couldn’t see him anymore as it was now completely dark. Putting on my headlight, I then followed Robert, scrambling up the ice and into an iced up body width crack. At the top of the ice section I had to climb over a bush to access the cave ledge. Taking a break, I had some time to take my crampons off as Robert belayed Dean to the same ledge. Then Robert belayed me again over the rocky section. All of this was done at night with a pack on my back! When I reached the top of the scramble I dropped my pack and went to take down the remaining rope and anchor system we used to abseil in earlier, while Robert belayed Dean up. When all of us were safely at the top we packed up and headed back to Sani Top Chalet, arriving at around 19:30. Inside it was as hot as a furnace and a buffet dinner was being served. None of us felt like cooking so we settled down to dinner and was soon joined by our friends Carl and George who had played around the crags all morning and then walked back before dusk. After a wonderful meal we sat down on the couches with some gluhwein, but it wasn’t long before I was ready to pass out completely. I got Dean to help me pitch Robert’s tent outside and then crashed soon afterwards. During the night the wind picked up so that the tent rattled in the wind the whole night through and it was only in the early morning ours that I fell asleep for a short while.

Day 2 (22 July): When we rose, the wind was still blowing strongly and it looked like it was going to persist for the duration of the day. We had breakfast at the Chalet again at 08:00 before gearing up and walking out to the crags. We didn’t want to leave to late in the afternoon again so we decided to skip out on the Cool Bananas crag and moved straight onto French Wench, a WI3 and 4 crag a little beyond Cool Bananas. The wind was howling when we climbed down into the crag and the ice was not as good as Dean had hoped. There were three bolts above the climb but none of them had any hangers on them. Dean had spare hangers and proceeded to fix them using cable ties! We backed the two bolt placements up with three pieces of natural protection. I decided early on not to climb that day so I left my boots, crampons and ice axes in the car. While Robert lowered Dean I sat on the edge taking pictures. Dean then climbed up with Robert belaying. It was a nice short climb and Dean was soon up, and then got lowered back to the bottom. Then Robert took all the cameras and with me belaying went to the bottom as well. Robert and Dean then took turns to climb with Robert climbing 4 times and Dean 5 times to the top while I was belaying. At just after 12:00, we decided to call it a day, packed up and walked back to Sani Top, leaving there just after 2pm.