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.

Isolation Pinnacle - Grootkloof (Magaliesberg) Jun 2007

Darrell, Liza and I left for a day in Grootkloof early on Saturday morning. Our plan was to climb Isolation Pinnacle upstream from the Main gully descent into Grootkloof. We arrived early, walked in and started climbing around 10am. We started at the base of the second pitch, skipping out on the bottom pitch by walking around the base of the pinnacle and scrambling up the gap between the kloof wall and the pinnacle. I led the single pitch to the top and Darrell followed without incident. Liza stayed at the bottom and took pictures of us climbing. Then we made the jump across the gap onto the kloof wall and abseiled off the small tree as described in the route guide. We had lunch in the bottom of the kloof before walking out and returning home.

Mountain Sanctuary Park hiking (Magaliesberg) Oct 2006

After playing squash early in the morning I drove to Mountain Sanctuary Park on my own, arriving at around 08:40. This weekend was an MCSA organized adventure race where our Search & Rescue team would organize and set up events to perform. I didn’t wait very long for Graham and Christi to arrive. We expected Gert as well and waited for a while but only Rob and a client showed up.

Day 1 (7 October): Graham, Christi and I left for the Cedarberg campsite. I emptied my pack to be able to carry more gear, with the intention of walking back out to MSP and perhaps even sleeping there (at MSP) rather than up at the campsite. We arrived at Cedarberg campsite and there were already a few people for the MCSA Johannesburg section’s 75th anniversary meet. We took a while to sort out some ropes before leaving for either side of Cedarberg gorge to set up the Tyrolean traverse. Christi and I went to Frog gully while Graham went to the top of Boggle. When we arrived we waited for Graham to tell us exactly where he wanted the Tyrolean to run to. We then started setting up anchors but it wasn’t long before Gert, Graham and Ian also showed up and helped us to set up. Tony and Catherine went to Graham’s side to help out. It took us a long time to set everything properly and in the process the time ran past lunch. Since I still had to go back to MSP, I left. I then decided to come and sleep at the Cedarberg campsite anyway which meant I had to fetch my kit and drag it up to Cedarberg. On the way down I came across Arthur and Theresa as well as a few other MCSA members on their way up. Back at MSP I very quickly packed and walked back up. Having promised Graham Beneke that I would take water to them at Frog gully I filled up my Drom bag and walked back there. Unfortunately, no-one was around so I returned to camp. In the meantime I decided it would be pretty cool to walk up to the Nooitgedacht towers late in the afternoon and return to the campsite at night, thereby doing some night solo walking as well as night navigation. So at 15:30 I left Cedarberg campsite with water, food, map, compass, GPS and camera. Walking to the other side of Cedarberg gorge I scared up a few klipspringers and walked right through the middle of a baboon troop. I slowly aimed off to the east and gained height slowly towards the summit ridge but on the way started developing some cramps in my hamstrings. Taking stretch breaks alleviated the pain a little but the cramps never went away completely. Slowly the Nooitgedacht towers grew bigger and eventually, just after the Red gully path, I came across a dirt road that obviously ran to the towers. This made walking a bit more comfortable but the cramps still forced me to stop now and again to eat and drink. Finally arriving at the towers I summitted the trig beacon at 17:30. I walked back and summitted another trig beacon (289) not very far from Nooitgedacht, perched on top of an old Boerefort shelter. The light started to fade fast now and because I wanted to say hi to Rob and his client at Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, I quickened my pace. Judging the apparent position of the campsite from the map I entered a thumb-suck coordinate into the GPS. As the light finally disappeared completely I was a bit nervous as I couldn’t really see anything beyond the flashlight (heavy cloud obscured the full moon) and I had no idea how accurate my GPS position was. I struggled through some really awful bracken and fern in the throat of Tonquani gorge and then walked on the GPS as best I could. Rounding a rocky outcrop, not really knowing where exactly I had to go to, I spotted a rock feature silhouetted against the dark sky that looked promising. Walking to it I soon realized that it was in fact Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. Needless to say, I was extremely happy that the coordinate I entered was absolutely spot-on – less than 20m out! Rob and his client were busy with dinner and I joined them for a while, chatting. I left them at 19:30, planning to descend to Tonquani gorge via Boulder and then back up Cedarberg gorge to the campsite. Following Rob’s general directions I stumbled onto the Boulder kloof shoulder and descended rapidly. Knowing now that I can’t really go wrong anymore and that I only had to be careful of falling, I made good progress. Going up into Cedarberg gorge my legs cramped again and I took a break in the pitch dark, listening to all the nocturnal creatures about. Going up Cedarberg in the dark turned out to be a bit easier than I expected and before long, I came upon the spot where I collected water earlier that afternoon, at the bottom of the descent from the Cedarberg campsite. Quickly walking to the top I saw the big campfire the group made. They were happily singing along to a guitar but I was too tired to join them. Having taken an hour and ten minutes from Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee I was happy with the day’s walk but now needed food and rest. I had two boiled eggs, almost a litre of Clifton and then went to bed. Unfortunately mozzies bugged me until past midnight and when the sun rose the next morning I could’ve done with a few more hours sleep.

Day 2 (8 October): I lazed around the campsite, having breakfast while other people started packing up. I chatted to Graham about what he wanted me to do that day and he asked me initially to bottom belay the abseil setup. However, to avoid damage of the rope by fast abseiling, the abseil was later canned and I decided to act as belayer on the Frog gully side of the Tyrolean. Taking some gear, food and water with me, I left just after 9am. Graham went to the other side. It was a very lazy morning and Graham and I played on the Tyrolean for a while, waiting for the first team to arrive. The first team only came past at around 11:45. Various people showed up during the day to see what was going on and I enjoyed the banter. At around 3pm the last group came through. After this we packed up, walked back to camp, then to MSP, had a debrief of the whole weekend before I left MSP at around 6pm.