Today a few of Sean’s climbing friends from Cape Town came up to join us for the weekend. Michael and Evan have been climbing her for many years and have put together many of the guide books for multiple areas including the area we went to today. The Sassies are a cluster of boulders to the east of De Pakhuis where we are staying. It is also on private property and requires both a day fee and a 4x4 to get in unless you want to walk the 3k dirt road in.
Today was supposed to be a light day but after an enthusiastic tour of the area I felt like doing two problems, Pinotage (7b) and Le Petite Hueco (7b). I found this area to be appealing due to the short approach from the jeep and the high concentration of boulders with great problems on them. This area is relatively new and the surrounding cliff bands hold the potential for dozens of new problems.
Following two easy warm-ups I wandered over to Pinotage. This problem runs up the face of yet another 20 foot boulder with long moves between horizontal edges. Originally opened at 7c this problem was recently down graded by Lisa Rands to 7b. I would have to say after doing it in two tries it’s defiantly not 7c. The problem is great and requires some crimp power fore sure. So far, I would have to say Pinotage and Cedar Spine are my two favorite climbs of the trip.
After my quick send Evan and Sean began working the moves and both sent in a hand full of attempts.
While taking a bit of a break Michael showed us some projects that he was working on. The first was a short bulge more typical of Horse Pens or Font than Rocklands. Standing at 8ft tall and climbing up several slappy moves to the top I opened it at maybe 6c. It’s hard to grade things like this, there are several hardish moves but I feel like someone shorter would have an easier time of it. If it were in Font it would be 6a. At Horse pens, maybe V5. Who knows. This sort of stuff is so arbitrary.
Michael bagged the second ascent on his next burn and thought 6c or 7a- was good. “Undecided (6c)” That’s probably as good a name as any.
Around the corner from Undecided (6c) was another project Michael had spotted on his previous trip. It starts on a big block and climbs up good holds that are all pointing the wrong way to a slopey near horizontal shelf about 3 inches wide. The buisnes is at the top where you have to make a long move off a slopey crimp to the top of the problem. There is a shallow crescent half way through that long reach but I found it was of no use to me. While this problem is probably 6c as well everyone else backed off due to the long committing reach at the end. Maybe I should call it 7b to get some glory J. I am dubbing this one Waxing and Waning (6c).
There is also a variation that I want to work on when we go back that traverses up from the right on a series of crimps and heel hooks that will probably bump the grade to 7a or 7a+. It adds some hard moves and should be interesting. Those top moves should be fun after you are nice and tired.
By now Sean and Evan had moved over to Le Petite Hueco (7b) and were brushing the holds. While Sean says he is not a roof climber he seems to do just fine on them. Must be all the steep training at the Touchstone gyms. After the cleaning process they began working the steep crimpy sections between the jug rests. This problem climbs like a route having 14 + moves and covering 25+ feet all on super steep rock. It reminds me of climbing at the Concave. Once the moves were sused the send burns started. Again and again Evan and Sean came off at the top where the climbing turns from steep pulling to rounded solpey top out. The undertow here is enormous and your arms feel like lead after the endurance run up the bottom. After shooting video for about an hour I decided to give it try and passed the camera to Evan.
My first burn was an exercise in stupidity as move after move I managed to grab every hold in the wrong spot or with the wrong hand. I was amazed I made it as far as I did. This being day three on I decided to wait for a return visit to give it another burn.
At this point I went to watch Michael try this horrendous looking ass dragger problem on these polished glass slopers. Sick! Not appealing to me at the time. But in retrospect it might be worth a try on a cold day.
As I headed back up to collect my things from under Le Petite Hueco I decided to give it a second try. I felt tired but felt like if I could get to the rest I would be able to get enough back to do the last 5 moves.
On the ridge above us a troop of Baboons had begun milling around, barking and hooting and rolling rocks down the hill to try and run us off. It was getting dark and they were coming down into the valley to the river until they spotted us. The alpha was particularly vocal but they all kept their distance.
Thanks to all the route climbing I have been doing lately I was right about the rest. At the end of the day, tired and beaten down I topped out with a grunt that made the baboons hanging out on the cliffs above us start barking again. As the sun went fully behind the horizon it was clearly time to go.
We will definitely head out here again.
Joe
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