Rocklands IX - The Home Straight

So my final week in the Rocklands began in earnest. Day one 32 degrees, day two 35 degrees, it seems spring is starting to muscle its way in here. Day one I rested in the hope the high temps was just a blip and it would cool back down. When day two dawned and it was hotter I panicked and headed out.

I met up with the American couple (Brandon and Kat), as it was their last 24 hours here before heading back to the States. He fired his 7c bloc, really chuffed for him, and Kat...well she got close to a 6c which would have been new grade terrain for her, but also she got to see the first cobra of the trip. She sent it easily, calmly letting it move off before sidestepping around it, so cool in fact that myself/Brandon actually had no idea there was one there at all. I think I would have bolted for sure.

We also went back to the old campground, this is where the tea pot boulder is and id previously done the Tea Time link-up which is the must do grade 7 at this area I guess. Anyway the day id sent Tea Time id also had a play on Tea with Elmarie (yes its tea mad this place). This is a Lamiche 8a+ that starts as per Tea Time but then half way through the lip traverse it blasts straight up the overhanging face via two very thin sidepulls. It had seemed ultra sharp and I couldn't manage the stand up which goes at 7c/+ so I had disregarded being able to link into this from the start of Tea Time.

Anyway we were back here and Brandon showed me this funky way of camming your left heel which allows you to reach into the first sidepull on the stand-up start to Tea with Elmarie more comfortably. It takes more weight off for sure compared to my previous method of trying to roll weight over my left toe. 30mins or so armed with this new beta and id fired the stand start. I had pretty much given up on finding an 8th grade problem on this leg of the trip that I was suitably psyched for (and had some chance of doing of course), except maybe Nutsa which I had been thinking id give a sess to in the final week. Now this Lamiche link was a possibility but I needed good skin and lower temps for sure.

Tuesday was also forecast to be super hot so it was a no brainer to take a rest day. Wednesday dawned a little cooler so I headed back over to the Tea Pot boulder for a proper go from the sit-start on Elmarie. One of the American guys I live with came too as he wanted to try. Climbing with him makes me realise just how bad my skin is compared to some. Him being from Bishop, his view is most things here are not that sharp (for instance the Barracuda problem that I alluded to in my last post that almost split my tip in 5 goes), feels “ok” to him. I understood, pre my year out, that lots of time behind a desk and only getting out once a week was bound to result in soft tips, but I must admit I thought with me climbing pretty much exclusively outside since March this year it would have improved a bit.

Anyhow where am I going with this...oh yes so the American guy tried but was pumping out coming into the crux move of going up into the sidepull after taking the swing on Tea-Time. I was doing similar, hitting the sidepull on my best try but not holding it, but the guy was saying I was looking so much stronger/fitter on it than him and to be fair he was right. So how come I wasn’t firing it? Skin. I was purposefully allowing him to go twice for every go I was trying the problem, but after my best go still found me back on the mat I realised my tips were totally red raw and the skin had got to that soft slidey stage - game over.

So that was that 5 good goes in total. He was tired too so we moved on. He fired some hard stuff out, I was a bit despondent after the skin meltdown so dropped my grade. Flashed a nice 7a roof called John Denver and a naff 7c dyno called Lord Greystock, that you can just do static at about 7a. I headed home with 4 days left and in need of a plan.

In Magic Wood if id rested a little more towards the end of the trip im pretty sure I would have left there with Jack’s Broken Heart done and maybe also Sofa Surfer, instead I went mad and tried to climb every day just because it was getting to the end of my time there and ultimately killed myself. Success or failure in bouldering can be such a fine line that it is often difficult to take your experiences away and apply them perfectly to another problem you are working somewhere else.

However this time I decided I would try to do just that. Instead of going out again today im resting up and will not get back on the Elamrie problem till tomorrow late afternoon when I have the best chance with temps and hopefully my skin. If I send - great, of course if I don't then ill only have two days left with shredded skin again so that will pretty much put pay to any hope of doing Nutsa. Still im comfortable with the decision in as much as I feel this gives me the best chance of success with my time remaining. As my old Grandma used to say “you can only try your best dear” and that's true enough.

Rocklands VIII - Mange Tout Rodney, Mange Tout

Uneventful restday on the Saturday and I should have been raring to go at Stretched and Pressed/Stargate on the Sunday. That was the plan anyway instead I got up feeling sick again. Id spent some time in confined spaces at the end of the previous week with the German guys from the campsite (the ones who gave us the flu bug the first time round) and so should have known id be at risk. Ive actually since found out that two of their group have been to the hospital with Swine flu! They leave later this week I believe but if I do see them in the interim im going to be running very fast in the opposite direction. On top of me feeling rather naff the weather had got very humid. This is rare for Africa as its a very dry heat here, it reminded me of summer days in New York, suffice to say climbing hard was out.

Monday was the girlies last day before she left me on my own for the final two weeks. She does like to move on rock but is not as obsessed as me and likes to mix that up with other various activities. Unfortunately this area of SA is pretty barren to be fair, there are other tourists here but what you can do is very limited. They seem to just drive about very slowly in their hired SUV’s, eat loads and thus are generally overweight. In the intervening hour after lunch, just before they have another snack at tea they tend to congregate at the various graveyards that we pass en-route to the rocks and snap some pic’s (no offense intended to South African’s I know but this is the Western Cape one of the main tourist hotspots in SA is it not?)

So anyway for our final day together on the Monday we looked further afield and found some hot springs place to go to 80km or so away called The Baths. Having not climbed for a bit I went out Monday early for a short session but as is often the way when you get up early and then feel rushed to climb I was in dreadful form so sacked it off to get to these baths. It was good but it was not exactly Roman baths either. It was basically a hot swimming pool that was pretty rammed or you could just go and run yourself a bath in these private rooms and sit in them for a bit. We did that then grabbed a meal out in Clanwilliam on the way back - good enough.

From Tuesday I was flying solo for my last two weeks here. The day started grey and by lunchtime it was absolutely lashing it down. The roof to my bedroom started to leak so I got the saucepans set up and sat down for what turned out to be a very long 24 hours. The rain kept falling all through Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. By lunchtime id hit rock bottom with my dvd collection having watched Shrek 2 and The Goonies within a single 6 hour spell!

Some blue sky appeared by Wednesday afternoon and looked promising so without further ado I got myself up and out. First site to hit me as I drove down to the main road and looked up into the pass was snow. Pretty rare for Africa this and not something I expected to see as we are supposedly coming into spring here. It now made sense to me why the roof had stopped leaking in the night, despite continued downpour, it had frozen. Anyway the scene looked spectacular with the golden orange rocks being nicely framed by the white hillsides, it would have made a great shot to stick on here, but unfortunately the missus had taken the camera back with her so you are just going to have to take my word for it.

Jeez just noticed ive typed 5 paragraphs and haven’t even mentioned the actual climbing yet this week. Hang in there this could be a longish post but ill try and keep the climbing update succinct. So I trudged up to the Fortress boulders through the snow, one great thing about the Rocklands boulders is they tend to dry very quickly. Almost everything was in by the time id done the walk-in. I warmed up longer than usual as it was baltic and went round to the Stretched and Pressed roof.

For those that have climbed with me they know I seem to perform much better in close to zero temps. I think its due to my skin being pretty weak etc etc. I actually hadn't given this too much thought up at the Fortress, at least not until I got on Stretched and fired it first go. It had felt easy. Well pleased as its a stunner this one. Another load of snow then rolled through which delayed me a little but once that had passed I moved over to Stargate. This problem is thinner than Stretched and I needed a go just to get my fingers crimping properly again. Next go I sent it easily, I know quite a few people who have taken 7c+ for this, no way 7c is fair for sure.

At this stage I was starting to feel a little cold and damp but spurred on by the obviously favourable temps for me, I decided to slog it over to the Last Day in Paradise boulder. Supposedly Fred Nicole was coming down from the Roadcrew sector, on his last day, a year or two back and spied this perfect 60 degree wall. Either he was tired so it took him a while or he had some bad beta but it ended up rated 8a at the time. Now with a cunning heel hook its a great 7c I believe. Anyway after an horrific hike to the boulder across flooded marsh I was really up for flashing this one. It looked to suit me being very crimpy, the temps were super low and most importantly of all my trousers were totally soaked from the walk in and I wanted to get home asap.

I pulled on from sitting, threw to a decent incut sidepull for the LH, dug my right foot on a spike for maximum tension and reached up to this razor crimp for the RH. It felt good and I felt the flash was on. From here you stick your left heel next to your LH that is holding the good sidepull and really sit down on it. This enables you to lock the RH razor and make a long reach to a slopey pocket for the LH. Once you have this you compose yourself and jump aggressively to the perfect finishing jug. Unfortunately as I reached the sloping pocket and spent a milli-second digging my fingers a little deeper into this hold my heel popped causing a violent swing and I was back on the mat. Flash gone but I sent next go and hot-footed it back to the car park. Great problem, great day.

Next up back to the Pakhuis boulders. Id met this American couple the day before coming out of Fortress and they hadn’t visited either Pakhuis or the 8 day rain sector. I fancied the company so offered them a tour for the next two days. The guy really wanted to get his first 7c in Rocklands and liked roofs so we headed up to Born to Struggle. This is a 7c roof that has good holds and biggish reaches, but with some cunning heel/toe trickery it was not meant to be too bad. Met French beast Olivier Lebreton at the bloc who casually fired the flash off for his warm up. So now we had the inspiration too so we booted up.

After the oh so close flash of Last Day in Paradise I was really up for putting things right on this one. It started well, you make a big throw into a RH slopey pinch from decent jugs and then hit a sloper on the lip of the roof for the LH. Once here all I had to do was put in a double toe-hook under a hidden roof enabling me to slap up again with the LH for a jug without loosing tension, then its 6b to exit. Left toe went in ok I pulled on it and started to move my right in nextdoor, as I did the left toe popped and the inevitable swing put me back on the mats. Another flash blown by a foot fumble, I made a mental note of that and fired it next go.

I then set to work on getting the American guy up it, he’d given me one of those horse hair brushes for free, so I figured I owed it to him. An hour or so later he’d got close but with power gone he had to call it a day for now but he has 3 days left of his trip so the send is still on hopefully. To finish at Pakhuis I decided I had to go and give the big dyno of Black Velvet another burn. I definitely got closer on the jump with finger tips just snagging the finishing jug but I probably need another inch or two to really grab it. “Not much” as Jerry would say but ill need another session or two to get this done and im still not sure I want to really put that much into a dyno, albeit a very cool looking one. Anyway we will see.

So finally 8 day rain sector. Not much to say here really. The Shark I have spoken about before and Barracuda, the 8a line next to it, are both world class. Id love to climb them but another session here Friday has left me dubious about my chances of success. Africa is certainly a continent of extremes, we had snow early in the week, but by the end of it 3 days of cloudless skies had really pulled the temps back up. They are forecast to get much hotter for much of my remaining time here. Shark/Barracuda bake in the sun for most of the day till 5pm or so and by then the damage is done. Plus they are super sharp on the first tip. Rest day was required Saturday after trying them both Friday for an hour or so my skin was totally shredded.

I got back out Sunday, but ill update on that in my next post as im seriously outstaying my welcome in this one, Its now shorts and vest weather as forecast, the snakes will be starting to stir too which isn’t too appealing. Case of “He who dares Rodney” I suppose....

Rocklands VII - Grade Chasing

I’m just going to come straight out with it and admit it. Since my last post, when I finished off the week knocking off some quality 7th grade problems that had been my projects, i’ve been on the hunt for a doable 8a/+ line. I became totally tunnel visioned, ignoring great lines at a lower grade, and simply zoning in on bits of rock based purely on the grade of difficulty. I think most climbers would own up to being guilty of this act at some point in their climber careers and to be fair i’d said at the start of this adventure in France that i’d like to hit 8a or above in each area, so I was simply putting this goal into action.

However it backfired. Why? Well for numerous reasons really but its probably best demonstrated by the below list I compiled based on my hunt this week purely for a “grade of difficulty”.

Hatchling 8a - good feature but climbing doesn't look that great. very small.

Black Velvet 8a - one move dyno problem. not really my thing. great movement im sure but do I want to session a dyno in Rocklands?

Green Mamba 8a+/b - Very good climbing but hard and sharp. In fact very hard to link from the starting traverse with 7 or 8 hardish moves before the crux. Probably too much for me in the time frame left.

Nutsa 8a+ - Great feature/setting/climbing - problem is its very sharp so rest days for good skin are essential. plus to session it you have to join in with loads of guys trying the stand up (sunset arete). +30 people there last time I tried this.

The Shark 7c+/8a - Superb line, sharp (of course its Rocklands). Was given 8a but now some have questioned this it seems. Thing is watching Team America 2 all get shut down on this a few days back im thinking it might still make a soft 8a.

Gliding Through the Waves Like Dolphins 8a (7c?) - silly name. The grade question is due to the fact you can kneebar it or something and make it easier. Lots of speculation on this. All irrelevant to me so far as tried to find the bloc and got lost for 3 hours last week!

Tea with Tommy McBride 8a+ - sharp as sin! 5 goes max a session.

Armed Response 8b - Ha ha..tried it, could pull on but not move. Soft 8b apparently, Ondra flashed it but way too hard for me. Respect.

Paula Abdul 8a - Definitely on for me as have done all the moves in isolation. Good feature, albeit a little small. Problem is the approach road is a total nightmare, epic sand track of hell and the car often gets stuck or doesn’t make it at all.

So there you go, researching the above list, bushwhacking around, pulling on the problems, discussing beta with other climbers, combined with a rest day and a rainy day, has accounted for 6 days of this week. No topping out, lots of being shut down and some pretty low psyche was the result.

In reality in my two weeks left I think only Nutsa and The Shark are problems I might invest some time in but not for the grade really, simply because I think they are great climbs. Why the charge of heart from Tobie Duprey - Mr Grade Chaser? Well because on day 7 I dropped the hunt for my ultimate 8a and just went and tried some great top level 7’s and with it motivational issues were resolved.

First up I sent Tea Time (7c/+) in an hour or so. You basically traverse round the spout of a boulder that looks amazingly like a teapot. You sit start at the right of the spout, pull through the overhang, traverse the lip of the spout on small edges, before turning the corner and ascending the left hand side of the spout to the top. Quality.

Then I went up to the Fortress boulders. Up here there is a super-cool roof problem called Stretched and Pressed (7c+). Its great because before you pull on you feel the handholds and they are big and you think wow this is so on, but then you pull on and realise the feet are awful and all the massive handholds are sidepulls that push you off the rock due to naff feet. Its great, burly and technical, but best of all at the end you turn the lip of the roof to a proper, scary, full press down mantle to jugs.

I worked this for a while and got it all wired but the big moves had blown my arms so I need a rest day before hopefully putting this one away I think. A strong German guy turned up whilst I was trying, I dished out beta like it was going out of fashion, he flashed to the lip impressively but the mantle shrugged him off. I tried some other problems for an hour or so and when I walked past this boulder to go home the German guy was still trying the mantle. Safe to say I really like this problem and its a must do before i leave.

Not much else to say except in the intervening hour before I left the Fortress, when the German was working that mantle, I had a tired go on Stargate (7c i think). This boulder is completely suspended off the ground, supported by other boulders around it, hence the name I guess. This is also one im coming back for after that rest day as I have all the moves sorted and I like.

So thats it, lesson learned for me I think. Only other update is our white VW Beetle has been replaced after concerning rattling noises got worse and the handbrake stopped working so hill starts were a nightmare. We now have a blue one with yellow flowers on it. The white one can hold its head up on its way back to Cape Town though, it made it up the Sassies approach road of death 3 times, it almost always started first time and only needed some oil in it once in 5 weeks. Here is a picture in memory of the white one....

Rocklands VI - short and sweet

Yes short post this one as we are working on getting a new car sorted for a few weeks. The Beetle, bless it, has done well but after hitting a very large pothole the other day its been making some really strange noises. If it gives up the ghost whilst we are out somewhere it will obviously not be good and then we may have to wait for days before a mechanic can get out here from Cape Town to take a look at it. With this in mind we decided to pre-empt any blow up event by getting a new car for two weeks or so. This will allow us to get the Beetle off the road for a while before I need to use it to get back to Cape Town at the end of my time here. Makes sense i think.

So aside from car admin on the climbing front its been a good week so far. I fired out No Late Tenders at the start of the week. I thought this was 7c+ not 8a in the end but its such good climbing the grade is not that relevant. I also flashed a cool 7b at the same place called Panic Room. Wednesday we went to some new boulders at the De Pakhuis farm that are set on a rocky plateau. There is some very good sixth grade stuff here but also two superstar problems, an 8a called Black Velvet, and a 7b roof called Minki. I got to work on Minki and got that done in a few tries. It is superb, you climb a tufa feature out of a roof and end up inverted at some points with your head the lowest point of your body. Quite hard for 7b i think.

Black Velvet is a classic new school problem. Very steep rock, you pull on from sitting using jugs, move up to slot, match and fire to biggest of all jugs holding the monster swing. I got quite close but I'm not that great at these big steep dyno probs..i think others more skilled in this field could crush very quickly and i think that's why most say its pretty soft for 8a. Anyway ill have another go at some point because its just so cool looking and holding that swing must be awesome, but its not really my style.

Then yesterday we went back to roadside area. I sent Caroline - wow epic! Really pleased as this was a hard one for me and I just love the movement. Got a vid too so that's great. Then after a calmed down I was going to start trying Nutsa properly but some American guys dragged me up the hill to a hidden cave that I hadn't seen before. Here there are two problems both coming in from the left of the cave moving along the lip. Black Spider (soft 7c), i sent in a few goes, continues following the lip of the cave to the far right side before it climbs a thin wall to top out. Really cool prob and quite pumpy. We then started to work the meaty problem there, this is Green Mamba, it originally got 8b i think but feels more like soft 8a+ i think. You basically do half of Black Spider but then head straight up the middle wall of the cave on steep ground. The crux (about 7c/+ on its own) involves you getting your right heel up next to your hands, sitting on it and then slapping into a horrible little two finger pocket sidepull. Once you have this you rock up high on the heel and slap wildly for a very small edge for your left hand. Get this, bone down, and leap for jugs at the top. Very good, sort of like a steeper and more powerful Brad Pitt boulder prob with a roof section into it. Its hard for me but does feel possible so ill be back for another go on Nutsa and this one next week I think.

Rocklands V: Forgotten Testpieces/Hidden Gems

The week had started off well and i hoped that might propel me onto greater things. It turned out to be a bit mixed with a lull mid-week before decent days Friday and yesterday. The primary reason for the lull was some rain, we hadn't seen a drop for almost 3 weeks so i guess it was due.

It cleared out Friday afternoon, so i headed out to the De Pakhuis boulders. I'd been up to these blocs for a reccy previously and had some idea of what i wanted to do. There's a really cool cave up there with two clear lines climbing out from it. Dirty lies is the easier of the two (7b) and takes a straight line from back to front, via a cool hueco 3/4 of the way out, before an easy lip turn onto the exit slab. There was an Austrian guy there playing rap on loud speakers, which in a big cave sounded pretty good to be fair, so i asked if i could join in.

Armed with the guys beta, i flashed dirty lies and quickly dispatched the extension start that climbs in from the left. With these done, i turned my attention to the 2nd line in the cave, this is No Late Tenders, an 8a from Klems Loskott. It starts at Dirty Lies but heads right with some big moves on sidepulls/undercuts before you get a decent pocket just before the lip and the difficulties ease from there. I made some good links on this one, the climbing is superb, burly but technical too with some toes and heels in there. I'm going to be back for more on this.

Finished off the day climbing Maniac, a 7b/+ over-hanging wall, that requires you to make big moves between slopey breaks, before a final leap for a jug off a lovely RH pinch. I won't say much more on this other than if you ever come to Rocklands, this is a must do - simply superb. There are a lot of hidden gems here at Rocklands, like this one, that you need to do some digging to find. The more i do find, the more that label of the World's best climbing area seems to make a little more sense to me.

Saturday headed back to the Roadside area for session 3 on Caroline. Got through the crux again, but fell after that like last sess. Irritating, but i'll come back for more on this as its quality, basically i need to build up fitness on this one it seems. After that we headed up the hill from Roadside to the Ceder Rouge area. There's a big cave there with the famous lines of Black Spider and Green Mamba. Had a look but the landings are bad, so sacked it off for a bigger team day.

On the way up i'd spied Fred Nicole's ultra hard (8c i think) Black Eagle SS, there was no chalk on it and it looked a bit lichened to be honest. Thought it was a bit sad that one of the world's hardest seems to have been forgotten about, similarly down the hill Monkey Wedding (another 8c) and Olifant's Dawn (8b), that we saw earlier in the trip, have had little or no attention for a while that i can see. These things of Fred's are super hard but seem to climb pretty good lines, its not like Gaskin's stuff that is just plain nasty, so i'm surprised with the lack of attention. Perhaps there is just too much rock here and not enough of the top level climbers to go around, the general standard is high though i think. What we need is a prolific hitter, like Tyler, to get out here and put some of these down.

Anyway i'm waffling again.... back down at Roadside i finished off the day sending Sunset Arete (7c) in a few goes. With the sun going down at the time the rock glows golden orange and it does look pretty magical. The sit down to the line is Nutsa (8a+) which for that grade seems do-able, i managed all the moves last thing yesterday, so i might look to link this one. I do think, like Caroline, its going to come down to fitness as each move is pretty sustained, i wish i had better stamina as i think it would really help out here.