It has been pretty hot the past couple of weeks so the sending has slowed down a bit for me. Les on the other hand has finally busted into the 8A’s sending Witness the Sickness and then a few days later dispatching his project Nutsa. I’ve been working on the Vice which is a hard 8B compression problem. I’m not close on it but it’s one of the few hard lines I’m really psyched on so I’ll keep hiking up to the Fortress to see if I can make some progress! Quite a few more folks have showed up in the past few weeks but it isn’t crowded by any means. There was a party at Alpha Farms the other night and Ian managed to drink enough brandy to provide a loss of balance while standing dangerously close to a river. He got completely soaked, it was awesome.
The Vice
Hacky sack skillz
Our House
Leslie working on Rasta Roof
The old campground
Sorry for the lack of updates but internet is a bit more scarce in South Africa than in Europe. Plus I’ve had some computer trouble and car trouble which hasn’t helped! We have been in South Africa for almost a month now. The Rocklands are a fantastic place to live and climb. The views are spectacular and the bouldering is immense. The climbing here is a cross between the rock of Rocktown and the style of Hueco. It is very grippy sandstone reminenscent of the Southeast. The climbing tends to be dynamic, with good holds spaced far apart. There are many hard dynos here to be climbed.
The Rocklands
The sunsets here are some of the best I’ve ever seen and the stars are incredibly bright here. You can easily see the milky way. Pretty much everyone speaks English, but for most locals it’s not their first language. Most people around here speak Afrikaans which I believe is a combo of Dutch and native African languages. Dankie means thank you, that’s about all I know. The landscape here is very open, you can see for miles and miles but it’s not flat, there’s a lot to look at out there from mountains and hills to rocks, etc. There is so much rock here and you can easily see it all since there aren’t many trees to be found.
We’ve been here for one month and it has only rained three days. Pretty much everyday is clear blue skies with lots of sunshine. We hear that it’s not the norm for this time of year, usually it rains a lot more so we’ve finally gotten lucky with the weather! The temps here are really warm considering it is winter. Usually it’s in the 60′s and 70′s with a few cold days mixed in. Luckily it doesn’t need to be cold to climb hard here. We have a crew of five Americans staying at the Loes house out near the Sassies. It’s Me, Les, Ian Cotter Brown, Jesse Bonin, and Kenyon. Between the five of us we’ve managed to tick a double digit boulder problem almost every day and it seems with our various strengths, one of us will be able to climb almost every problem here. Which is a good thing considering there are so many good lines here.
Les on Pinotage 7C+
Outside of the climbing, life is pretty good here. Everything is way cheaper than Europe or the US. A beer at the bar costs 12 rand or $1.50. An amazing meal with several beers at one of the nicer restaurants might cost you $15 at most. Or you can get a burger at De Kelder’s for $5. The burgers here are some of the best I’ve ever had!
Jesse on Green Mamba 8A+
Life in this part of South Africa is very simple. There is only one paved road within 30 km of here and it was just paved last year! Many of the locals do not own cars so you’ll see them walking along the road or waiting for a ride. The closest grocery store to our house is in Clanwilliam which is a 30 minute drive on the road that was recently paved. Our house doesn’t have a tv, radio, heat, AC, or even a postal address. It does have five beds, a kitchen, and only costs us $10 a night so it’s pretty nice! The days are short, we wake up at sunrise, around 7:30AM, and it gets dark at 6PM. We have a hard time staying up past 9 after eating a big meal and drinking a few beers so we get more than enough rest. I think the world cup kept many climbers away from the rocklands this year since it’s pretty empty here. There are maybe 20 people at the campground and no one is in the other houses near ours.
To sum up my initial impression after living and climbing in The Rocklands for one month, this might just be my favorite bouldering destination. Life is good here.
We left Magic Wood to head back to France to catch our flight out of Paris. Unfortunately Magic Wood didn’t treat us well. We had one stretch of four or five days of sunshine and then it was back to rain, rain, and more rain. Magic Wood sits in a narrow valley with very sporadic weather patterns. It could be raining heavily in the valley but the sun could be shining two kilometers north. It was the worst month of weather I’ve ever seen for climbing, much worse than our time in Font. In retrospect we could have spent three good days climbing there and accomplished the same as what we did in a month. We had a few good days and the rest were spent either projecting something or huddling under the Tarp of Darkness, watching the rain fall. Magic Wood is a great place to meet people so we had plenty of people to spend the rainy days with. We made friends from Switzerland, France, Belgium, Romania, Russia, Austria, Italy, England, Poland, and Germany!
Les learning a crazy game
Tom and Lucas dodging exploding ash
Alex on a rad 7B. Photo by Les
In the end we were much more fond of Ticino than Magic Wood, even ignoring the weather. We found the lines and the rock to be better in Ticino. Many of the ‘classics’ of magic wood don’t topout such as Supernova, Never Ending Story Parts 1 & 2, Sofa Surfer, Piranha, etc. Not to say those are all bad boulder problems but dropping off isn’t the same to me as topping out a boulder. I ended up projecting a long crimpy 8B called One Summer in Paradise. I did all the moves in 30 minutes so I was optimistic about sending it quickly. Four sessions later it didn’t happen! I climbed to the end where the crux lies 20+ times in conditions ranging from fair to raining and never had the energy to finish it.
One Summer in Paradise 8B. Photo by Guillaume
We are excited to leave the continent tomorrow as we head south to South Africa. Our flight leaves Paris tomorrow at 11PM and after a layover in Johannesburg, we should touch down in Cape Town at 2PM Wednesday. After a three or four hour drive north, we will reach our new home for the winter just outside the Rocklands.
We returned to Chironico last Sunday to escape the rain that inevitably falls on Magic Wood. When we got to Ticino we found unbelievable conditions. Sunny, cool, and a nice strong breeze. Perfetto.
Chironico
I found some more photos on my camera from Maranello and Venice.
Ferrari Enzo
Ferrari 599X
One of the reasons we left Magic Wood for Italy was the forecast was full of rain everyday. We returned from our week ‘vacation’ in Italy to drive up into the Swiss mountains with visibility at 5 meters and rain coming down all around us. The forest of magic wood was well saturated when we arrived. We setup camp and hoped for better weather soon. We had a lucky second day with a few boulders dry enough to climb on.
Dave
After that it never stopped raining; it sometimes slowed to a barely perceptible mist but there was always precipitation. We filled our days with books, chatter, cooking, and dreams of dry rock. Thankfully there is one boulder problem that stays dry even during rainfall, The Never Ending Story Part 2 7C+, which is an awesome problem down on the river with perfect polished rock. Les and I both managed to climb it quickly.
Les on The Never Ending Story Part 2
After that I climbed the only other dry problem, Massive Attack 8A, which is just a few hard moves that doesn’t really go anywhere (no top out). That was the end of the climbing so we returned to sitting under the tarp. Our dreams of dry weather didn’t come true and after six days of sitting in the rain, the forecast called for 10 more days of rain so we cut our losses and headed back to Ticino where the forecast was dry and even cooler than in April. Sorry for the lack of photos of Magic but it’s been wet and the psych has been low.
On our way into Sorrento we stopped in Pompeii to check out what remains after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD covering an ancient civilization in over 20 meters of ash and pumice until it was uncovered in 1592. It is well worth the stop if you are ever in Southern Italy.
Pompeii
The Amalfi coast was the next step in our whirlwind Italia tour. Just south of Naples, the Amalfi coast consists of small crowed streets that run along the Mediterranean Sea. Mountains that fall into the sea give home to sun-bleached pastel colored houses. We found an amazing campground, right on the coast, with 5 star hotel views.
View from our campsite in Sorrento
We spent three days on the Amalfi coast, eating amazing gelato and pizza, staring at the sea, and soaking up the serenity.
Amalfi
Mt. Vesuvius (under clouds) from Sorrento.
Fiat 500 on Amalfi Coast
Weirdness in Amalfi
B-E-A-Utiful
