wind.blowingthepieces: March 2020

The route follows the obvious corner system, left of the shadow.

So this is proper slab climbing then. I pivot my right foot to gain an inside edge and let my right calf rest, searching for holds that will allow me to bring my feet higher. Pivoting back onto my right big toe I let my left calf rest, still searching for holds. The bulge in front of me looks blank, to the left the rock is sloughing off like dead skin, and the right lures you out wide with the promise of hand holds - and a pendulous fall line. The last bolt is three metres distant, but the friction inspires confidence and the holds, while small, have been adequate - till now.

This bulge is a puzzle.

I probe to the left, sending flakes of skin-like rock skittering down the slab. Dubious. I step back down and then out wide to the right. There are holds, but they are awkward and don't seem to fit together to make a sequence. I step back across left to the bulge, it's 8:45 and the sun is suddenly very apparent - shining directly onto the slab. I can feel the heels of my rock shoes, the rubber soaking up the heat. I pivot on my toes again, alternating feet - this time to shade my heels. Still searching, anxious to avoid the burn blisters from a year ago - the reward for climbing Red Wall in the January sun. Still searching. My heels are burning, I've only been at the bulge for a few minutes, but I need to move now. I step out right again, I have to make those awkward holds work.

They don't.

Friday 7:30pm, we've just signed the mountain rescue register at Ezemvelo's Drakensberg Garden Castle office. The early evening light is giving way to dusk as Melissa, Wayne and I set out towards Sleeping Beauty cave, where we'll stay for two nights. The last remaining light fades and an almost-full moon paints the valley in dark violet bluey-blackness. No wind or cloud, Orion and the Pleiades to our right. Berg hiking is always grand, but the night lends it an exotic shade - as if you are striking out towards some alpine spire, or the Fitz Roy Massif. The Mashai River valley's sheer sandstone buttresses beckoning in the moonlight.

Sleeping Beauty cave.

The hell with this. I step back left, reach up, crimp down on some ripples in the rock and smear my feet up the bulge. Repeat. Eyes now level with the next bolt. Smear up. Pull up on blue, clip. Pull up on yellow, clip.

A long exhale.

Now onward, about ten metres to the stance, a rare crack accepts a small cam along the way.

Forty seven metres of frictioning, small feet and crimpy hands, four bolts and a cam - what a fantastic pitch. This is properly fun. The belay at the stance is off a single piton, a crack nearby looks like it will take a #2 nut... but, a fall may dislodge that outside stone. The piton looks good.

Melissa solves the puzzle at the bulge and joins me on the ledge, followed by Wayne. Wayne is in a hurry to get his shoes off, this is his first climb in some months due to injury.

Looking down the first pitch.

Rummaging in my pack, where's the finger-tape? I tape up the heels of my rock shoes before setting off on the next pitch, hoping the white tape will keep the sun at bay and the rubber cool.

The pale yellow rock is smooth, flaky and very dusty, but otherwise juggy - big, dusty, smooth slopery jugs. I've reached a vertical section after frictioning up another portion of slab and the next few metres almost resemble "normal" climbing. I pull up onto the dusty block and after a few moves descend over the back to the stance, a large gap between boulders secures two large cams. Melissa and Wayne join me shortly thereafter in a comfortable - if sun-baked - nook, just before the next slab.

I am really getting into a groove with this friction climbing now, cruising. It's an engaging, technical style I haven't experienced before. That next bolt is a good four or five metres away, I just need to pick a line through this next steeper section. The rock doesn't look as good, though - blistering and peeling in places. I glance down and notice the last bolt is about five metres below now, there's no gear on the face. Well, I could traverse across left into the corner and get a cam in that slot... but, it doesn't make sense, the line doesn't flow. And, quite frankly, the rock in the corner looks rubbish. It dawns on me that despite reading, re-reading and finally re-re-reading the RD - I haven't thought about it since leaving the stance.

"You're off-route!"

It takes me a second to make out Melissa's call. Yes. That's right. I was supposed to traverse out right at that last bolt. The one that's now five metres below. Ok then.

"I'm down-climbing..."

I delicately reverse a couple of moves. Regroup. Repeat. A dynamic move above the last bolt - which I don't think I can reverse - lingers at the back of my mind. Reverse sequence. Rest. Repeat. My feet are now smearing out right of, and just above the bolt. I can't find hands that will allow me to step down further. No point postponing the inevitable.

"Wayne, I'm coming off."

I drop down and hang on the ropes for a moment. Meh.

Ok, enough tossing around, I start the traverse. Positive under-clings and good feet make it feel secure. A bit of fiddling to sort out the blue rope and I'm ready to pull up onto the face. It is steeper than the previous slabs, but featured with a few monos and two-finger pockets.

Perched on a slab, surrounded by sheer sandstone faces - this is a good time to pause and take in the scenery. The massive, circular buttress across the valley looks for all the world like the outer wall encircling a medieval castle - the hollowed out centre disgorging a scree field that plunges over a cliff-band into the valley below.

Five metres to the stance. A flake takes a small cam and a few moves later I'm crawling through, what Wayne later dubs, the "birth canal". True to this name, it does not accommodate three climbers comfortably.

Looking down the "birth canal".

Melissa, pitch 3. (photo: Wayne Goosen)

Wayne completing the pitch 3 traverse.

Castles.

The crux is a short - four metre - traverse across a near vertical face, with some exposure. I clip the bolt at the start, step off away from the ledge and onto small feet. Adequate, small hands persist through until the last metre or so. I've gone in a bit hot and now have to tap-dance a little to get my feet through the sequence. Bounce the left foot back a little, now the right foot, step through with the left onto an outside-edge, right foot comes around, pivot the left foot to an inside-edge. Right. Those small hands seem to have run out, and I'd like to get a piece in to protect those seconding, there's a little horizontal seam that might take a micro-cam, but I don't have one... and there's no way I'll be able to fiddle a nut in, it's probably not worth it anyway... I step around the corner and off the traverse, place a good cam and continue up onto the next slab.

Crux. (photo: Wayne Goosen)

The rope-drag is horrible.

Urgh.

Hauling in some slack, I climb a few metres. Repeat. I descend off the back of the slab and step across a deep gap. Mental note - do not fall before clipping that next bolt, about four metres up the next slab. The ropes are coming more freely, perhaps they've now cleared that small roof above the traverse. Bolt clipped. Over the lip and finally - a properly comfortable, shady stance from which to belay. In the distance the upper 'c' of the Rhino's 'S' Route stands out, lit by the midday sun.

Rhino's 'S' Route on display.

Shady belay.

"Climbing!"

"Err, walking!"

The initial traverse section of this pitch follows a rounded step running horizontally across a moderate slab. No. I've gone too far. Backtrack a little. Ok. Frictioning up onto the slab I move into a large scoop, a mid-size cam slots into a good crack. The scoop borders a water runnel and a thick spine separates the two. I stem up the scoop, step my right leg over into the runnel and hug the spine with my legs. A solid cam goes in and I then step my left leg over into the runnel. The middle is wet, but I stem up easily until reaching a boulder capping the runnel. I stem up a little higher, my right arm reaching high, searching for something positive on the boulder. Stem up a little higher, reach again, there it is. I pull up and out of the runnel.

"Is this the end?!"

I call back down to the belay, knowing it must be as what's left looks like easy scrambling.

Wayne enters the runnel and fiddles with the ropes for a bit, they have somehow become wedged in one of the cracks below the roof of the scoop. Slack. Take. Pull blue. Slack. Pull yellow. Slack. Ok. They're free. Melissa comes up, cleans her favourite 500g #4.5 Camalot from beneath the boulder and joins us at the final stance.

We sort the gear, put on our hiking boots and opt to avoid the "vegetated" gully - it's actually recently burned and looks ashy and loose - and take the longer walk off, entering the valley higher up. The scenery is well worth the slightly longer walk back down to the cave.

Wayne retrieves the beers he had carried (successfully, this time) and stashed on the walk in.