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Access issues inherited from Rocklands

(Leaving this here as its inherited by child locations - please take the time to take pictures of the boulders you visit and post them under the relavent locations so that we can start populating more topos 🙂).

As of 2014, no climbing is allowed in Rocklands without a valid climbing permit. Land owners often conduct inspections in the climbing areas and anyone found without a permit will be asked to leave the climbing area. Permits can be obtained online - www.quicket.co.za - or purchased at CapeNature's Kliphuis campsite office; De Pakhuys campsite office; or Traveller's Rest farmstall and restaurant.

Ethic inherited from Rocklands

  1. Bury your faeces and carry out your toilet paper. If the ground is too hard to bury your faeces, please carry it out with you and dispose of it in the campsite bins. Poop bags are available for free at De Pakhys. (A special note about this: Tea Garden has been closed primarily due to this problem. Animals such as baboons may eat human faeces and could contract diseases such as Tuberculosis and hepatitis, which could prove detrimental to the population)

  2. Do not litter – carry everything you bring in with you back out with you and dispose of your litter in the bins at the campsite.

  3. Stick to the allocated paths marked by cairns and as illustrated in the guidebook. Diverting from these paths causes far more erosion than is necessary and may cause the extinction of certain sensitive plants in the area.

  4. No graffiti on rock surfaces. (Black Shadow boulder has been closed to climbing due to graffiti)

  5. No pof is allowed in Rocklands. The resin damages the rock surfaces and this damage is irreversible.

The complete disrespect of boulderers for the land on which they climb is a very serious and has become a very real threat to bouldering in Rocklands.

Rocklands bouldering is in peril. Rocklands does not belong to the climbers.

Our access is not a right, it’s a privilege and our treatment of the land is the difference between us being allowed to climb in Rocklands and us being banned from climbing in Rocklands altogether.

Irresponsible boulderers have caused this problem and boulderers are the only ones who can fix it.

Please respect the land you climb on in South Africa and adhere to the above mentioned rules. Your privilege to climb in Rocklands depends on it.

Routes

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Grade Route

Sit-start in a small cave, move out and climb up on small holds. "Papou is the Greek word for Grandfather"

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 2002

Start with left hand on undercling and right hand on edge and climb up. "Harder than it looks"

FA: Fred Nicole, 1996

Sit-start below the corner with pinch for the left hand, climb up leftwards on rails to sidepull / pinch then move up right and finish up the seam. "After many years it still remains one of the hardest problems in Rocklands"

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 2002

Listed as a classic in the guidebook

Climb diagonally right up the seam and finish up groove. "The name says it all. One of the first and still one of the best"

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 1996

Sit-start with underclings and climb into A Question of Balance.

FA: Fred Nicole, 2000

Climb A Question of Balance but continue out right using pockets.

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 2004

A mega link-up of A Matter of Power and Out of Balance.

FA: Matt Bosley, 2007

The Ultimate Energy with the toehook beta

Tai Chi without toehooking (Tai Chi's first ascent method)

Listed as a classic in the guidebook

Start with both hands just above the roof and climb the obvious hanging prow

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 1996

Crouch-start with crimps and climb into Sunset Arete.

Video

FA: Fred Nicole, 2000

Sit-start below prow (The base is lower after rocks were moved).

Video

FA: Giuliano Cameroni, 2016

From the large undercling climb diagonally left up the face. Top out as sunset traverse.

Video

Sit-start on the right in the corner and traverse into Vertige.

Listed as a classic in the guidebook

Video

Start as Vertige but climb straight up through the small roof.

Sunset Traverse into Freaking Heights.

Sit-start with crack, climb out right and up the high arete.

Climb Tremdel but climb out left on thin holds. (Direct without jug, see: Tyrolean Traverse (harder)

Direct without jug on the right

FA: Fred Nicole, 1996

Sit Start

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Selected Guidebooks more Hide

Author(s): Tony Lourens

Date: 2023

ISBN: 9780796123541

A definitive guidebook covering all the sport climbing found throughout the whole of the Cederberg mountain range, describing 436 sport routes across a wide range of grades from F4b to F9a.

Accommodations nearby more Hide

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Tue 9 May
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