What happens when a crew of top climbers travels halfway around the world to visit the boulders of South Africa’s famed Rocklands?
Welcome to the Rocklands, the internationally famous, world-class bouldering destination that most Americans have heard of, but few have visited. This could very well be the world’s best — and biggest — bouldering area. It is but a miniscule chunk of the greater Cederberg mountain range, which stretches along the western coast of South Africa for nearly 50 miles and is strewn with bullet-hard sandstone blocks for its entire length. It is a land of infinite bouldering possibilities — a land of orange groves, Rooibos tea, and Pinotage vineyards, where you’ll find a grape that grows only in South Africa. When I was invited to spend two months here, in the summer of 2006, with a crew of North America’s best boulderers, I just couldn’t say no.
I arrive solo, a week later than the rest of the crew. In a daze, I navigate my rattly beater of a rental car (the “White Lightning,” or the “Mazdaratti” as one friend comes to call it) through hectic Capetown traffic. I wheeze and putt my way to our converted farmhouse rental and am greeted by the “full two-month commitment” posse: Andy Raether, filmmaker Chuck Fryberger, cook and soundman Andy Mann, and photographer Keith Ladzinski. Lisa Rands (with her husband, Wills Young) and Daniel Woods are to arrive a few weeks later, along with the talented boulderers Sarah Marvez and Steph Foster......
I arrive solo, a week later than the rest of the crew. In a daze, I navigate my rattly beater of a rental car (the “White Lightning,” or the “Mazdaratti” as one friend comes to call it) through hectic Capetown traffic. I wheeze and putt my way to our converted farmhouse rental and am greeted by the “full two-month commitment” posse: Andy Raether, filmmaker Chuck Fryberger, cook and soundman Andy Mann, and photographer Keith Ladzinski. Lisa Rands (with her husband, Wills Young) and Daniel Woods are to arrive a few weeks later, along with the talented boulderers Sarah Marvez and Steph Foster......
Read the rest of Cedar's account here: http://climbing.com/print/features/globetrotters/
and in the newest issue of Climbing Magazine.
photo by: Keith Ladzinski. Daniel Woods spotted by Cedar and I on a perfect unamed v7 in the Rocklands.
1 comment:
That place is absolutely sick beyond comprehension. Cedar did a good job writing the piece. I wonder how much he's really bouldered since South Africa.
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