moving on from South Africa

Two months goes by incredibly fast when you're in a great place having a good time. We left Rocklands yesterday to head to Cape Town for a couple nights before our epic two day flight to Australia.

Orange Heart. A beautiful piece of rock v4/5

We don't have any amazing accomplishments of the last couple weeks, just a bunch of good fun climbing was done. Matthew had focused a lot of his time and energy on a project called Weichi which was a 7c+ or v10. This was the first climb of the grade he had really tried and while he gave it everything he had and got incredibly close (fell off the final hold), it didn't quite come together on this trip. That's the problem with setting your sights high and trying something that is harder than what you've done before, it doesn't always end in success when you want it to. The positive side of this is that he now knows he can do something this hard so will be more likely to try that grade again. With any luck there will be a post with Matthew sending his first v10 sometime soon.

the project Weichi v10

Bullet Proof an amazing v5ish dyno

Cassie spent a bit of time focusing on a climb that is much different than the normal style she enjoys. Generally she seems to favor slightly overhanging climbs with crimps (thin holds) rather than open handed slopers especially when those slopers require compression (squeezing the arms together to maintain contact). Considering her finger injury Cassie stayed away from crimpers and started working problems that had slopers. I think she did quite a bit better than even she expected and possibly we'll see her spend more time on compression and sloper problems. In the photo below she is setting up for a double heel hook double sloper position. It's basically squeezing the rock with your hands and feet while upside down. It's hard (and requires serious strength).

Against the Wind v6/7  7a+

the right hand sloper on Against the Wind

the left hand sloper on Against the Wind

In the last two weeks, we returned to a number of problems and areas we hadn't been to since early in the trip. We were both able to finish up or do a number of classic problems that we hadn't tried or didn't quite finish earlier in the trip. It felt good to finish up these problems that felt so impossible the first week of the trip.   Matthew also tried another classic v10, called Caroline on our last day here. It's a beautiful line and he was able to work out a few of the moves pretty quickly.

Caroline v10 7c+

We enjoyed the climbing in Rocklands so much that we're already trying to figure out if we can get back here next year. For now though, all good things have to come to an end, or move on to somewhere else.

We were excited to head to Cape Town where we are staying at the same bed and breakfast we stayed at our first night here. Again they upgraded us to a nicer room and we are really enjoying the comforts of living inside with a great shower, comfy bed, and TV to watch the Olympics on. We left our new found comforts today to explore a bit. We drove down the coast to see the African penguin colony here. And yes, penguins are amazingly cute and fun to watch.

penguin chicks

While we're a bit sad to leave rocklands, we're off to another great location and are looking forward to climbing in Australia and seeing friends there.