The Dome Report
I did it.
I hooked up with Nico, who has been there before and has some multi pitch climbing experience. We stayed in the Game Breeding Centre / Mokopane (Potgietersrus) Zoological gardens self catering unit, which has a couple of rooms each with two beds. Some share a bathroom, I got the one with en-suite facilities. Very neat & clean, well worth the money.
(different links above – hard to track down the place….probably best to mail Anita for a booking)
After collecting the keys from the exceptionally friendly staff, we headed of directly to the Dome. Since it was an official meet for both the JHB & Magalies sections MCSA, the gate was open and a couple of groups already climbing, so we headed directly to the Dome, instead of collecting keys & a car guard from Jaap ( the land owner ) as usual. The car guard is not strictly neccessary, but a nice-to-have compliments of Jaap.
Let me say this: As you drive closer, this thing just gets bigger & bigger. Quite intimidating by the time you get to the parking area. At it’s highest, the climbable rock face (we’re talking about only the protruding rock, not the bits covered in ground) are 150m+. Our route started about 50m from the level where my car was parked.
To give some perspective: On the photo with the red circles, the right hand circle indicates a group of 3 climbers. The left hand circle indicates single person on a route, possibly on the route we did.
Walking up was fun – some bundu-bashing as there are no well trodden paths. At the base of our route, we waited for about an hour for the group ahead of us to all get up and sufficiently ahead for us to start following.
I found the route itself extremely easy. It’s so called “friction climbing”, where the whole route is on-balance, so you really just need to make sure your footing is good – no big upper body strength or endurance required. Quite surprisingly, the height did not affect me at all, and I found the whole route very relaxing.
At the top, one could simply get lost in the view. Absolute quiet (except fir the other climbers, who were thankfully fairly quiet ) and only a light breeze. Bliss.
Going down, we took an alternative abseil to avoid the other climbers coming up, and ended up doing more bundu-bashing, as well as a second unplanned abseil where the gully got too steep. All good fun.
Party at Jaap’s
Jaap has a reputation for being a party animal, and he did not dissappoint. Due to some theft issues at the campsite on his property, he had everyone camp on his grass around his house. A huge lapa provided some shelter, and soon two big fires we’re going. We did not stay too long, but I had a lovely time chatting to Jaap, as well as the meet leader Jaco and the other climbers. Back at the room, Nico crashed (he claims to have had a very late night… ;-P ) but I stayed up for a night cap with some other guests, who turned out to be just as much fun. The shower before bedtime was magic.
Day 2: The Sarcophagus
On Sunday we opted for 2 shorter routes on a smaller outcrop (visible in the back on the photo “7 – top, East” ). We took the wrong approach route and ended up climbing up the wrong side, using trees as protection. The abseil down was a bit of an epic, with a loose boulder giving us a few scares and some exposed downclimbing. Got to the bottom fine, climbed one route & repeated the abseil, this time in one go as we could link the 2 60m ropes ( total height +- 50m).
And that’s about it. Drove home, a bit depressed to be working on Monday again. But, I’ll be back…..soon….I mailed my booking for next Friday a few minutes ago ;-P
