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Beth Rodden - Rocklands

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Rocklands Boulders & Cape Town, South Africa
By: Beth Rodden

As the thick, long needle pulled out of my shoulder all I could think about were the sunny orange boulders in the Rocklands of South Africa. All of my friends were making their maiden voyage to the bouldering mecca this year and I had hoped to accompany them for my second trip. But similarly to last year, about a month before our departure, I found myself with a connective tissue injury. Last year it was a torn ligament in my index finger from too many ring locks on steep finger cracks. This year it was a torn labarum from a mantel move bouldering.

My doctor, a tall lean man, had a reputation as one of the best orthopedic surgeons in Northern California, slowly looked over my MRI. I sat patiently surrounded by posters of swimmers, baseball players, football players, runners, etc. Dr. Isono definitely treated athletes. The minutes felt like hours and I probably burned as many calories with angst as I would running for an hour.

‘Well, you definitely tore your labarum and your rotator cuff, but both tears are small,’ he said with a calm unconcerned voice, ‘So, I’d say go ahead and go on your trip, dive into physical therapy until you leave, climb very easily when you are there, and let’s see how your shoulder is doing when you return.’

A rush of excitement poured into me. ‘Yes!’ I thought. I get to go to South Africa! I had envisioned a summer of sitting at home, twiddling my thumbs, surfing the internet, updating my FaceBook status twelve times per day, but now the Rocklands awaited me.

The next month I tried to be as diligent as possible with my physical therapy and refrained from climbing all together. A week into the physical therapy I had to pass on an amazing trip to Lion’s Head with Emily Harrington, Sam Elias, Lauren Lee and Keith Ladzinsky, but I hoped that being smart would lead to avoiding surgery and a healthy fall season.

There were about a dozen of us from Northern California heading over. I have quickly learned that in bouldering you travel in packs, it is far different than remote wall climbing. Gone are the days of bringing dehydrated food, one set of clothes, one book that you and your partner trade back and forth, and the ‘fast and light’ mentality. This was bouldering: bring whatever you could fit into your crash pad and go home at night to eat steak, potatoes, and numerous varieties of dessert.

I thought that the second time arriving at the Rocklands would be a little less amazing, but this year again I was blown away at the endless horizons of boulders in every direction. I think the best way to describe it is a cross between Little Rock City and Heuco; steep, featured sandstone. This was definitely a boulderer’s paradise.

The first couple weeks I climbed for about an hour or two on the easiest problems I could find, trying to be as gentle as possible on my shoulder and climb ‘correctly.’ In physical therapy I learned that for the past fifteen years of climbing, I have been doing it ‘incorrectly,’ using my small shoulder muscles to move upward instead of my large back muscles. So to most people watching me, it looked like I was just learning how to climb, which was probably pretty comical.

Even though I wasn’t climbing the hardest things around, most of the group had a tick list a mile long and were making leaps and bounds on crossing things off the list. I am horrible at remembering boulder problem names or grades, but people were trying hard and having fun, which in my book is what counts. (Sorry for all of you out there that wanted an account of names, grades, and beta, I am definitely inept at writing about that very well.)

Before I injured my shoulder I had a goal in the back of my head of trying a problem called ‘Tomorrow I’ll Be Gone’ at the Road Crew area. It is a vertical face that has small holds scattered across it. I found it very striking last year and thought if my shoulder felt good enough I would give it a try.

I have found in the past couple of seasons that I am not a typical boulderer, I think I am a route climber trying my best at bouldering, to ultimately improve my route climbing. Most ‘easy’ problems for boulderers are extremely difficult for me. Overhanging gymnastic climbing seems to be bred into people now, and it is about as natural for me as walking is to a fish; I just don’t get it. But, technical climbing, where I can stand on my feet is what I love, and this is one of the few problems at theRocklands that fell into that category.

About two thirds of the way through the trip, my friend Lyn and I motivated the house to get an ‘early’ start (8am) to head up to the problem because it is north facing; in the sun all day in the Southern Hemisphere. Luckily we all had a handful of tries before getting bouted by the sun. The holds were quite tiny and crimping on micro edges in the sun only held it’s appeal for so long. However, I was so excited with how my shoulder did, it was able to tolerate the problem. I don’t know if this exactly fell into the category of ‘climbing easy’ that my doctor had told me to do, but it is so hard for me to resist good climbing if I am staring at it.

After a rest day I was able to get out of the house even earlier, at 7:30am (I know that you alpinists are rolling over laughing right now, but when you are in Rome…) to give myself a little more time trying the problem. I gave it one warm up go for the sole purpose of acclimating my fingers to crimping hard, and then was able to do it my next go. When I got to the top, my fingers were frozen in a permanent crimping position, I guess because it had been so long since I had crimped that hard. I was so excited I was able to climb the problem, but actually much more excited that my
shoulder held up and allowed me to try hard.

I tried to focus on learning how to climb steeper problems the rest of the trip and see as much as the Rocklands as possible. There were tons of international climbers scattered about the area. I ran into Arnaud Petit and Stephanie Bodet a couple of times along the way. We were all a little surprised to see each other at a bouldering area and laughed sometimes about how nice it was to boulder instead of carry a huge rack and suffer on a wall. However, I could tell from them, and probably them from me, that we all secretly missed it in some twisted way.

The rest of the trip people got to do problems they wanted, and got to see sights in Africa. My shoulder continues to feel better and better every day and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I have a healthy and strong recovery. A handful of us went on a quick safari, which was mind blowing. We saw lions eating a rhino, wild dogs and their puppies, and numerous other exotic looking animals. Cape Town was also a very fun city to explore, great food, history and sights. We hiked Table Mountain one day, which rises straight up off the edge of Cape Town. It felt like doing a stair master for an hour and a half, but the views from the top were stunning.

South Africa is an amazing place that I would recommend to anyone, and any climber. I am route climber attempting to boulder and I love it. The approaches range anywhere from two minutes, to about an hour. The natives are extremely friendly and it is pretty cheap once you get here. I hope to return in an upcoming summer….. injury free!

Stay:
We rented a small house at Traveler’s Rest for about $10 per person per night. There are a variety of houses on farms in the area as well as camping, which is about $4 per person per night. Travel: Fly into Cape Town, which is about 3 hours from the climbing, give or take with traffic and road work (which was heavy this year preparing for the World Cup next summer). We rented a car, but make sure you have good insurance, as the roads can be really bad and tear up your car.

Eat/Shop:
Clanwilliam is the closest town and has a big grocery store (equivalent to Safeway, etc in the States). Cape Town has two health food stores for people interested in Organic or with food allergies. Cape Town also has some very nice restaurants that are comparatively cheap to the States. Olifantes in Clanwilliam is a climber favorite.

Season:
May-September with the beginning and end being warm

Things to bring:
Solutions, Exum Ridge Pros, clothes from down jacket to shorts, computer, camera. Have fun!

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