UKC

Waterval Boven: South Africa's premier sport climbing mecca with year round climbing, routes of all grades and the real sense of being in the wilds of Africa.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=7240

In reply to UKC Articles:

The best sports crag on earth. Only disputed by Ceuse, if it only had giraffes, lions and rhinos roaming wildly... Glad the secret is out

In reply to UKC Articles:

I once had a free weekend whilst on a work trip to Jo'burg, so headed out to Waterval Boven. Rocked up to the cliff, found the only party climbing there and asked if I could tag along. Ended up doing a route with SA's best climber, Clinton Martinengo, which was cool.

Still heartily disliked SA, mind.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Brilliant article Sam, looking forward to heading out there later this year!

In reply to Ramon Marin:

Great crag, excellent article Sam. For info regarding Rock Climbing in the Western Cape of South Africa read this by Karin http://www.climbonline.co.uk/south_africa.htm

In reply to UKC Articles:

Boven is a fab destination. Used to go there alot in the mid ninetees even opened a few routes.

Heard that some of the classic crags are not accesable/no go due to safety. Real shame! Think the original camp site ontop of the crags has also closed. Nice to see there is another camp site to use. The quaility of rock in general is excellent and compact. The bolting qaulity is excellent not many silly run outs. We used to open some routes on trad and then bolt after.

There must be hundreds of routes by now, endless options and grades!

In reply to The Bushman:

"Heard that some of the classic crags are not accessible/no go due to safety."

This is not true though. There were some unfortunate muggings many years ago by opportunistic locals. Since then we have introduced climbing to a bunch of guys living really close to the crags and it has been peaceful for many years now. It is Africa, and you need to check with the locals (me, in this case) before going to far off the beaten track but climbers have for many years visited those ominous crags that you refer to without any issues.

There are over 750 climbs to choose from at all grades and very few of these are not worth repeating. You'll see...