As Good as It Gets -- By Wills Young

Adapted from an article printed in Rock & Ice #155, Fall 2006

Black, gold and red-streaked rocks sat atop the crest of a ridge—big, vividly colored, emphatically African. The huge quartzitic sandstone blocks had been carved over the ages to form perfect skyward lines—sheer facets, wild overhangs, and imperious aretes—their surfaces etched with finger-sized edges, pinches, and rounded breaks. I had rarely seen such an amazing array of immaculate lines.

The living was easy. We might as well have been in Idaho as Africa. We stayed on a potato farm and chatted in English to our neighbors, which is to say, either the visiting climbers from Canada, or the landlords.

The landlords—the farmers actually; a husband and wife—were South African, yes, but descendants of white Dutch settlers. They were the friendliest pair of neighborly landlords anyone could wish for: middle-aged, of middling build, and happy to invite everyone for a braai (barbecue) and beers, or give us a ride out to the boulders in their bakkie (pick-up). I didn't have any over-riding sense of being in the wilds of Africa, at least not the way many people would imagine it. Settlers with guns had long ago reduced former woodlands to open country and the scariest wildlife to a diminutive leopard subspecies. A raging bull elephant, rampant rhino, capricious cape buffalo, or hungry 500-pound lion may have been a concern to indiginous hunter-gatherers long ago, but today there was litte left of the "Big Five" but small potatoes.

Yet 275-square miles of official wilderness lay just five minutes’ drive away. Sandstone ridges and precipitous hillsides extended beyond the horizon. Out there was something big, unspoiled and as wild as ever: the bouldering.

Rock was everywhere, and only a small amount had been developed. The crew that Lisa Rands and I joined (Chuck Fryberger, Andy Raether, Cedar Wright, Andy Mann and Keith Ladzinski) at the Sassie House, as the farm was proudly labeled (it’s a local tradition to name every house) had been on the hunt before I arrived. Among the group were those in search of the big and scary. Others would settle for the short and stout.

With so much opportunity, an area just a short walk from the house seemed a likely find and that proved to be the case. The Sassies as we named the new area were within sight, just over a mile away, yet there were so many other stellar areas to explore throughout the Rocklands, that the Sassies were untapped. Until our household showed up on the scene, no climber had ever set foot there.

Read the rest of the story and see the climbing photos.