Day 9: Spitzkoppe epic

29 April 2019

We had packed our bags the night before, and had everything we could think of ready for a very early start. Duncan got up a few minutes before the alarm went off at 04:30 to make me a birthday cup of tea, and then we were off.

After a bit of scrambling round at the base, we eventually found the cairns that marked our route up, and began the ascent. The first part of the route was mostly scrambling up through gullies, over boulders; and “friction walking” - walking up granite slabs of varying steepness, often only relying on the friction created by your shoes against the rock and your balance to stop you sliding down and getting a full body cheese grater experience. We both had heavy bags, and the terrain and route finding in the dark was slow going. We had a quick breakfast as the sun rose, and then kept going.

The slabs and scrambles got progressively steeper, and the boulders got bigger. Some sections required that we use the rope for some easy short climbing, but serious consequences if we were to fall. We eventually got to the first of the cracks that we had to climb - an awkward width that was wide enough to squeeze into, but really difficult to manoeuvre up in as it felt like there wasn’t really enough space for knees and elbows.

The second crack was called the 3-step chimney, and it was here that we left our unnecessary kit and carefully measured out our remaining water. This crack was a bit wider, and you could wriggle your back up the one wall, while walking your feel up the opposing wall. We had to chimney up over 3 large boulders in the crack in this fashion, and then we got to the tight squeeze. This crack was so narrow that you had to decide which way you were going to turn your head before you entered it. Once again no space for knees and elbows, and generally pretty awkward and slightly claustrophobic.

Next followed a 10m abseil down to a ledge, a short traverse, and then we got to the base of the actual climbing. We spent most of the afternoon on the 6 pitches of climbing - Duncan leading the climbs and placing gear for protection, and me following and collecting the gear as I went, while Duncan belayed me from above. We eventually scrambled to the summit at around 4pm; hot, tired, thirsty and elated; with the most spectacular 360 degree views.

Then the descent: our first abseil of 25m went smoothly until we tried to pull our rope through afterwards, only to find it was stuck. Duncan ascended the rope back up to the anchors and left a system in place to reduce some of the friction, before abseiling back down. We could then pull the rope through and continue with the second abseil, back down to the tight squeeze and the 3-step chimney. The sun was just setting at this stage, and we still had a long way down to go. We were both incredibly thirsty, and although we had left some water with our extra kit, it didn’t seem to be enough. We later realised that the water in the camp was borehole water and was brackish, which may have explained our unquenchable thirst the whole day.

The descent was slow and methodical - abseiling down some steep bits, scrambling down the gullies, bum sliding and friction walking down long slabs of granite, hunting for cairns in the dark, and watching the lights from the camp and village below getting slowly closer.

We finally got back to the car (and 20L of fresh water) at about 22:30, after 17 hours on the mountain. Back at camp, we each had a brief cold shower, and a supper of tuna on crackers before collapsing into bed.