Cape Town: A Dream Destination for a Rock Climber

Offering an impressive backdrop to South Africa’s second largest and most visited city, Table Mountain provides amazing views over Cape Town, Table Bay and Robben Island proving extremely popular with visitors, locals and climbers alike.

While, previously, only adventurers and explorers hoped to reach the top, you will now find the mountain quite busy in the tourist season. These days there are numerous ways to reach the top, depending on how much energy you wish to expend. The Table Mountain Cableway provides the easy alternative, while the more adventurous can hike or climb to the top and indulge in activities such as bouldering or caving.

Rock climbing on Table Mountain retains its popularity due to the variety of routes with varying degrees of difficulty and offering breathtaking views. As it goes, only traditional climbing is allowed which means that no bolting can be done here, this is due to the mountain being part of the Table Mountain National Park, and in addition it is also a World Heritage site.

Table Mountain is composed of two hard rock types; Table Mountain Sandstone and Cape Granite. Traditional sandstone climbing, with its clear cut edges, can be found from both the Africa Ledge and Fountain Ledge. As such, the Africa Crag route offers easy climbing with great views and lots of scenic exposure, while Jacob’s Ladder is one of the all time classics and most travelled routes.

Indeed, climbing Table Mountain’s granite face is all about creating friction, as the granite face doesn’t provide many true holds for hands or feet. Therefore, the connection that the sole of your climbing shoes makes with the ‘sticky’ granite provides the traction required to scale the mountain; experienced granite climbers use as much surface area as possible to work their way up the rock. The odd crack may provide some purchase but mostly your weight is placed by reading the slight curves in the rock.

While many climbing routes on Table Mountain are well known and popular, cliffs are still being discovered, with new routes being created between existing routes. Local and visiting climbers hoping to take advantage of the new routes had better be comfortable with trad-climbing at high difficulty levels. It is therefore good to know that there are many flights to Cape Town available to take you out to this beautiful destination; once there, you can begin taking advantage of the existing and new routes offered.

Furthermore, Cape Town has an enthusiastic climbing community with many clubs and organisations devoted to climbing, mountaineering and hiking. Visitors receive a warm South African welcome ensuring jet-setting climbing enthusiasts from all over the world continue to flock to Table Mountain for its challenging climbs and amazing views.

Disclaimer:
The information contained within this article is the opinion of the author and is intended purely for information and interest purposes only. It should not be used to make any decisions or take any actions. Any links are included for information purposes only.