therunningdog Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 Trip: Namibia, The Grand Spitzkoppe &The Great Boobie - Various Date: 6/27/2010 Trip Report: Things were getting out of control. I had been in Cape Town for a week of World Cup soccer festivities, and the constant partying was starting to wear on me. Don't get me wrong, the energy in Cape Town was great, but I needed to get out of town for a few days...or more. Spitzkoppe! I had seen photos of the Grand Spitzkoppe in Namibia, the place looked like a dreamland...and knew that I wanted to go there. Remote. Obscure. Beautiful. Everything I love, minus the choss. But, man, IT IS SO FAR AWAY from Cape Town!! Hell, in Africa, everything is far away. Yet, South Africans told me that traveling there is easy...just buy a bus ticket, catch a good buzz, fall asleep, wake up...and by then you are about one-fifth of the way there. Repeat five times. OK, I guess I can do that... I hopped on a bus with a South African guy named Kevin Dingle(met him on climbing.co.za, similar to cc.com) and headed up to Windhoek...a 20 hour bus ride from Cape Town. A long bus ride for sure, but the on-bus entertainment kept us amused(it was non-stop prosyletysing), and Kevin and I came to realize that we share the same sense of humor. We ended up getting along great and had a stupidly good time! It was great to hang out with a South African, isolated from other people for a few days...I was able to hear what life is like for them, after Apartheid. But, that is a conversation for another forum... Once in Windhoek, we rented a car to drive to Sptizkoppe. There is really no public trasportation to Spitzkoppe...it is about 30 miles off the main highway on a dirt road...and besides, you need to carry so much water that taking a bus is prety much out of the question. So, there two very frugal guys walked about Windhoek for about 5 hours for the cheapest car that we could find...about $40 a day... Namibia is so flat, you could see Spitzkoppe from about 100 miles away. Our heartbeats increased as we approached... Trinket vendors (bleak existence) at the main highway turnoff...about 30 miles away from the campground... After 30 miles of horribly dusty dirt road, we are finally getting close now... There is a campground at the base of the peak run by the local people, equivalent to a reservation here in the US. The campground was huge, and there were tons of awesome spots located right below sport routes. We chose a place right next to "Dinaosaur Rock". Frigging sweet! It was so hot in the sun that it was imperative to get a shady camping spot. The bugs were terrible in the sun as well, yet completely non-existent in the shade. We settled on Sugarloaf for our first batch of climbs. All of the climbs on this bad-boy are slabby climbs from 5.6ish thru 5.11ish, 4-7 pitches. Sometimes bolted well, sometimes not. One thing about about climbing in Southern Africa is that most climbs are extremely sandbagged... Kevin on the top of Sugarloaf on our first day at Spitzkoppe. We were pretty stoked to be the only people in sight, and excited for a few more days of climbing... Handsome man on top of Sugarloaf. The desert went on and on forever. Seriously, this place was magical. View of the the Grand Spitzkoppe from the Sugarloaf summit...the big steep slab on the left has some serious routes on it...hard, even for South African HardMen... Night-time shot of Grand Spitzkoppe...nights there were absolutely incredible. We were over a thousand miles from the largest metropolis, and these were the brightest stars I had ever seen. The next day, we decided to get to the top of The Grand! The climb is about 6 pitches, with a 5.9 crux pitch... Kevin on the approach... Tim on the approach...it was hard not to stop and take in the scenery... Tim on the 5.9ish slab pitch. It was so windy here, I was almost blown off the rock. Actually, I was blown off the rock. Tried to forget about that part... Kevin sews up Pitch 2... Kevin leads out on Pitch 4...still super windy... Finally on the summit, the wind is blowing so hard I thought my jacket was going to rip...the view up there were incredible, but we just wanted to get out of the wind... America, f*ck yeah! A few interesting raps had us back down to scramble terrain, then a few sport routes before a night around the braai and drinking a few Windhoek beers... Morning at Spitzkoppe... The next day, we decided to climb the Great Pontok. The day before, we had asked the locals what "Pontok" means, and they made some sort of cupping gesture around their pectoral muscles, like my dad used to do when talking about Dolly Parton. OK, that makes sense, we were going to climb the Great Boobie. Kevin and I were both on board for that... View of the Pontoks, or Boobies. The left-most Boobie is the Great Boobie. They are nice looking Boobies, no? Kevin on the approach to Great Pontok. Down in that flat area below is a tiny pub, with no tables, broken plastic chairs, cold beer and sattelite TV! We watched the US fall to Ghana in the World Cup elimination round at that little pub. Sad. Pimpong! Six pitches of crack and slab climbing would take us up the route "To Bolt Or Not To Bolt" to the summit of the Great Boobie...the climbing was great...the slab was well protected, and the cracks sucked up the gear like me with a Good Food milkshake... Kevin on Pitch 2...our rope would get stuck here later... Some dork, somewhere on the route... Two dorks on the summit. Grand Spitzkoppe is behind... These jeans were worn for three straight months. They finally ripped all the way across the ass going up the Great Boobie. I was surprised how well cotton burns! Not a bad place to do business. I think it rivals Hidden Lake Lookout or Boston Basin biffy... These guys were trying to hitch a ride. I felt terrible, but we just drove on by. We were in the middle of nowhere. Long story. If you have traveled down in Southern Africa, you proabbly understand... After our climbing venture, we drove a couple hours to the coast to see the famous sand dunes of Namibia. Pretty cool. Actually it was hot as hell. But a cool place to check out...if youre in the neighborhood... Before driving back to Windhoek, we tied a good one on in Swakopmund...a strange place, indeed. Once in Windhoek, I began a Windhoek-Cape Town-Buenos Aires-Dallas-Denver-Seattle trip home. Makes that drive home from Twisp seem like nothing! Gear Notes: Sh*t-tons of water. Approach Notes: Head southeast for 18 hours, or northwest for 18 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephH Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 a Windhoek-Cape Town-Buenos Aires-Dallas-Denver-Seattle trip home. Jesus! What does an airline ticket like that cost...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fultonville Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 a Windhoek-Cape Town-Buenos Aires-Dallas-Denver-Seattle trip home. Jesus! What does an airline ticket like that cost...? Next time try Namibia Air from Windhoek to London then British Air from London to Seattle. Your route makes it look like you're were a drug mule ;-j BTW, how about that Windhoek airport? It always looks like a Toyota full of locals with AK47's are about to show up at anytime doesn't it? Nice trip report though. Good reasons to go back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
therunningdog Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 It was World Cup season so airline tickets were all messed up. And yeah, I musta looked like a drug mule since I got pulled into an interrogation office by homeland security when I arrived in Dallas... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyson.g Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 Wow that looks awesome! "If you have traveled down in Southern Africa, you proabbly understand..." Word! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonG Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 Holy crap Tim, keep these coming. Seriously, they are some of the best TRs in the database. In some weird way, this TR is better than hearing it first hand- must be the photos. Some really good shots in there, I can see how magical it is. It is on the list for sure . . .some day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pup_on_the_mountain Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 One more gem!! :tup: Keep 'em coming Tim! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trent Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 Awesome TR Tim! I love the first picture; is that a vuvuzela? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoroastr Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 kewl pix! congrats on ferreting out one of the last remaining places overseas where an american flag doesn't draw instant gunfire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonrover Posted June 30, 2011 Share Posted June 30, 2011 Holy cow!! I've been there - AWESOME. Did you have any issues with the flies? Did you try the Rhino Horn? Or find the 3-mile zip line near Swakopmund? Looks like you had a blast. I want to go back there someday, thanks for posting and jogging the memory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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