Ascents in Mhlabatini

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ehhh, sketchy magalies trad, good to be back off the couch!

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First trad lead experience ! amazing !

Really fun end, turning the corner reveals so many cool features!

Route was a little loose in places but gear in the crack was adequate. Very scary.

We climbed an open book about 6m left of Oblique. Only one move, will be easy if you're tall.

A nice route.

We got a bit lost on the route. We climbed up a crack above the first comfortable ledge and traversed left over smooth ramp. It was pretty good. We climbed up too high from this point before traversing left and the climb may be better if we went left lower. The 4th pitch (grade 7) was not worth it, it may be possible to abseil of a tree before it.

I'm not sure about pitch 2. All the rock is grey and orange and nothing looks like an obvious slab. What I did was:

1. 30m (13) To the left and above the first pitch is a corner with a slabby left wall and a short chimney on the right. Scramble up the chimney and move onto left wall when the roof blocks the chimney. Pull up to ledge with a small obelisk on it. Climb back around arete and jam up crack to top of a pillar. Continue up corner to a dassie cave. Traverse right out of cave and scramble up gully to top.

There may be more interesting climbing by traversing left at the dassie cave. It is possible that the real 2nd pitch starts further to the left.

fun

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Cool line

Actually a descent - a mate convinced (sandbagged) me into believing this was the way down instead of abseiling..