It will require absolutely perfect conditions. The crux pitches start halfway up the wall with several demanding pitches to get there and the wall only escapes the sun well after mid-day. Anything short of the ideal conditions increases the difficulty substantially; heat lessens the friction on the face and saps the energy and cold cramps up the fingers and increases body tone and muscle in-efficiency.

But we have a plan:
A 1000 mile flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg at midday on a Thursday. Then a car rental for the 5 hour drive to the Frans’s kraal to arrive there in the late afternoon to walk up 3 hours to the cave in the cooler evening air by torch-light. Next morning a 3 am start to hike to the top of the North Wall and then rappel the wall with the view to working the moves on the crux pitches and stashing food and water and bivvy gear on the way down. We would reach the base of the cliff by the time the wall is in shadow and then climb the 5 pitches to the bivvy stance where the crux pitches begin. With some luck we would even crack the first hard pitch dubbed the “Ningenator pitch.” Funny thing though, is that despite the fact that I conceived the route I probably don’t have snow-ball’s chance in hell of actually freeing the crux pitches. Age and attrition has weakened me. But no matter, desire and dreams can end in a satisfactory result. If failure wasn’t part of the agenda then the allure would fade.

But the setup has to be spot on. And training is essential: more the mind than the body.

And so it was that on Friday 24 November we rappelled down the wall with heavy packs including a drill and 12 litres of water after waiting for the rain to stop. No further bolts were placed on any of the pitches but three rappel points were improved with bolts. After depositing our bivvy gear at the palatial ledge 130m above the ground we continued to the bottom where we dumped the drill and Clint and Stew’s approach shoes.

In very humid conditions and thunderheads approaching Stewart led the first pitch in fine style with Clint and I yelling beta at him.

I then sweated up the next grade 23 pitch where I had intended to place a bolt but had refrained to do so because Clinton had discovered a critical, but tiny cam (Alien zero) placement. This, of course, was missing from the rack having been left on the rappel as a directional. The smaller black diamond Z cam did not fit well but had to do. I did not even bother testing it. Clint had on-sighted this pitch a little further to the left when we had tried the route 6 weeks previously but I did a more direct but very tricky version with a desperate pinch and using small and awkward foot holds above suspect runners. I attained the belay ledge pumped to the max and streaming with sweat.

Clint then led the next pitch to the shattered ledge. On our previous visit I had thought this pitch also needed a bolt but it yielded to grade 21 climbing and good enough trad gear placements.

At the shattered ledge the tension began. It was rapidly getting dark and the mother of all thunder heads was approaching from the north-west. Lighting crisscrossed the air with many bolts arcing between the clouds. Clint was the man for the next grade 25 pitch but he had visions of being fried by lightning and was being disobedient and cowered next to us on the ledge. Stew and I cunningly convinced him that there was no ways that the lightning would be interested in him despite the fact that he was carrying about 40 shiny biners and a whole rack of other metal bits. We suggested that he could always leave all that stuff behind and solo the pitch!. We sure weren’t offering to go up.