Rock climber [noun] – a rare breed of human who takes pleasure in climbing vertical rock faces. They make themselves sparse on weekends (especially long ones) and are found in large herds dotted along a crag during these times.
Crag [noun] – an area that draws a rock climber in, it is usually a large expanse of climb-able rock face. The larger the crag the larger the biological pull on climbers to frequent these areas.
Send [verb] – a slang term used by rock climbers to indicate the completion of a route without falling or weighting a rope.
Climbing bum [noun] – this is an even rarer breed of rock climber, who spends their days living on the bare minimum or the kindness of others and are always at a crag or campsite. This is what true climbers aspire to be, very few ever get it right for long periods of time.
Boven Roc Rally 2012 [proper noun] – a phenomenon that is inexplicable by most of society, where rock climbers migrate from all over the country to the small town of Waterval Boven for a long weekend of climbing, hiking, sending, sunshine and a hell of a party…..
The rally was started with a bang as competitors rushed to grab their score sheets and get cracking with day 1′s climbing. This saw competitors running to as many different crags and climbs as possible to accumulate the most points per team within a time limit of 8 hours.
For those of us that were not competing, Saturday started off rather slowly…
The day came to a close, there’s nothing like a long awaited beer and a late evening slack line sesh to take away the strains and stresses of an exhausting day in the wonderland crags
Day 2 kicked off with a slightly drawn out breakfast. This was a direct result of stiffness and babalaas. Once the food had settled it was time for the difficult part of the competition. This entails climbing the hardest possible route for points, despite the aching backs, raw fingers and still burning forearms.
Some of the hot shots had signed up for a separate difficulty comp which ran on the 8a.nu points system, basically they had their work cut out for them having to climb 3 kak hard routes over the period of two days. This would decide who was the ultimate
Day 2 had come to slow end, supporters and competitors all came together to take part in a bone bending game of twister and watch the lovely Michelle Hutchinson perform.
Prize giving time and everyone made their way up to the stage
Congrats to the overall winners Ivan van der Tang and Ruan Kotze, and a big thank you to the main organisers Gustav and Alex Janse van Rensburg.
And then party time..
Meanwhile back at the camp..
The night slowly came to rest and all the boys and girls slowly stumbled off to bed, only a few were left sharing tales of adventure from what was an unforgettable 10th annual Roc Rally.
A huge thank you to all the sponsors of this amazing event, I’m quite sure all who were there will agree that this years Roc Rally was truly spectacular.
For more pictures and the results check out Not Another Zebra
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