Yesterday morning was decision time. Shirker or Sherpa? More specifically, did I want to drive for two and a half hours, thrash up a bushy hill with full pack for 30 minutes and then spend 3 hours drilling bolts before reversing the travel experience, all on my own?
At around 10:30 am, while in the middle of wide-ranging debate with my ex-wife and eldest daughter about visiting arrangements, finances, schools etc, an SMS arrived. During a lull in negotiations I sneaked a glance and the message said "go and bolt it".
We quickly negotiated world peace and then I rushed home, packed and headed out to Oorlogskloof. Everything went swimmingly. There was a slight moment's hesitation when I was clipped to the anchors at the top of the wall and pulled the rope from the top anchor. It struck me that dropping the rope at that point would make things very unpleasant indeed, for a few days, until death set in.
So the line starts up The Dream to the 4th bolt, then moves diagonally right for a further 8 bolts. In 2 places the opposite side of the gully is fairly close and it was hard to decide how best to place the bolts at that point to make the fall safe. I hope I got it right.
It has the same hardish start as The Dream, then instead of the hand jam rest moves right on reasonable holds. It probably doesn't have a hard single crux move, but the top half looks more sustained than The Dream, on smaller holds.
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