Route 11 in my efforts to find Table Mountain's toughest ascent!
Finsteraar Crack is a beautiful but treacherous gully on the southern side of Fernwood Buttress, offering the only feasible ascent of the buttress, but carrying with it a fair share of danger. Like most of the routes above Newlands Forest, Finsteraar Crack is lush, filled with stunning indigenous trees, mosses and flowers, but with that comes loose and rotten rock which easily gives way under hand or foot, a danger exacerbated by the lack of regular ascents which have smoothed out other routes. Many years ago, ropes were hung along its length, offering a potential alleviation of difficulty, but requiring trust to be placed in gear whose history has long since been forgotten. John H, John B, Emily and I spent a misty morning exploring this route, and had our fair share of close calls!
Enjoyment Rating: 4.5/5
Difficulty Rating: 7.5/10 (without ropes)
Challenges: Done without the aid of the ropes, the scrambling is typical of a C-grade route like Kasteels Gulley. However, the scrambling is quite sustained over the course of the route, and the looseness of the rock above non-negligible exposure adds an element of danger to the ascent. With the ropes, the climbing becomes a lot easier, but that carries with it an additional uncertainty.
Music: Worakls - Flocon De Neige
Thylacine - Satie I
Contact me: @daniel_johnson_pmbpk (instagram)
danjohnsonpeter@gmail.com