Description
This is the big, impressive wall to the right of Last Rites. In the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s it saw some action but then fell into obscurity. In 2020 it had a revival, and the mystery surrounding the original routes has been cleared up. It’s one of the steepest, biggest walls in the kloofs, and well worth getting on.
Access Issues
@mountain_club_of_south_africa wholly owns Tonquani. Access to non-members is restricted by permits issued by the Johannesburg section of the MCSA.
For more information on routes, access and permits please see the following websites:
Mountain Club of South Africa (MCSA)
http://www.mcsa.org.za/
Look at “Who we are” for the different sections of the MCSA
Mountain Club of South Africa – Johannesburg Section website
https://mcsajohannesburg.org/
Click on “Access and Properties” for more information
Click on “Contact” to get in touch with the MCSA for more information.
ClimbZA website
http://www.climbing.co.za/wiki/South_African_Climbing_Wiki
Welcome to the largest & most comprehensive online database of Southern African climbing information.
http://www.climbing.co.za/forum/
A forum site to find climbing partners or to find out more about different climbing areas and climbs.
Ethic
Leave no trace. Monkey cages are installed at the campsite and at the meet spot in the kloof, you are advised to store food items in these to prevent the monkeys from eating it. Please do not leave litter in the cages and please do not feed the monkeys. Bolting is prohibited.
History
By Hector Pringle, after chatting to some of the original first ascensionists:
Paradise Lost (1982) was the first route on the wall. Jonathan Levy, Paul Fatti and D. Peters made it to the mid height ledge, but opted to traverse off right onto easier ground. D. Peters also did a version of this route, with M. Arsenjevic, where they traversed left instead of right to avoid the steep stuff, and finished up Last Rites.
The big aid route Z.A.P. was then opened sometime in the ‘80’s at a staunch 22A3. The enigmatic Tarquin Holt led it ground-up over a few weekends, placing the odd bolt on lead. He took the obvious weakness through the lower roofs, moving left higher up. It was a bold effort and he had to deal with loose rock, big runouts and an uncertain outcome.
Watching Tarquin on Z.A.P. inspired Stephan Isebeck to try his own new route, Navigator to Heaven. In 1989, together with Chris Leslie-Smith and Chris Lomax, he lowered in and placed two crucial bolts in the break to the right of Z.A.P. The team climbed the route with a bit of aid, including Leslie-Smith boldly onsighting the runout final pitch. Stephan recalls asking Lomax (notorious for his bold solos) if he wanted a rope while seconding that last pitch. Much to everyone’s relief Chris said yes. Stephan returned with Dirk Neethling and managed to free the lower crux. The top crux remains to be freed.
Two years later, in 1991, Mike Cartwright achieved the ultimate in style: a ground-up onsight new free route. He started up the crux pitch of Navigator to Heaven, continuing straight up after the lower crux instead of moving right. The next 15m were incredibly bold with many hard moves, and finished with a holdless mantle past a mass of loose rock. Fortunately, these days most of loose rock has been trundled. Mike then moved left to finish up the main break in the center of the wall. The first ascent of In God’s Country must rank as one of the boldest performances in the kloofs.
Many years passed and these routes faded into obscurity. Navigator to Heaven and In God’s Country at least had descriptions in the route guide. For Tarquin’s original big route Z.A.P., however, there was just one simple line: “No route description available”.
In 2020 Andrew Pedley had finally become bored with boven and turned his attention to the kloofs. The Navigator Wall is the biggest thing around and was an obvious objective. With the sketchy information about the existing routes, and without the constraints of old-school ground-up ethics, it made sense to top rope and eventually lead the direct line straight up the middle. The resulting Quartz Whisperer is a bold king line. It starts up Z.A.P. and then launches into new terrain up blank and very runout rock between Z.A.P. and In God’s Country, before joining In God’s Country for the glory run at the top.
I had belayed Andrew on one of his practice runs on Quartz Whisperer and this inspired me to do some exploration of my own. Using the same top-down approach I eventually cleaned and, with Marianne Schwankhart, freed what I thought was Z.A.P. But something was bugging both Andrew and I – we wanted to make a topo for our routes, but we still weren’t sure where the original routes went. It was poor form to draw new lines over existing routes, so we reached out to the original first ascensionists and got some great history and an accurate topo for our troubles. We discovered that the two new routes we’d done share portions with some of the existing routes. But in both cases their cruxes, plus other significant climbing, are independent. And so we decided to write them up as routes in their own right. I thought Paradise Found was an appropriate name for the route I did, going full circle on the Paradise Lost made by Fatti et al the year I was born.
There is more still to do on that wall: Z.A.P. needs a free ascent in its entirety (Quartz Whisperer climbs its lower portion and Paradise Found uses its top pitch as one possible finish, but no-one has yet climbed the whole thing free in one go). And Navigator to Heaven still hasn’t gone entirely free. Hopefully this little write-up will continue…