Rock climbing and bouldering in South Africa

There are many different places to go rock climbing in South Africa, with lots of solid rock that is of great quality.  The climbing is often set in beautiful settings and offers the opportunity to go somewhere different and adventurous for a rock climbing holiday. 

The most famous climbing area in South Africa is the Bouldering at Rocklands, located in the Cederberg Mountains.  Located close to the town of Clanwilliam, this isolated and pristine bouldering area attracts climbers from all over the world.  This is due to the large number of bouldering areas, with an endless sea of high quality sandstone boulders of different shapes and sizes.  Rocklands offers many 1,000’s of boulder problems across a wide range of grades. 

The best sport climbing areas in South Africa are to be found at Waterval Boven, Montagu, and in the Cederberg Mountains.  South Africa, and in particular the area around Cape Town, offers a significant number of good climbing areas, across a variety of different rock types, with routes to suit climbers of all abilities.

Waterval Boven is just a few hours’ drive from Johannesburg with the climbing on bullet hard quartzitic sandstone rock.  These orange walls provide routes with crimpy edges and positive side pulls.  In total there are over 900 single pitch routes across a wide range of grades.  The style of climbing found at Waterval Boven are technical endurance routes on crimpy edges and with positive side pulls.  The best time to climb at Waterval Boven is in the African winter from April to October, when you will find dry and cool conditions.

Montagu is around a 2 hour drive from Cape Town, and there are many crags that offer a lot of varied climbing on excellent hard sandstone rock.  At Montagu there are over 600 sport routes, and 100 trad routes, ranging from slabs to vertical walls and steep overhangs across a wide range of grades. The Montagu Rock Climbing Guidebook covers all the sport climbing and trad climbing at Montagu. 

The Cape Peninsula is blessed with a string of good quality sandstone and quartzite crags across a wide range of grades and offering different styles.  These include; the bulging quartzite crags of Trappieskop and Peer’s Cave; the ever-popular faces of the Silvermine crags; to the very steep and mega-pumpy crags such as Lakeside Pinnacle, Lower Silvermine, and Higgovale Quarry.  Table Mountain and its associated rugged mountain chain also offers a good range of multi-pitch trad routes. 

Paarl Rocks is probably the best and most prolific granite-climbing venue in South Africa.  These beautiful granite domes provide both single and multi-pitch routes in a magnificent and tranquil setting.  Whilst the majority of the routes are sport, you will also find trad lines alongside them as well.  The style of the climbing is very different to the rest of the climbing in the Western Cape, as the routes tend to be more run out.

Hellfire is an awesome venue offering long single-pitch and two-pitch sport routes, in a wild mountain setting on hard red sandstone rock.  Hellfire is a sport crag with a mountain attitude that is dwarfed by the huge Du Toit’s Peak.

Kleinmond is a seaside village, where there are a cluster of charming crags overlooking the Indian Ocean.  There are some excellent face routes, in the md-grade range as well as some short hard routes, all on coarse sandstone and solid quartzite rock.

Oudtshoorn is South Africa’s only limestone crag with around 100 routes.  The climbing is beautiful and steep, with the Main Wall having a plethora of world-class routes that are mostly in the higher grades on tufa formations.  The routes on the Main Wall range from F6c to F8c, with the majority of them in the F7a+ to F8a+range – you need to feel strong to climb here.  Away from the Main Wall there are some other sectors with a clutch of easier routes from F5b to F6b+.

The Cederberg Mountains are famous for the bouldering at Rocklands.  However, scattered throughout the mountain range are a series of excellent sport climbing crags, with over 430 sport routes.  The climbing is on typically hard, red, rough sandstone with many high quality routes.  The Cederberg Rock Climbing Guidebook is the definitive guidebook for the sport climbing in the Cederberg Mountains.  Buy this Cederberg Rock Climbing Guidebook from our shop.

The Garden Route is one of the most scenic parts of South Africa, taking in the spectacular southern Cape coastline to the east of George.  The climbing is fairly varied, but seldom steeper than vertical, and offers some interesting locations, particularly the Old Forest Crags.

Other climbing areas include places such as Mount Everest and Swinburne, as well as remote mountaineering in the Drakensberg Mountains. There is even some sea cliff climbing at Morgan Bay.