Africa | chossclimbers.com

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Eperon Nord, Mali.

Taghia, Morocco.

Welcome to the second largest continent! At 3.8 times the size of continental US, there’s more than enough climbing for multiple lifetimes and likely much more untapped (& unpublished) potential. From the enigmatic Red Sea Mountains of Egypt with the spire-like Bernice’s Bodkin to the cigar-shaped Cao Grande on the Atlantic island country of Sao Tome and Principe; from the Algerian Sahara and its stunning looking Hoggar Mountains to Mozambique with its overgrown, gigantic granite (?) domes; from the newly explored towers and walls of Chad to the walls and towers of northern Kenya – not to mention Mount Kenya herself; from the domes of Tsaranoro in Madagascar to the domes in Sudan.

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A curious lemur.

Dogon village in Mali.

From the high mountains and towers of Ethiopia to the lone domes of Ben Aicha and Ben Amera in Mauritanian Sahara; from the limestone big walls of Morocco’s Taghia to the basalt peaks of the Drakensberg Mountains in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Province of South Africa; from the sandstone towers and walls of Mali to the granite domes of Zimbabwe; from the small towers of Angola to the big walls of Blouberg in South Africa; from Nigeria’s Zuma Rock to the granite peaks and walls of Namibia; from the small crags of Tunisia to Table Mountain in South Africa.

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Morocco.

Brandberg, Namibia.

Barring a few obvious exceptions, finding information on established African climbing is not a straightforward matter. Google searches will get you reasonably far particularly if you’re willing to venture beyond the English language. European (or some African) climbing forums can be useful. Beyond that, contacting local climbing clubs (Facebook makes that easier now) or locals living next to potential climbing areas of interest can also prove fruitful. Timing is everything – political stability can have different time scales in Africa compared to some other places in the world: what was dangerous and off-limits to travelers in the 90s can be perfectly safe and welcoming at the present time (and of course the inverse holds true as well).

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Tsaranoro, Madagascar.

Paarl Rocks, SA.

To date, we’ve been lucky enough to have climbed in five countries scattered throughout the continent. Though every trip has been special in its own way, visiting Mali – particularly in late 2015 – had been the highpoint of our traveling (and climbing) lives.