chossclimbers

Go back to Madagascar.
Go back to Part 4.

Next day we took a break. Can’t really say we slept in as we’ve gotten into the habit of going to sleep right after dinner (8pm) and thus waking up at 5am and counting down the minutes to the 6:30am breakfast time. After an extra cup or three of their (good) coffee we decided to do a short hike to the summit of the Chameleon formation (summit ridge looks like a guess what?) where we spent a couple hours soaking in the views of the Tsaranoro Range. We then hiked down towards the villages where we encountered another family (gang?) of lemurs. We spent 30 minutes shooting photos until they scattered. Slowly made our way back to camp via a Malagasy village. We saw a lively snapshot of what I presume is average rural life in Madagascar: men working the rice paddies, women working in the village processing the rice and kids trying to sell us stuff. That night we met Lorella and Andrea, a couple of Italian climbers who were interested in our sort of climbing level (sub-7a!). We hit it off and ended up spending quite a bit of time chatting about climbing and especially climbing related travel.

Cas Nullard (10P, 6a)

Back to climbing on the following day. We wanted to see the start of Out Of Africa and so we hiked in with the intention of climbing something easier nearby. There’s really only one easy line in the area and we got on it: Cas Nullard, 10 pitch 6a. A mix of easy (5+ or lower, some 6a moves) slab and some interesting water groove “scumming.” The best parts of the climb were by far the views of the main Tsaranoro Walls. The ten pitches went quickly and soon we were hiking along the summit plateau of the formation looking for a way down. We recalled the area trail sketch from the night before and cautiously made our way down overgrown slabs on the backside. Eventually we were forced into a 20-foot rappel off some grass into a deep and narrow wash. Here things got interesting. The wash was of course densely overgrown and choked with house sized boulders (similar to the upper reaches of First Creek Canyon in Red Rocks…descent from Resolution Arete deja vu). After a two hour battle with the flora of Madagascar (again, thinking about what a heaven this would be for multiple species of mambas), we emerged into daylight and found ourselves on the back side of the Lemur Wall. At least now we know how to hike off that one.

Photos

Go to Part 6.
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