Devil's Tooth and Tyrolean Traverse

@ghaz: the Devils Tooth - Eastern Buttress Tyrolean is waiting for you!

We only climbed the middle and outer Inner Tower. If we had more time on the third day, we were considering climbing the main summit (possibly sleeping there) and using the 100m rope to abseil straight down to the neck between Inner Tower and the escarpment. But it was too much unknown to handle on Day 4, still being on the middle summit. As it is, it took us a full day to get back to the car park.

A note about the summit log book

When Andrew and Hector did their "Tealess climbing in the Berg" epic 2 years ago, they reported with dismay that the summit log book was so wet that it couldn't be opened and it was ruined. It seems that the box was placed incorrectly and that water/snow got in. They could not write their own names in the book at the time. Chances are our ascent was the first ascent since theirs. We were aware of the situation and took along a new book and plastic box. We left it on the Inner Tower while we climbed and had it sent across to the Tooth in a bag once the Tyrolean Traverse was set up.

I scrambled back up to the main summit to place the box while Paul was busy traversing across. As I was placing the box in the summit cairn, I noticed that the lid was cracked! Not sure how this happened, but it appears that plastic (tupperware type boxes) is not a good option for this. I had some very basic first aid supplied with me which is included some duct tape. I wrapped up and sealed the box as best I could and places it upside down in the cairn. I then covered the box and built up the cairn more to protect it. I do not know if it will hold.

I only noticed one half of the old summit box, and it was in any case a very small one, not suitable for the book we had along.

For anyone intending to climb the Tooth: please take a long a new summit box and a new summit book again! If at all possible the metal type boxes should be used (like the ones on Bell and Monk's Cowl) - these are far better. Milo tins are no good either - the plastic lid perishes and cracks over time (this was the case on Pyramid). Be prepared to dig deeply into the summit cairn to find the current box and have a knife with you to cut off the tape!

PS: uses for duct tape in the Berg that I have so far: fixing broken shoes/boots, fixing broken hiking poles, fixing torn back-packs, fixing torn pants, and now, sealing summit boxes.

For those interested, Paul Fatti and Neil Margetts are currently doing presentations on this trip. They did one for the Joburg Section of the MCSA last night. The next two dates are:
Tuesday, 5 August - Explorer’s Club at the Johannesburg Country Club
Tuesday, 12 August - MCSA Magaliesberg Section.