Mponjwane

Does anyone have any useful info, beta or advice on the standard route/S-crack variation?
I'm obviously talking about personal experiences and information not on the RD.

I might be imagining it, but it seems the bug has bitten Viking

I've done the Standard-Standard Route and thought it was pleasant and a lot of fun. Neil Margetts and I did the climb and descent in about 6 hours, starting and ending at the start of the route in the gully down below (roughly 4 hours up including half hour on the summit and 2 hours down). We didn't sleep in the cave, rather, we were at the bottom of the gully, in the Nqeda, and walked up to the start of the route, rather than down to it, which is pretty unusual. In total we were out for the day for a little over 8 hours if I remember correctly. I have to say that Neil and I were very in tune with each other and climbing strong & fast on the day, and the conditions were really good too. It doesn't always go that smoothly. I've heard several stories about very long days out on Mponj, ending off well into dark. You will do well to keep your group very small, and go with people you climb well with. Practice getting your speed up on multi-pitch climbs, especially on change-overs, setting up stances, and also in multi-pitch abseiling (you will be doing 6 x 50m abseils). Suffice it to say that the route doesn't leave much time for bringing a picnic blanket along - AndrewP has a more eloquent phrase for this which I won't repeat here.

There are reliable abseil chains all the way down now, so no need to worry about dodgy ab-stations. Neil and I even simul-abseiled down, which benefited our speed on the day. See Go-Pro video below:




The route is full of old pitons and tat, and is pretty clean of loose rock due to having been climbed much:






Mponj is all about chimneys, so it will help to be confident with this type of climbing. Final crux chimney on the last pitch:

intrepid wrote: I might be imagining it, but it seems the bug has bitten Viking

I don't know what you are talking about...

Thanks very much tiska and intrepid, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to share your experiences. There is some great food for thought there.

This past Sunday Macc and myself climbed Mponjwane via the standard route. It was a long day but we touched down in the daylight after simul-abbing down! Thanks again to intrepid and Tiska for the advice. Respect to Neill and Chris for clocking this in 6 hours!

Route finding wasn't too bad, we had a photo topo that helped a lot.
The chimneys on this route can be a bit intimidating if you don't have much chimney climbing experience!

I'll provide a longer write up and more photos later, but here are some photo's that offer a different perspective on this big piece of rock.