Sunshine on Singati: Eastern Buttress Traverse

Sunshine on Singati: A traverse of the Eastern Buttress

On the first weekend of October, Andre Porter and I undertook a spectacular traverse of the Eastern Butress at the Amphitheatre. Our ascent objective was the Singati Arete route, which is a very distinct, sharp ridge on the Mnweni side of the peak. The Route Description provides details on approaching the Arete from Busingata Cave, and from Sleeping Beauty Ridge – but Andrew had the brilliant idea to head up Lion Ridge from RNNP. From his previous climbs on the Lion Heart route (and his “Tealess Climbing in the Berg” epic) he had observed that it was probably possible to connect Lion Ridge with the Singati Arete by traversing right under the massive face of the peak which one sees from Thendele.

The Eastern Buttress, with Lion Ridge running up to it. The Lionheart route lies roghly on the arete separating the sunlit and shady faces. The Singati Arete broadly speaking lies on the left hand skyline. The Standard Route is not visible, being on the other side of the peak, behind Lionheart.



After getting special permission to sleep out in RNNP, we set off in the late afternoon, all the way up Lion Ridge to the small patch of level terrain right under the Eastern Buttress that Andrew had used on his previous trips, arriving there at 8.15pm. It involved clambering up some rocky bits at the end, in the dark. Andrew was a hero and set off to fetch water, very far down in a gully below us. The weather report looked really good, so we didn’t bother bringing a tent along and simply bivvied at this spot.

Sunrise from our spectacular bivvy spot, with Eastern Buttress behind, Lionheart route on the right.


We set off early the next morning, and about 2 hours later we proved Andrew’s theory correct by arriving at the start of our route! The traverse was a bit bushy and clambery at times, but not bad at all.
When the Singati Arete came into view, we didn't recognise it at first because of it’s spectacular, foreboding nature. We literally both thought something along the lines of “Wow, look at that ridge, but that can’t be our arête it looks too scary!” As it turns out, it was our route.


The spectacular knife ridge, running from the left up across to the right, forming the Singati Arete route, ending up at the very sharp point where the route tops out. The hardest climbing is on the part where the ridge is shady on the left and sunny on the right:


Still on the approach the proper start of the route, we clambered up a grassy gully mentioned in the RD. At one point we had to climb up some blank rock which then ended in a very awkward mantle onto a sloping grassy ledge. I saw Andrew taking his time on it and that gave me a heads-up already. When I got onto it, my head got messed up very rapidly. I was thinking to myself, “Gosh this isn’t even the proper climb and Im already battling!” I retreated, put my climbing shoes and rearranged all the gear on my harness that was getting in the way. That helped a lot and I got up it finally. As it turned out, the real climb was really fun, even though technically much harder, and my head was clear even on lead. I had a few moments again later on the descent. Funny how on Berg climbs, the approach and retreat can sometimes be has hard, or even scarier than the rock climb itself!

I led the first pitch, graded E, and a few meters into the climb clipped into the only piton we would see for the remainder of the climb. The RD makes a comment about “not stealing the pegs” while abseiling back down – we were wondering if perhaps these have been stolen anyway!

We very quickly lost the connection between what we were climbing and what the RD said! After pitch 1, the RD mentions “walking up the ridge to where it steepens” – while technically correct, it is also misleading, as this walk is about 60m long (depending on how much you cover as part of Pitch 1) and ends in a bit of C grade clambering. And it was easier to treat this as a pitch in terms of alternating the lead, so we didn’t have to re-flake the rope (ie we stayed roped up, and Andrew did it like a pitch and I followed after).

The RD can be read here:
kzn.mcsa.org.za/climbing/route-guides/drakensberg-rds/amphitheatre-rds#TOC-EASTERN-BUTTRESS:-Singati-SE-Arete-F3-A1-

Pitch 2 does not work well as described. If you place gear on the “exposed grass ledge” (which you would normally want to do), the rope drag will become very problematic as you flip over the ridge onto the other side to "the rock face with spaced footholds". There are also very sharp crystals on the rock above the grass ledge that the rope gets dragged on. You either have to avoid placing gear on the grass ledge, or avoid the ledge altogether by going straight up the ridge, or to the right (both of which would be bolder climbing). I set up stance half-way on Pitch 2 because of the drag issue and Andrew combined the rest of that pitch with Pitch 3, which starts at a distinct grassy neck mentioned in the RD.

Pitch 3 and 4 is where we really differed drastically with the RD. Our version of pitch 3 was at least an E, and pitch 4 was probably F1. It is way more involved than what the RD lets on. While it is possible that we missed the easier version somehow, it is never that obvious when you are out there, and our version did stick to the arête pretty neatly.

Climbing on Pitch 3 up to the stance, the remaining pitches visible behind:


After completing the F1 pitch and arriving at the “broad grassy ledge” mentioned in the RD, I placed two micro-cams into some uneven crumbly cracks for the stance (“bomber protection”). From here Andrew took on a more serious pitch that loomed over us. This was the F2 pitch that the RD says one should rather avoid. It definitely had some delicate moments on it, but having done it now, we both believe that if you are strong enough on lead then it’s actually pretty good and the pro isn’t bad at all. It also follows the arête much more properly, as opposed to the easier variation described in the RD.

Andrew on the steep F2 pitch:


The stance for our final pitch was spectacular and exposed. This was our 6th pitch and seems to have been a combination of Pitches 7 and 8 described in the RD. The crux involves a recess which Jannie Graaff (the leader of the opening party) described as "an embarrassingly difficult finish to the climb." They graded it at F3/A1 (having used aid to get through it). The RD rates it at G1 without aid. Andrew, the machine that he is, led it gracefully without aid. I was not sure what to expect, even on second, and resigned myself to thinking that I would pull on gear and grovel my way up it if I had to. As it turned out, it was with shear delight that I worked my way through it cleanly without any assistance, whooping out loud as I was still wriggling myself through an awkward mantle just above the last really hard, blank section.

The pitch has pretty good rock and very good protection. You can place several cams in a large crack running up the recess, and can easily use these to aid your way up it if you need to. Andrew believes the pitch is better described as “solid F3” rather than G1.

This the go-pro video of me seconding up the pitch. Note the spectacular exposure at the beginning!


The Singati Arete can definitely be described as spectacular and well worth doing! The exposure is fun, and the rock and gear placements are pretty good by Berg standards. The shot is from the top of the route, the outcrop being the top of the sharp, pointy arête described in the photo earlier:


From the summit log we noticed that the route had not been climbed in 9 years. And since 2005 the peak has had only had 4 ascents via the various routes.


Now came the second half of our plan: to descend via the Standard Route (Father Kelly’s Route). Because our base camp was on Lion Ridge we could do a perfect traverse of the peak instead of having to do a lot of abseiling down the arête. The Standard Route is graded at D. We down climbed most of it and abseiled one short section. This was mostly fine but the down-climbing did have some delicate moments which had to be negotiated slowly.



The very steep grassy bits just before we traversed towards Devils Tooth were actually some of the scariest for me!


We traversed to right under the Tooth and got into Tooth Gully. Note the climber below the peak.


Tooth Gully is notoriously known to be an adventure in itself and required several abseils.


I had never seen Tooth Cave before and simply had to clamber up out of the gully to go see it! It is impressively large indeed. In the gully below the cave we found a tiny pond of water, perhaps 20cm wide and about 1.5cm deep. It was cleared of the grass and leaves covering it, and after we let the mud settle, we pressed our lips against it and drank, watching several goggas wriggling in the mud right by our eyes. My water bladder had leaked in my pack and I was out of water at this point. It was a dry, hot day and that tiny puddle of water was awesome! There was no other water for the entire day.

Soon after the cave we exited the gully and traversed the lower slopes of Easten Buttress towards Lion Ridge again, approximately doing the alternate approach for Devils Tooth which was opened in 1992, briefly mentioned in the RD. On reaching a distinct cut-back, we climbed up a gully towards a neck which we believed was the gateway to the final grassy traverse back to our bivvy spot. It involved a chimney which probably goes around E. It was fairly strenuous considering we did it unroped and with approach shoes on.


Just after the chimney there was a tricky section of about 3m where you either had to commit to some considerable moves on rock, or use a narrow ramp of loose grass and soil, barely 30cm wide, which moved as you pulled and stepped on it. Andrew had already cleared it, but my head went mushy again as I tried to pull myself onto the ramp (bearing in mind that were were solo-scrambling). I had promised my wife to keep a sober assessment throughout the climb and so eventually I yelled for Andrew to throw a rope down to belay me passed that tricky little spot. I was surprised to see an abseil station at the top of that neck. We thought we were home free on the other side, only to get caught by a major rock band which we eventually had to find a way to abseil down.

Andew looks for a way down on the other side of the neck. The gendarme in the background is where Lionheart starts:


Looking back at it now, we think there must be a better way which avoids scrambling over that neck. Probably best to continue traversing at the distinct cut-back mentioned earlier. The neck we used is disntincly visible in the shadowy outline in the picture of the Eastern Buttress, posted at the top.

We spent another night at our spectacular bivvy spot simply to enjoy it, walking out early the next morning.

It was one of those unforgettable trips, perfect weather, spectacular climbing and a very memorable traverse route. Not all Berg climbing trips work out that way, but when they do you walk away with vivid memories and moments that are not easily forgotten. The sun continues to shine in my memories of Singati!

Awesome stuff!!