www.rockandroad.co.za

By Kath Fourie & Neil Margetts

Day Seven of the PETZL Rock and Road EC 2009 was wet. Man it was wet. Luckily it was a rest day, so the fact that it took forever to get people out of bed and into pack-up mode wasn’t too much of a stress. Tempers were a leeetle stretched, and snappy commentaries with temper control of note were the order of the day. To put it in perspective, it was sleeting and buckets of water were poured out of sunken tent-tops, which had to be packed up in the rain.

By Kath Fourie

I think it must have been about 6am when I heard the first rustles outside my tent, the rustles of people packing climbing kit in the dark, bags zipping and zooping, down jackets being hauled over thermal vests, and gravel underfoot. After the heat from the day before, the climbers were amped to send their projects in the early morning, when friction is optimal.