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Words by Chickadee, a ZeroG supported climber

Local onlookers (c) Chickadee

With internet access so scetchy in Ethiopia I was unable to write blog reports as I went along, but the trip was so utterly awesome that it definitely deserves a little airtime...

Three weeks before departure, I was hooking up with a friend-of-a-friend to go on a climbing trip. I had left England, and was based in the States for nearly three months. I thought this was a great opportunity to get some girly climbing time in a new area of the States... except that it was in a different continent!

It transpired that there was an all-girls trip planned to check out the climbing potential of the enormous sandstone cliffs and pillars in the North of Ethiopia. Prepared only for winter sport climbing at Smith, plans started materialising, and another week had passed. I didn't truely believe that I would be going until I was actually on the plane; there was so much organising, and a long roadtrip from Portland to LA (where I left the States), via Smith Rock and Bishop to accomplish in the meantime.

I spent three days recovering from jet-lag and checking out the city of Addis Abba where we flew to, spending one day visiting the markets, and and day on the museums, paying my respects to our first bipedal ancester Lucy in her 3ft glory.

The team amassed slowly. Majka was already in Addis when I arrived, then Gabe, the photographer joined us before our flight to the North. Mekele was an interesting town, somewhat cleaner and more up-market than Addis, but then that's not hard! There's a cool Italian-style Castle for Emperor Johannes IV that acts as the museum, and a tour with a theatrical guide was well worth the £1.50 cost. We just spent one day there before heading up to our first climbing destination Hawzen. The three of us had a few days climbing and exploring before the rest of the team, Kristie and Caroline arrived to join us.

Crag and Camel (c) Chickadee

In our first few days, Majka and I soon discovered that the rock was not as solid as we would have liked it to be and we had some fairly hairy experiences, pulling off flakes and losing footholds. We did, however, arrive on the summit of one of the Sheba spires, by the sheer (5.10) face, which was quite exhilerating; marred slightly by the fact that the local children had found an easier ascent around the backside, and met us only 10 feet from the top! It did, however mean that we had an easy way off, with the benefit of their knowledge. We called the tower 'Theodros Tower', after Emperor Theodros who shot himself rather than surrender to the enemy, and the route we named 'Learning the Hard Way', in honour of the children.

The hotel we were staying in in Hawzen turned out to be much better than expected. It had a shared shower and a Turkish toilet with a door that didn't shut, but at least everyting was clean, and the people that worked there were really happy and helpful. The beers were only 30 pence too, and as cold as you like on a hot day!

From there on I climbed mostly with Kristie, having placed fourth at Ouray, she was super experienced, and had a cool head. Being an English trad climber myself, I was not a great advocate of cams, prefering my tripple rack of wires as my arsenal. I soon learnt! Having 'taken', fallen and 'down-led' several times over the next few days, I was still in one piece, and I had only had a couple of pieces blow on me!

Gabe, the photographer, had the worst experiences of the trip. He pulled off a fridge-sized plate (OK, a small fridge) on the second day. At least he was on the second, but it certainly put the wind up him a little. He was ready to bail at that point, and head for the more interesting option of the off-road motorbike tour! We kept him focussed for long enough that he had another near death experience when a cam blew from an anchor as he was repelling. Luckily there were three more to stop the fall, but it nearly stopped his heart too!

Kristie and I found arguably the best pitch of the trip, three pitches up on Gerhalta, just outside Hawzen. It was the only solid rock found all trip; fittingly named 'The Jewell in the Sand', it was a perfect finger to hand-sized crack. Ironically it was found by accident, while aiming for a different pitch altogether.

Ethiopian Rock (c) Chickadee

Our second climbing destination was around the town of the anchient civilisation at Aksum. This is where the Arc of the Covenant is said to have come to rest in one of the churches. It is also the location of the BC obelisks, the pagan stellae, not 100yds from the church. We found the cliff from which the obelisks had been hewn, thousands of years ago, and went climbing. I led a very slippy granite crack on the left hand side of the face. It turned out to be tricky climbing and insecure gear placement, but that was nothing compared to the face-full of dried faeces that I got from disturbing an old bird's nest!

Ethiopain Sunset (c) Chickadee

Altogether, the four of us climbed 7 routes, 4 single pitch, and 3 multi-pitch, one of which topped out on a pillar. This may not seem a lot for ten days climbing amongst four people, but considering the fact that the rock quality was so poor, the cliffs were so large, and the approaches so exhausing, we were really quite proud of ourselves :-)

We went to climb, but we came away with so much more experience than just that of the rock. We talked to children who had never seen white faces before. There was one time when a group of children surrounded the car, waving and cheering. When I took off my sunglasses to smile at them, they fell silent and just stared. It was almost as if they were mesmirised by my blue eyes.

I feel honoured to have climbed with such strong and experienced female climbers, and to have met such a fun photographer. The main memories of the trip, however, will be the people of Ethiopia. The faces of the children, and the open smiles, were with us constantly. All were interested in these crazy 'faranges', and all were only too keen to help (well almost all, but that's another story).