By Tristan van der Merwe
My first glimpse of the Colosseum came courtesy of the Yellowwood Amphitheatre guidebook, which made a passing reference to a neighbouring “orange ‘sport’ amphitheater”. The description lodged in my mind, and on every drive to Yellowwood, I kept watch. Sure enough, several kilometres after emerging from the Huguenot Tunnel on the N1, there it was, staring straight down the barrel at me, a flame-coloured mountain fortress, impossible to miss.
For three years I admired it from afar. Then, in mid-November 2024, curiosity won. I packed a drone, pointed my car toward Du Toits Kloof, and set out for a closer look.
The history of climbing in and around the amphitheatre’s climbing stretches back to December 1958, when J. de V. Graaf and P. J. White made the first ascent of The Mudstone Traverse.
In the 1962 MCSA journal, they described their experience: “The amphitheater dominates everything. The slope beneath it runs up from left to right and from near its highest point two obvious pitches totalling 120 feet lead up to the level of The Mudstone Traverse, which can be followed back to the left, over a steadily growing drop, for about 500 feet. About halfway along, one has to cross a conspicuous patch of vegetation attached to the main face by no visible agency, and even use it as a stance. Ferns appear to have taken root in their own debris and the resulting jungle has to be climbed upon to be appreciated.”
Sixty-six years later, on 24 November 2024, Bernie Theron, Ethan Pringle, and I unknowingly retraced those same pitches while scouting potential sport lines in what they called The Red Amphitheatre, now known as The Colosseum.
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