Mountain girl dies on cliff
2006-02-09
A YOUNG woman’s life-long passion eventually led to her death this past weekend, along with her dog.
Lindi Cloete (21) died after she fell almost 200m when both her main and safety ropes broke while climbing a rock-face on the Steenberg mountains near Muizenberg.
Her dog, Karlien, had to be put down, after having witnessed the accident. The two were inseparable.
She and friends had spent Saturday evening camping in the mountains, and set off early Sunday morning to scale the rock-faces.
They were involved in a climbing technique called swinging, where once a high overhang is reached, the climber suspends a rope over it, and swings to and fro under the overhang.
It is suspected that her main rope hooked onto a rock and sheared. Her safety rope also broke.
Lindi’s body had to be retrieved from a ledge by a rescue helicopter, and after this her body was carried past her dog which howled continuously.
Lindi lived to be in the mountains with Karlien.
Her mother Ada said that since an early age Lindi would disappear into the mountains, first Paarl Mountain and then Du Toit’s Kloof.
“Lindi and Karlien would disappear for days on end, and once or twice mountain rescue was called out to search for them, only to find them safely sheltered in a cave,” said Ada.
“She died doing what she loved best and no-one can be blamed for it,” she added.
Lindi matriculated at Boland College in Paarl, and thereafter she followed her climbing instincts and made a career for herself as a rope excess technician, cleaning windows of high-rise buildings.
Here she could be suspended above the world on a daily basis.
Lindi is survived by her mother Ada, father Carlo and sister Nicola (24).
She will be cremated and her remains will be scattered in Du Toit’s Kloof - in the very mountains which gave her so much pleasure during her life.
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