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We've just returned from a great weekend in the Berg, words cant explain what a fantastic experience this was!

We decided to to do this hike in preparation for our Kilimanjaro hike in Sept this year. It was just my girlfriend and I that set off on Saturday afternoon at 14h00 from Didima.

Our first night stop was to be Sherman's cave, the weather wasn't great but we set off in any event in the hope the weather report for the remainder of the weekend was correct. We were told to expect snow on the Saturday evening but have clear skies for the remainder of our hike.

We arrived at Sherman's cave shortly after 17h00 and pitched our tent for the night. The mist rolled in shortly after we were set up, we had a bite to eat and hit the sack in prep for a long day the next day.

We got up and were back on the trail at 8am, heading straight up towards Orange Peel Gap, this walk was made fairly tough due to the amount of snow that had fallen during the night. The climb through the gap itself was extremely taxing as the snow was anything from 500mm to 1 meter deep in places.

Once through the gap the mist rolled in really fast, we pushed on and were headed for Buggers Gully. Once we reached the gully we decided against climbing Cathedral Peak as it was too late in the day to begin this and decided to push on through the gully. Fortunately there wasn't any snow on the climb up Buggers Gully, this is a tough section to hike and took us a fair amount of time to reach the top.

Once we reached the top we were not prepared for what we were about to see on the other side! It was an amazing sight, the snow lying thick for as far as we could see. The problem was we needed to go that way We started our descent and took it extremely slowly!

We'd hoped to get to Twins Cave to night over there but the going had been slowed so much due to the thick snow conditions that we only managed to reach the Bell and decided to setup camp there for the evening, leaving us with a very long day the following day...

It was a totally clear evening but with us having no shelter it was a pretty cold and windy one so we retired to the tent by 7pm to rest for the next day.

We woke to glorious sunshine on day 3 which we were really chuffed about, by now we'd had enough of the snow and just wanted to walk easy for a while!

The trail from the Bell, past the Outer Horn and all the way to the Inner Horn was still a good foot deep in snow making this trekking tough too. We had some hair raising moments with the snow giving way under our feet on a few occasions.

Once we reached the Chessmen we finally had some reprieve from the snow and we were able to make up some lost time. We eventually reached Twins Cave at 13h30 and decided to push on a little more before stopping for a bite.

We began the descent down Mlambonja pass which for the first section was very steep and hard on the knees to say the least. Our Trekking poles were being put to full use and still the knees were aching! The entire pass was covered in snow so we eventually decided to slide down the snow on our back sides which proved to be a massive win as this saved our limbs for an hours or so. If it weren't for the snow here we'd have had to spent another night as we wouldn't have made it back!

This 3km section is a tough ask, it doesn't sound far but believe me it's tough!

We decided to head back via One Tree Hill as this was the shortest route and it was already closing in on 4pm...

Fortunately the contour paths on this section weren't all packed with snow so we made good time and after a really long hard push we arrived at Cathedral Peak Hotel at 18h30 albeit in the dark.

All in all we had a fantastic time! The snow was a first for both of us and it really made the going a lot tougher. Will I do it again? Of course we will.

While the initial excitement about the prospect of snow was lekker, I don't want to see snow on the trail for a while!

Awesome bru!!! That must have been tiring, but a lot of fun. Those sliddy sections look cool.

Serious tribe wrote:


They were brilliant and loads of fun! A lifesaver for the knees too. I'd imagine were were able to slide for about 1km which was great.

Just looking at this again I must say I appreciate the all the contributions made by the community. This is a great reference and will prove handy for many others. So thanks Mike, and everyone else who is active on this forum!

Always a pleasure!

Here a few more pics from our trip.

This was the mist that caught us just after we came through Orange Peel Gap.


The long walk up to Buggers Gully


Still going up...


The view back to Buggers Gully from where we descended.


You can see how thick the snow was here.


This was taken from near the Bell, someone can help with what the shot is of though


The Chessmen





The climb up towards Twins cave


A sunset shot from One-tree hill back towards where we'd been.




Cheers,
Mike