vertical-endeavour.com

Hello All,

Guess I'm taking some leeway starting a thread like this as a forum newbee who's never been to Africa, but figured it'd be more fun than my beggin for free advise about my coming trip to the Berg.

What's the most diversity you can get into a day or short loop hike in the berg?

Figured this would include views, ecosystems, animals, activities ( swims, etc. ), smugglers and what all

Personally was planning on doing the Bell Traverse from Cathedral as I have three days but two will be half days and I wanted to stay under 40 K

Now the beggin' what's the best way to get Paper Topo Maps with trails will be flying in to Cape Town first

Figu

Hi Figu and welcome to the forum.

You could consider Organ Pipes Pass, Thuthumi Ridge Route up and down the Camel Route. Both are classic routes. You would experience panoramic views on the Little Berg plateaus, very grand and sometimes exposed views going up and down each route, and in the Ribbon Falls area you can see good waterfalls and forests (short diversions) and even a cave (Ribbon Falls Cave - not the best, but a sandstone shelter nonetheless). This would also put you on routes that smugglers frequent. Avoid going alone though. If you are very fit and fast you can do this in a day, especially if Mikes Pass is drivable and you get dropped off. Else 2 days is more manageable, given an reasonable hiking fitness level.

You could try stores like Cape Union Mart or Capestorm in Cape Town area, not sure if they have maps. Else, if hiking at Cathedral Peak, they usually have maps in stock, so phone ahead and check. Won't help you with planning ahead of time, but at least you can get them there.

Please let us know what other help and ideas you need. Hope you have a really enjoyable time here in SA, and that the Berg enchants you like it has the rest of us! Please also let us know how your hike went afterwards.

You have definitely come to the right place for information!

Are you staying at Cathedral Peak hotel or is that just what you are looking at at the moment? If you are looking at diversity, the Southern Drakensberg is by far the best you will ever come across.

My personal view is that the best 2 nature reserves in the Drakensberg are Didima (Cathedral Peak hotel - northern range) and Garden Castle (which has Drakensberg Gardens hotel - southern range).

If you are looking for views within a 4 hour walking range, Didima is better, but Rhino Peak (at Garden Castle - 20km 8 hour day hike, not very easy, but easier than the Bell traverse from what I'm told, I personally have never done the Bell traverse) is one of the shortest routes to the top and comes with an amazing view over the area.

My personal record on animals in the berg, by area is as follows (referring to larger animals, not birds, snakes etc as you will probably see these no matter where you go):
- Didima - never seen animals there
- Garden Castle - I have been there around 8 times and seen eland at least 6 times, I have also seen lots of baboons

For activities, if you are referring to indoor activities, the hotel websites may be useful, but I have never stayed at a hotel in the Drakensberg, always a tent, mountain hut or a cave. Once again Garden Castle (or Bushman's Nek - the reserve south of Garden Castle, literally the bottom end of the main Drakensberg Range) have lots of amazing pools. But all areas in the Drakensberg have rivers which are usually suitable for swimming in, and due to how clean they are, you can generally drink from them (provided you aren't too far from the mountains). The river on the road into Garden Castle also has tubing on it.

I don't know that smugglers is a good thing to put on your list, but my suggestion of the Rhino Peak hike definitely covers that one! Although they are probably shepherds more than smugglers in that area, but they are definitely high altitude Basotho's who live in a very tough environment by very old traditions, so they are definitely of interest. And on the bright side, they are usually the friendlier than the ones further north, so if you give them some sweets (not wrapped in plastic as they litter), they will probably be friendly to you.

By personal preference I would recommend Garden Castle, its the most diversity you will find in the range. If you stay at Drakensberg Gardens hotel, provided there are enough interested guests, they even do a guided walk up Rhino. Further to this, I'm not sure if the nature reserve still has guides for hire on this hike, but they definitely did a few years ago. It is also a very well used path, which is fairly easy to follow without a guide (weather permitting). You also have the option of doing Rhino peak as an overnight hike, stay over at Pillar Cave (which is a rock overhang, not a deep cave like what most people picture when they hear the word "cave") if you don't mind roughing it for a night (the cave is fairly close to water and its floor is flat, so its pretty good as far as caves go).

In the interim, since you can't get the latest maps in the US, you can download the old ones (which are only slightly outdated in some very small aspects such as peak heights, mountains don't really change that frequently ), go to www.berg.co.za/maps_index.htm , it may help you with planning.

When you are in Cape Town, makes sure you go to Cape Point (which, contrary to popular belief, is not the most southern tip of Africa, that would be Cape Augulhas, which from what I hear doesn't really look like anything). At Cape Point, walk up the steep bank from the parking lot past the old lighthouse, and down towards the new light house, there you will get the view of one of the highest sea rock faces in the world, being there is one of the most amazing feelings.

Ps. Once you have been to South Africa, you will want to keep coming back, its such an amazing country (and yes, I know I am biased!)

Yeah I could tell that this was the only place for info on the kind of hiking I like

Really excited about coming, had picked the Bell from the post Top 5 in the Berg, and seemed to be highly rated plus would get both Amphitheater and Mnweni views.

Wanted to get the most of it I could and really love hikes that are diverse and full of surprises, where you turn the corner or go over the pass and you feel like your in a different world. So wanted to hit the top of the escarpment, go though the forest, swim, scramble, etc. Looks like Rhino might fit the bill, and seeing Baboons would be great.

I'll be Flying to Johannesburg and meeting my friends there, we're renting a car and driving straight to Drakensberg. Will be Tent Camping so we're fully mobile to go anywhere, but don't want to jump around just want to park the car and not see it or any car for that matter till we're back.

Thanks for your help,

Figu

Figu

The one thing that you will be missing that you might want to see is San Rock-art, I am not aware of any of these sites at Garden Castle.

If you have a tent that is suitable for sleeping on the escarpment (refer to the tent threads, bear in mind that wind speeds of over 100km/h have been recorded on the escarpment), and you are looking for a 3 day hike, another option is to climb up one of the passes south of Rhino (eg Bollard or Wilson Pass, both include tricky rock scrambles, alternatively Mzimude Pass is an easy alternative and has 3 nice caves at its summit) and traverse north to Rhino peak and descend via Mashai Pass (Mashai Pass is the normal route people use to climb Rhino). If you go with this loop option, I would highly recommend the use of a GPS, most passes south of Rhino peak are rarely used and they often don't have paths. The GPS tracks are downloadable from this site or on www.berg.co.za for most passes.

Another option that comes to mind is Giant's Castle Peak (the 19th highest peak in South Africa, most eastern point of the escarpment and 6th highest peak on the escarpment edge), its at Giant's Castle nature reserve. The reason that this may be a suitable option is that the route goes straight past the Main Caves (one of the most commonly visited rock art sites in the Berg). I was in the area recently and saw 21 Blesbok and last year when I was there I saw around 70 Eland, you are also likely to see a few Berg-adders, dung beetles and other similar smaller wildlife. The rivers in the area are definitely suitable for swimming, although generally not very deep (and when they are deep, they are usually dangerous to swim in). The area has also been known in the past to not be the safest area, so sleeping on the escarpment is not recommended in the area.

As far as forests go, Rhino peak includes a 2 minute walk through a forest, Cathedral Peak area includes a similar small forest and I guess you could always walk through Greysbok Bush on your way to Giant's Castle, but basically, due to the altitude, trees are not very common in the Drakensberg. If you are spending some time in the KwaZulu-Natal area after you leave the Drakensberg, the Karkloof and World's View areas outside Pietermaritzburg are pretty good, they are much more substantial forests (although they are plantations, not indigenous forests). Karkloof also has a canopy tour option.

When are you planning on doing the hike? The time of the year can also be a consideration to what hike is recommended, eg in September you are unlikely to see any bigger wildlife, but there will be flowers (including the 2 species of protea flowers that are only found in the Drakensberg), in July there is likely to be snow and many passes will not be much use etc.

Bear in mind though that The Rhino/Garden Castle is a good 8+ hours of driving from Joburg, ie the drive consumes most of your day. Cathedral Peak is about 4-5 hours. You only have 3 days, so you may want to aim for something closer to Joburg, ie Northern Berg.

FrankNFood wrote:

There is still the possibility of doing the Bell Traverse, and it is under 40km. You can make it up to the base of Cathedral Peak, near Bugger Gully, and even Bell Cave in half a day. On day two you can do the actual Bell Traverse, which is normally a pleasurable half day or so to Twins Cave, but you will have to descend Mlmabonja Pass on the second day instead and camp at the bottom of the pass. On the third day break up camp early and walk out - that would be a half day. This would fit into your time constraints. NOTE: this does assume confident navigation skills (the trail is poor in places and not signposted), good weather and visibility, and a reasonable hiking fitness and stamina. Things are not always what they seem to be on the map and places (like caves, campsites and junctions) can be notoriously difficult to find, especially if you are new to the Berg.