Yellowwood Cave

In February, The Real Dave and tonymarshall did a hike at Lotheni, spending two nights in Yellowwood Cave. We had intended to do passes, but I was feeling a bit flat and slow on the uphills, and the morning weather soon turned rainy and misty, so we decided to go back to Yellowwood Cave for a second night, experiencing quite a downpour on our way back to the cave. The afternoon rain and mist back at the cave confirmed that we had saved ourselves a miserable  day with no views, although we did do some explorations around the cave area. We had overnighted in Yellowwood Cave in 2024 after descending KaMasihlenga Pass, but on that occasion my photos of the cave weren’t good enough to do a write up. 

Serious Tribe has done a post on the area around Yellowwood Cave, as always with great photos, including some of the cave, in the topic “A floral kingdom in Lotheni”. 

Yellowwood Cave is in a yellowwood forest, on the true left of the KaMasihlenga River. The photo below shows the view downstream to the forest, from the ridge upstream of the cave on the true right that can be used to access KaMasihlenga and Uklebe Passes. The forest is bounded by the river on the right, and a long cliff on the left (not visible in the photo, hidden by the trees) in which Yellowwood Cave is situated. At the downstream end of the ridge, the KaMasihlenga River joins the Lotheni River, and it is the Lotheni valley in the background of the photo.  

 

I include a Google Earth image of the area, which shows the location of Yellowwood Cave in the forest, and the trails around the cave. The trail from the EKZNW Lotheni office, campsite and Simes Cottage comes up the left (true right) of the KaMasihlenga River, and there are two river crossings to access the cave. The downstream one has quite a pleasant trail through the forest, and the upstream one joins this trail closer to the cave. On the upstream side the trail continues in the forest, and exits to the river. There is also a vague trail that continues on the true right of the river upstream of the upstream river crossing, but I have not used or recorded it. In drier times when the river isn’t full, it is also possible to use the riverbed to walk in. My gps coordinates of Yellowwood Cave are S29° 24.924' E29° 28.561' at 1845 m.  

 

Yellowwood Cave does not have one large sleeping area, there are several spread out smaller sleeping areas, and the overhang at each is quite shallow, although the trees do provide improved shelter from wind and rain. The sleeping capacity of the smaller areas combined is 6. The photo below shows the main sleeping area, the area in Serious Tribe’s photos, which was damp when we were there. Someone had also put down grass and leaves on this sleeping area which were saturated, making the area unusable.

 

One of the smaller sleeping areas, where I slept.  

 

A view showing part of the cave, with the cliffs providing the shelter, and the yellowwood trees. In the photo the smaller area where I slept is in the right foreground, and the damp main sleeping area is to the right of my pack.  

There are another two smaller sleeping areas, David slept in the one in the first photo below. There are several other areas, not under the overhang or sheltered, that could be used in good weather.  


 

The trail going upstream from the cave.  

 

Another view inside the cave, with the trees creating lots of shade and dim light.  

 

About 50 m upstream of the cave is a waterfall and small stream in quite a deep ditch, where water can be collected close to the cave during the rainy season, although the accesses to the main river are not that far away.  

This is way wetter than when I was there, that was Jan 2020.  Rainy season, but was a lot dryer with no La Niña effect.