Trencher's Cave

Glad you bring it up. Trencher's Cave has intrigued me for some time. It's one of those caves that took me several trips to find - except that I still haven't found it yet!

I have made 2 concerted efforts together with domsmooth on different trips to find it, with no luck. We have narrowed it down now, and I'm pretty sure we'll get it the next time we try.

We have explored the Northern face of Cathedral Peak pretty thoroughly, approaching from the neck at The Bell, as well as from the base of the cliffs approaching via Bugger Gully. On the 2nd attempt I had calculated the waypoint from the hiking maps and punched it into my GPS. It took me to the edge of a small rock band below the strip of steep, grassy slopes directly under the towering cliffs of the North Face. No luck. Did find a small 2-man cave in the face though, kind of a mini Roland's Cave. It was full of Dassie droppings, and required a precarious climb to get to it.

What I would do on the next attempt is to approach via Bugger Gully, get as far North as possible (Right, if you are looking at the peak from there) and scramble up towards the summit, looking for hidden grassy ledges, where I suspect it lies. This is actually what is suggested by the map, but somehow it's not that obvious when you are actually out there. If it's not there then it lies much lower down than indicated on the map.

So far the only people I have spoken to that have been there were the local rangers. They described it as a basic overhang.

Good luck, and if you manage to find it, please take pictures and let us know!

@ Intrepid. Look forward to our next trip to try and find it!

Yep, we searched between 2700-2800m. The red shading in the pic below shows where we have explored. The 2 arrows indicate where it very possibly lies. We have also looked where the lower arrow is, but as mentioned before, it's not that obvious when you're up there. That's where I'm headed when we get up there again and have time to look for it. Might be on some obscure grass ledge or something like that.

@mnt_tiska: thats a good point about the older maps. Will ask some people and see. Could spend some time going through the MCSA journals in the library of the Joburg section, but that amount of time is better spent out in the Berg looking for it.

@Deon: Have heard of Outer Horn Cave, and have looked for it too without success. In this case I'm not even sure where to even start looking exactly! Judging by it's size it may be a little Berg cave (I've searched for it higher up).

Deon, I punched that into my MapSource. It seems like a co-ordinate which is calculated from the hiking maps - it's almost identical to the theoretical waypoint I was chasing previously. Incidentally, that waypoint is about 50m from the 2-man cave I was describing. It is possible that someone thought this was Trenchers, but it seems unlikely because firstly it's pretty difficult to get to, and secondly it's not an overhang (it's a tunnel).