Drakensberg hiking maps

Interesting came across this online article:
www.iol.co.za/travel/south-africa/western-cape/map-to-the-masters-of-the-mountains-1.1226250

Which referenced this website:
www.slingsbymaps.com

Claiming to sell maps "Firmly based upon Peter Slingsby’s maps of the 1980’s", including for the Drakensberg:
www.slingsbymaps.com/drakensberg.aspx

However seems they are cashing in on the Slingsby name and reselling the updated KZN Wildlife maps - but at least its an avenue to purchase them online.

Especially useful for international hikers to prep before they hit the Berg.

Havent used the website to purchase so cant attest to the service/reliability of them.

Funny how kliktrak can accuse Slingsby Maps of cashing in on the Slingsby name!! I AM Peter Slingsby ... of Slingsby Maps. In the 1980's I walked the length and breadth of the Berg with Theuns van Rensburg [Forestry Dept] gathering data before drawing the original 6-map series ... the same ones that Geomaps ripped off, using the same path junction numbers and heights, symbolizations and even Key words that I developed for the original maps.
I don't mind that except that it's only polite [and ethical] to acknowledge your sources. Geomaps didn't.
Who are you, kliktrak? I don't think we've met. Maybe you weren't born yet in 1980. But I'll be quoting you [in a friendly way] in my blog - mapsforafrika.blogspot.com/ - pretty soon! Meantime, enjoy the maps.

Welcome to the forum Mr Slingsby. I'm sure Kliktrak will speak for himself in due course. In the meantime, it might be worth mentioning that the name Slingsby is something of a mythical legend amongst this small but quite passionate community. Not so long ago on another thread on this forum we were speculating about the origins of the maps and the process by which they were born. It would be a treat for us to hear the details from source as it were. I said mythical legend because, judging from the comments on those threads, no one seemed sure of who Mr Slingsby was or whether he was still in the map business.
Its made my day to see there is potential for the circle to be closed. So once the dust has settled, it would be great if you were willing to receive some queries about those great maps of the 1980s - starting with someone who walked the Berg before even those maps existed and who has been able, therefore, to measure their worth.

I'm ready n able to answer questions! Those 5 years when we mapped the Berg were some of the best - great hiking, good company, even a chopper ride or two. Bring 'em on!

Wow, the original Slingsby, what a pleasure.

I do indeed have some questions/comments for you if I may. I was a long resident in Lesotho in the 1980s and a RSA resident off and on thereafter in Natal/KZN. My original thoughts about the maps always concerned their abruptly ending (for the most part) at the Lesotho border even though hikers come and go across the Berg border at will. In that respect, admittedly, they were only "half" valuable (toungue in cheek) but I admit I do have a Lesotho perspective. Can you share your thoughts about why the maps approached hiking in the Berg this way?

Slightly related to above, I have always found the Govt Survey 1:50 000 topographical maps (in Lesotho and RSA) the ultimate source of geographical detail and my primary source for hiking, regardless of Slingsby or Geo Maps. There are always errors and updates to be made on maps but I wondered how your maps improved or bettered the Survey Maps (besides obvious coloring, trail markings, and "made for hikers" details). I am mostly speaking of accuracy and precision of the geography, not map reading aids.

Lastly, if you go to VE forum or Wikipedia, you will find my piece on "Mafadi", the highest peak in RSA, which I have researched with my colleage at NUL to discover it has a specious naming and a nomenclatural anomaly that is inconsistent with the truth and makes what I called the highest peak a contrived "laughing stock" (certainly compared with other countries of the world whose peaks and names are well documented and so named). I wondered if you had any insights that would illuminate this because it was in the 1980's that the word "Mafadi" suddenly appeared on the peak of today when previously it was unnamed and had a place inside Lesotho on another peak?

It would not be far from the truth to say that your maps were game changers for Berg devotees and really put the range "on the map" so to speak for the benefit of mountain enthusiasts. This pioneering work, like all work with little precedents, deserves a great deal of respect. I hope you can share your time on this forum for the benefit of us all. Many thanks.

Hi Mr Slingsby, welcome!

Mythical status is, perhaps an understatement. I think a lot of 'old timers' have the full set of original maps which are guarded with their lives.

I do enjoy the accuracy of the new maps ito resolution and fine detail, but wish they could be made of tyvac or the same material that your original maps were made of. No point in a map dissolving before your eyes in bad weather, or breaking into regularly sized rectangles when the it wears through the creases.

Many happy hikes are still planned using your maps. Thank you.

Thanks for the comments, Serious Tribe. Ja, hiking maps should always be printed on something better than ornery paper. These days we use Duraflex for our Table Mountain series, and I'm busy with a new hiking series for the Cederberg that will also be on Duraflex fully waterproof & tear-resistant, like Tyvek]. Trouble is, it's very expensive stuff. KZNWildlife should find a commercial sponsor like First Ascent or one of the sports store chains so they can get the Berg maps onto something hard-wearing.

Thomas -
Wow, you asked a couple of interesting questions.
First, the Lesotho issue. First of all, in the 1980s the then Dept of Forestry was paying for the maps and we had a specific sheet size to work on if we were to print on Tyvek. At 1:50 000 there just wasn't a lot of space for bits of Lesotho if the whole of the Forestry/Natal Parks areas were to be included.
Second, there were lots of problems with Lesotho in the 80s. For obvious reasons RSA wasn't the flavour of the times with other African countries, and there was an ongoing border dispute between RSA and Lesotho [SA said the border was the Berg watershed, as the maps show; Lesotho said it was the escarpment edge, as their maps show. Big difference! - but there's nothing like diplomats to enjoy the pettiest kinds of disputes]. There was a lot of cattle rustling from Lesotho at the time, and SA hikers & climbers had been attacked/robbed etc etc by Basotho. Then Lesotho demanded that all hikers carry valid passports, and even arrested some ... all in all, the Powers that Were decided that they weren't gonna encourage hikers/climbers from SA to go into Lesotho.
Next, our maps vs the 1:50 000 series. Simply put, we put the Berg on 3 double-sided maps. You needed about 15 Trig sheets [big, heavy!] to cover the same area, I think. The Geomaps have gone the other way again - a bit silly, I think. Also, our new maps were designed in an attempt to improve mountain safety, by having lots of path-junction references etc etc. There was a plan at that time to get hikers to fill in "destination sheets" so that if they got lost, mountain rescue would have some idea where to look for them. Remember, there was no such thing as cellphones or GPS, let alone Google Earth, etc etc, in 1982. My first double-drive PC with 256k of onboard memory and two slots for 5.25-inch floppies, capacity 360k, one for the Dos 3.1 and the other for data, was still six years in the future!
And almost all the available Trig sheets for the Berg in the 1980's were early 1960s editions, and very thin on detail ...
Our maps considerably improved the available Trig maps. For example, our maps showed the paths!
Mafadi - Can't comment, I had to work with the info I was given. I'm sure Bill Small [Cobham] would have had it right. But it's opposite the Giant's Castle area, so it seems likely that the then-Natal Parks Board would have needed to have a name for the [claimed] highest point. They were a bit like that. To me, it is surely unnecessary for the technically-highest point to have a name; even some of the most famous peaks [from the KZN perspective] are, as I'm sure you know, rather small hillocks when viewed from Lesotho! Do you have another name for Mafadi, by the way?
I hope this is all interesting - anything else I can fill in, don't hesitate.
BTW, even my grandchildren and the local newspaper vendor call me Peter, so I'm sure we can lose the Mr Slingsby ...

@Peter: u must have some killer stories 2 tell ur grandkids!

I am glad my post lead to the revelation and connection to this community, and hopefully some extra traffic to the Slingsbymaps website.

I have inherited my father's original map Slingsby set from his hiking days and so i continue our family legacy of hiking in the berg

Im glad that the "cashing in" is being done by Mr Slingsby himself!
In my haste to browse the website in the first instance, I did not find an About Us page to explain, so the immediate impression was of a commercial website without knowing who was behind it,I have now located said About Us page as part of a drop down menu on the Contact button.

Just to re-iterate the one question from another discussion topic - are the maps available for purchase and shipping overseas? some international hikers expressed interest on the forums here to obtain hiking maps prior to making the trip out to SA.

Love VE for its dynamic nature and the power to connect the hiking community!

Hi Peter, let's face it, the name Slingsby is iconic and the "Slingsby Maps" are an indelible feature of the Drakensberg. I have waited 25 years to confirm my presumption of what you said about the map borders. I remember a few shootouts in Maseru before the coup of 1986. Unfortunately, while geography should be neutral, because in this case the ENTIRE Berg on both sides of the border is vital for, among other things, water and environmental sanctity, politicians and nations are not.

I did have another query. The Mnweni Area was a bit of an outlier from the rest of the gazetted NPB, how was that accommodated in your mapping and who really controlled it? Did you wander up and down its amazing heights? I also note that RNNP is included on your maps as well, not a NPB feature. Was Mnweni never going to be gazetted as a park (was it a homeland, communal area, tribal area, ???)? I mention this because below Ongeluks Nek along the Berg to just above Naude's Nek is I suppose community land but no less vital as an intact ecosystem and water tower for SA/Lesotho and one wonders what will become of that area. Precedents today include both community-based resource protection as well as private conservancies, where govt sanction is not an option.

As always, your thoughts are most appreciated.