Icidi to Rockeries 4-day hike June 2026

I’ve been meaning to hike Icidi pass a few times before, but every time some eventuality occurred which caused us to cancel the hike. I’ve done its sister pass to the north a few times before and really enjoyed Ifidi pass, but 2026 was the year we decided to tackle Icidi pass, come hell or high water!And so, on the Saturday morning of 13 June 2026 we arrived at MCC just before 9am. We were planning to be there at around 8H30am to take a taxi ride with Supertramp and his wife, but due to super foggy road conditions and lots of long weekend traffic we only arrived at 8h50. We quickly filled in the mountain register and set off towards the western bridge near the school. 

Day 1:
I decided not to take the usual approach route to the start of Icidi. Looking at the contour map you gain a bit of altitude as you start out from the school, and then you give it all up again as you drop down to where the Icidi river flows into the Mnweni river. We could go up and over the protea forest starting at Mlambo’s kraal, but I’ve always wondered what the river section down below would be like. So, at Mlambo’s kraal we said goodbye to Supertramp and his wife and set off in the riverbed. This was such a scenic section! Lots of pools, you’re close to the natural forest on the opposite edge of the riverbank and you get a taste for all the rock hopping that is still to come.We eventually arrived at the junction with the Icidi river and saw a path leading up on the right hand side, so we got out of the riverbed and made good time on this path. It eventually petered out, and we decided to get back down into the riverbed. This was to be repeated a few more times until we arrived at Jubilee cave. But first, we found another path on the left side bank and could happily walk on it for a while. This path then descended lower down, not too far from Grascutters cave. However, this path also soon stopped abruptly, so we had to backtrack and climb up the bank to the left, which was a few meters higher up.

Steep river-banks, lots of sandy sections with loose rocks in them made it a bit dodgy getting up this section. Once up here we found another decent path and hiked easily to Grascutters cave. Mmmhhh, not really a great cave and from what I’ve read Jubilee was much nicer, so we decided to press on. Another strong track lead down to the river and we proceeded walking up stream towards Jubilee cave. However, when we looked at the Gps track it became apparent that the strong path down to the river was not the route we should have taken. We had 2 choices: backtrack about 300m and find the “correct” path, or continue another 150m or so and then climb out of the riverbed and backtrack a 100m or so back to the cave. We decided to take our chances and continued forward, and we found an easy section to climb out of the riverbed. Before we started though we filled up with plenty of water (enough for the rest of the day, tomorrow mornings coffee and possibly right up to lunchtime). Adding an additional 4kg to your backpack at the end of a day’s hiking is generally not what you want to do, but in this case it had to be done.
Once we got close to the cave we found a pretty stream of berg water flowing past the cave. Bummer, whish we knew about this stream beforehand! But now you know. The cave was…ok.  Very rocky and all the sleeping areas were covered with donkey poo. 2 locals had taken up residence in the eastern section of the cave and their donkeys clearly slept where we were planning to overnight. They arrived about 30 minutes behind us. The locals and their donkeys. We finished de-pooing the sleeping areas and brushed most of the larger rocks to the sides. We found lots of bugs in and under the dung. Mmmmhhh, this could make for an interesting evening. Pity I didn’t bring my Tabart stick along. We cleaned up, made dinner, chatted a bit and drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow was the big day.

 
 
 
 
 

Day 2:
Before the sun was up we got started with breaking up camp and having breakfast. Besides topping out, we had to hop over to Fangs cave today, so it was going to be a full day. We had no idea of what exactly to expect, except that the general view was that this pass is on the slow and strenuous side. I think we eventually got going at around 7H30, which was a bit later than I had hoped for. Again, we found a nice path going down from the cave and staying on the left hand side (true right) of the river. After about 1,2km’s it simply vanished. Seems like this was going to be the story of the Icidi riverbed. The track we had pointed down to the river and sure enough, we picked up the path a bit lower down again. It hopped over to the other side of the river, and then stayed on that side of the river on the bank. It was a clear path. It was wonderful. It was open and clearly well used. And then it turned slightly upwards towards the hilly section and simply disappeared. Eish.

Checking our progress, it became abundantly clear that we had veered off the recorded track. Not sure if this track was once on a path, but as often happens floods destroy these and people create new paths. But clearly the one we were on led to nowhere. Maybe it was used by last night’s donkeys. Anyhow, we had to backtrack a good 400m or so, bundubash down to the river and try and find a place to downclimb back into the river section. We probably wasted a good 40 minutes or more on this detour.If you are planning on doing Icidi pass, allow plenty of time for “path discovery”. I’m sure it’s better if you descend the pass as you can see clearly what lies below (except waterfalls), but we were ascending and didn’t have this luxury.Once we were back in the riverbed, the rock hopping started in full earnest. Fortunately I love rock hopping. I far prefer this to walking on a path or going up on grassy slopes. I find I never get bored in the riverbeds as your every move needs to be pre-planned. And often your pre-planned next step gets interrupted by a rocking or sliding rock and you are forced to do a pre-planned move on your initial pre-planned move. I just love it. I didn’t count how many waterfalls there are, but I suspect about 4 or 5. Unless you are a climber, you can’t go up them. On average they are higher than a double story house. This means that at every waterfall you have to climb out of the riverbed and onto the sidewalls. The river walls are steep and high, so finding a suitable exit and then re-entry spot was quite a mission at times. Be careful on these side walls, they are mostly loosely packed dirt and steep. Worth your while finding a section with a gentler side angle.

The bundu bashing on the riverbeds was mild in my opinion. Ships Prow riverbed was much worse. But ascending and descending the riverbed walls is the big thing on Icidi.After bypassing all the waterfalls safely we eventually arrived at the pass proper. We stopped at a suitable place and had lunch. I also made us each a cup of Mannabrew, a coffee alternative I discovered recently (made from seed pods of the Mesquite tree. Very tasty and zero caffeine, so good for an evening drink as well). There was still plenty of snow up in Lesotho, so the wind blowing down the pass was icy. The drip-through drink was at best lukewarm when we drank it due to this wind. Climbing out the riverbed we ascended to the left of the stream at the start of the pass proper. To the right was bushes, to the left wet rock. I preferred the wet rock as it was more stable and angled enough to afford decent purchase. At this point the pass became much steeper. And colder. We haven’t had any sunshine so far today, and I had been walking in my fleece the entire day. Time to put on the gloves as well due to the freezer door in Lesotho being left open. As we ascended, the wind became much stronger. It felt like it was trying to blow us off the mountain!

By now we were alternating between rocky sections and rock covered in grass sections. Staying upright became increasingly difficult, and towards the end I was on all fours and pulling myself up on berg grass. Right at the top was a bit of sunlight, and I went over to the left towards the lower “cave” where I was eventually relatively sheltered and mostly out of the wind. I dropped my pack and went down to fetch my wife’s backpack. ASL-Bivak arrived soon afterwards and we rested for a minute, and ate a quick snack. Once we got our breath back we hoisted our backpacks on our shoulders and made our way to the top of the pass. We arrived here at around 3pm. Now we had to hit the berg highway to Fangs cave.ASL had hurt his knee going up the pass, and so we dropped our speed to make it easier on his knee. The track I had for this section of the escarpment seemed to be defective. It didn’t work on any of our GPS’s. Initially it didn’t matter as we were on the known path and we could see where to go, but once we got closer to Fangs pass the sun set. We filled up with water on the final ridge before Fangs pass, and from here it was roughly another 1.5km to the cave.

When we left the stream it was completely dark. My Suunto Vertical 2 has contour maps so I could use these to plot a route, and I had the cave as a reference point, but getting to it in complete darkness with ravines etc. on our left could get interesting. Above all, the wind was not letting up one bit. It was blowing strong enough to move you sideways and throw you off balance. Hard shells were put on but now we couldn’t hear one another over the noise of the wind.I’ve descended down from the escarpment to Fangs cave before. I initially went down the wrong gully. Got to a 4m high vertical rock and realized it was the wrong gully. Had to climb all the way back up. Moved left and went down the correct gully. Not wanting to make the same mistake again (ps: there is now a huge cairn at the top of Fangs) I built a track going down the correct gully, and it’s starting point was on the contour path. So, I simply followed the contour paths till the Fangs gully track came into view, and once close to the turnoff it beeped and we knew we had to turn left towards Fangs. Quite a steep little section this, and in the wind and at the end of a rather long day and in the dark we had to take extra care not to step into a hole or lose our balance.

We arrived at Fangs cave around 7pm. Supertramp and his wife were waiting for us in the cave, and we were certainly glad to be “home” for the night. We kuiered a bit, had dinner, cleaned up and crawled into our sleeping bags.We recently acquired new sleeping bags (Nanga) and we were trying them out on this trip. My Saturday night in the bag was fine. Comfy, spacious enough, definitely on the warm side. For some reason the bag felt smaller tonight. I couldn’t quite spread my feet out like before and the hoody felt tighter than I remembered. The sleeping bag was definitely warmer than what I remembered, which was strange as we were at a higher altitude and it was way windier. What was really nice though was that my feet warmed up real fast, even though I was only wearing slippers and socks before getting into the bag. Strange……but nice! 
 
 
 
 

 

Day 3:
We again woke up before the sun rose, which is not too difficult to do in winter due to the sun rising much later than in summer. I had a very good night’s rest, only problem I experienced was that I was a bit too hot in the bag and had to zip it open during the night to cool down. My wife was slow to get out of her bag. When I asked her how she slept, she said she had a bit of a cold night. How was that possible in a 600g filled sleeping bag? Her Nanga bag was supposed to be warmer than her TNF Blue Kazoo bag! Unless…..no, surely not. Did we somehow swap bags? They were the same colour but mine was the Long, her’s the Regular. Surely I wouldn’t be able to fit in the Regular? Turns out this was exactly what had happened!  Soon it was light enough to switch off our torches. We had coffee and rusks for breakfast and finished packing our bags. The Supertramp group soon followed us out of the cave and up the steep side gully to the top. The wind was much milder today, still cold, but at least not trying to blow us off the escarpment. It was nice to be out in the sun again, feeling it’s warmth on my skin. We set off in a southernly direction.

Today was a real easy day, especially compared to the day before. Quick stats fact: we hiked a total of 14.99km’s yesterday, which by any account seems like a short distance, but the altitude gain of 2467m tells a different story. A few years back I started eating more protein for dinner, not to resupply energy (the carbs and fats do that) but to build up the muscles that worked hard during the day. Since then I rarely suffer from muscle soreness the next day. Even on a long descent day the results are the same. No muscle soreness today. But back to today.The mission for today was simple: Go around the cutback and make our way to Mponjwane cave. The Supertrams led the way on the berg highway and we soon arrived at the point where we would split off from them. They were going down Manxcome pass today. We said our goodbyes and carried on. By the time we rounded the cutback, the sun was out in full force and the wind had basically stopped blowing. It became quite hot without the refreshing wind we’ve had for most of the morning.

We dropped down into the valley directly south of the start of the Senque and decided to have brunch at the stream below and before us. Woolies vegetable samoosas, 4 month matured cheese, middle of the month Salticraks and a bit of beef biltong silenced the grumblings coming from my stomach. We chose a fairly level spot for brunch as I don’t fancy doing too much uphill on a full tummy. From here we sauntered slowly towards that mid-section plateau between the tops of Mnweni and Rockeries passes. Just before turning right towards Mponjwane cave we filled up at the last water spot. Again 4L of water was added to our backpacks as it had to last for the rest of the afternoon, dinner, tomorrow’s breakfast and down to the first water spot. It’s only about 120m elevation gain from the top of Rockeries pass head to the cave, but at the end of the day’s walk and with a still partially full stomach and 4kg extra weight and no wind this steep little climb can be nasty at times. It was one of those times! Fortunately it’s over fairly quickly, unless, like me, you somehow manage to miss the track up the hill entirely and end up going straight up to the top. How on earth did I miss the path and the cairns?

As I approached the cave I thought I heard a male voice saying a short sentence. The intonation made it sound like he was saying something in Afrikaans, but it was so brief and it didn’t repeat that I thought I was imagining it. The cave was empty, so yes, I must have imagined it. I started unpacking and soon afterward the rest of the group arrived. We all got comfy and enjoyed the views and the vultures and crows flying above us. I made us another cup of Mannabrew each, and used up the last of the condensed milk. This time the pour over was substantially warmer, and sipping it in the sun while sitting on the warm grass was just wonderful. Definitely taking this along on future hiking trips. Besides not containing caffeine (good for after dark as you don’t have to get up in the middle of the night for a wee) you use about have of the volume of coffee, a definite plus for the gram counters out there! The time eventually arrived when the mountain to our left (West) started casting longer shadows in our direction, so we cleaned up with wet-wipes and put our warmer clothes on.

I wasn’t very hungry tonight, probably due to me finishing all my left over snacks during the last few hours at the cave. I was thirsty though, so had a nice cup of soup and ginger tea, after which I finished the last of my biltong. Soon after dark I heard what sounded like pieces of metal clanging against metal. Within a few seconds 2 climbers appeared out of the dark and made themselves comfortable in the smaller cave. So I hadn’t imagined voices after all! They got settled and also had dinner. No sooner did we get ready to climb into our sleeping bags when a porter also arrived out of the dark and informed us that 2 more hikers were on their way to the cave. He asked if we could please make space for them, and since there was more than enough space we moved up to the left. He declined to sleep with us and soon made his bed a few meters away on the grass, covered by a blanket and a tarp. I suppose it is warmer on the grass than directly on the rock and soil we were sleeping on.

A while later two very tired hikers eventually arrived at the cave. They basically sat down to recover, had something to drink and got into their sleeping bags. Their deep and labored breathing soon settled down into a more relaxed pattern and the night went silent around us. A piercing wind was blowing, and I was grateful that I could hide away from the wind in my Nanga’s cowl, which, tonight, covered me properly. Definitely helps when you climb into the correct sleeping bag!

 
 
 
 
 
 

Day 4:

Another new day broke with an amazing sunrise. The entire forward view out into Natal was covered with a sea of soft, fluffy clouds. If this persisted, Rockeries pass would stay nice and cool for a while. We had breakfast (coffee and rusks), packed up, and descended down to the top of Rockeries pass. It was clearly a cold night as everything was covered in a thin layer of frost around us. Some of the clouds had blown up the pass and was covering the low spots on the plateau between Rockeries and Mnweni pass heads. It was beautiful. We started down the pass and was making good progress. We encountered a bit of mist soon after descending, but this was quickly baked off by the sun’s heat. Fortunately, we were still in the shade which was nice and cold. We hit some more mist lower down, but once the terrain started to level out we were back in the sunlight. Before long we could see the dirt road that would take us back down to MCC.

I’ve taken many different route options over the years to get onto the dirt road, but today was the first time we hopped over the river high up and before the dirt roads start, basically before you get to any of the huts. You do climb up a bit higher with this variation, but it is definitely faster and easier walking than the other paths that stay low and eventually climb up out of the river valley. We were back at MCC in no time, had a refreshing shower and then soon afterwards joined the holiday traffic on the N3 back to Joburg. 

What a nice hike this had been. Reflecting back on it a couple of days later, I would say Icidi is probably not everyone’s cup of tea. I didn’t find it particularly difficult, but the constant climbing in and out of the riverbed is not going to be to everyone’s liking. It’s definitely very scenic and I really enjoyed all the rock hopping in the riverbed, but it’s sister pass to the North has basically the same setup but without the waterfall bypasses. Also, Ifidi has 3 nice scrambling sections near the top which is fun to do, versus the easier but boring grass gully of Icidi. Both have caves at the top where you can overnight, however, with the strong easterly wind we had blowing into Natal, Icidi cave (it’s basically a very shallow overhang) wouldn’t have offered much protection. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Would I do it again? Probably. Just give me a year or two to forget the waterfall bypass sections.