Xeni Peak

This weekend, Neil Margetts, Tony Marshall and myself climbed Xeni Peak.

The description in the RD is rather vague:
Start at the head of a gully on the escarpment near the south side of the peak. Climb down the gully for about 30m to the nek between the peak and the escarpment. Cross the nek and traverse to the right on the inside of the gendarme. Climb a 50m D grade pitch diagonally up to a stance from where the south side of the peak is visible. Traverse a few metres to the right and then climb a wide chimney for 5m to a stance. The chimney, which narrows, is followed for 20m to the summit.

In the end, we followed the line below. Green indicates a walk without ropes. Red indicates the bit where we felt a rope was needed.



We did the climb as 2 pitches. The first one down climbs about 3m and then climbs 5m up an awkward "D" grade chimney. The next pitch starts easily, but right at the top, you have a tricky move right, also at grade "D". "D" of course refers to the grades in the 1940's and cannot be converted to a "modern" grade.

A better RD would be:
Start at the head of a gully on the escarpment near the south side of the peak. Rather traverse into the neck at a higher line. From the neck, down climb a bit and then walk up and right on the south face to the gendarme. Rope up on top of the small ledge just before the chimney. Traverse a few metres to the right and then climb a wide chimney for 5m to a stance. The chimney, which narrows, is followed for 20m to the summit.

I doubt there is anyone on this forum who is happy to do this without a rope. And, although it has a few good views, it is a pretty arbitrary peak. Hence it is a lot of effort to justify carrying the rope!

Well done guys

Some photos of the Xeni Peak climb.

Neil on the traverse before the descent to the nek.



The gendarme, with Elephant to the right.



Andrew at the start of the first pitch, while Neil climbs up to the start.



Andrew at the crux of the first pitch. The stance for the second pitch was on a wide ledge just above this, and is visible in the photo above.



Neil impresses us with some balance poses on the summit of Xeni Peak. Leopard is the peak to the right, and the Cathedral Range is in the clouds in the background.



Tony, Neil and Andrew at the summit cairn.



Andrew commencing the abseil down, above the gendarme.



Neil abseils down.



As Andrew stated, Xeni Peak is a fairly arbitrary peak, but it is nonetheless a khulu that we believe has not yet been bagged by any of the other khulu baggers.

tonymarshall wrote: it is nonetheless a khulu that we believe has not yet been bagged by any of the other khulu baggers.

Indeed. I wonder how many ascents it has had - can't be more than 3 or 4.

On an unrelated note, how many khulu baggers actually exist? I can think of 7 - and I'm not sure if John and Christine are still doing this.

On an unrelated note - awesome to see Tony getting in on the climbing scene. Plans on Mponjwane or Tooth any time soon?

I think it was probably much more popular in the climbing heydays, but agree that it probably doesn't get climbed often anymore, and we saw no evidence of recent climbs and couldn't find a summit book.

I can also only think of the 7, the four of us on the VE khulu committee (ghaz, Andrew P, intrepid and tonymarshall), Hobbit, and John and Christine, although I think John only does the occasional khulu nowadays and Christine has probably stopped.

Thanks, although I've been climbing informally for years, it's been nice recently to do some stuff with some of our best climbers, and I appreciate their confidence and patience with me. At this stage I'm enjoying some of the easier routes - single pitches where I don't get in the other guy's way - and will need a lot more training and experience before tackling more difficult routes, although I may progress to there eventually, I don't have immediate plans.

tonymarshall wrote: I can also only think of the 7, the four of us on the VE khulu committee (ghaz, Andrew P, intrepid and tonymarshall), hobitt, and John and Christine, although I think John only does the occasional khulu nowadays and Christine has probably stopped.

The same 7 I had in mind. 4 of us have all the 3300+m peaks, and it looks like Andrew will also get that status this weekend. You still have Sanqebethu to do, right? Hobbit needs quite a few of them still, but he has moved up to 83 on the overall list - he hopes to pass 100 this year (which I rate he'll do easily).

tonymarshall wrote: Thanks, although I've been climbing informally for years, it's been nice recently to do some stuff with some of our best climbers, and I appreciate their confidence and patience with me.

It is great to spend time with people who push harder in certain areas than you do, invariably you end up doing things that you never would have done otherwise. It is the same with my fast-and-light hiking - not a chance I would have shot for a 4 day GT if I hadn't started hiking with Andrew.

So apparently it is Andrew's fault that we are both doing harder stuff than what we used to do

Yes, of the 3300+m khulus , I only have Sanquebethu still to do. Better make a plan to do it soon, before I get overtaken. I'm amazed how quickly Hobbit has accumulated khulus, I've got 89 now after several years, and it looks like he will be ahead of me soon, but not to worry I'll eventually get to my goal of all the KZN non technical khulus.

The climbing has been a lot of fun, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. It's certainly pushed me further than I would have otherwise gone, and I'm privileged to be able to say it's Andrew's fault.

tonymarshall wrote: I'm amazed how quickly Hobbit has accumulated khulus, I've got 89 now after several years, and it looks like he will be ahead of me soon, but not to worry I'll eventually get to my goal of all the KZN non technical khulus.

He has done very well. It is notable that he has been khulu-bagging for 4 years now, but he has certainly come a long way in the last 8 months.

This was the first khulu he bagged with me - Thumb Spur Peak, 2012:

That must be the worst summit pose I have ever seen