Berg Alert 2021

Thanks for posting Viking.

Is this the first time firearms have been used in a night-time escarpment tent robbery? I know of rocks, sticks and dogs but not guns.

If it were only about hikers being in the way of business, then I would have thought the business-men would have left the tent and possessions alone once the hikers had fled.
Did the hikers later see any business in the pass, I wonder?

This sounds rather strange, or the business they were involved with was even more stranger than normal.  Perhaps the business was theft, or perhaps just opportunistic theft.  Usually the dagga trade doesn't cause this sort of altercation.  If this was over the weekend, it was almost new moon, so would have been dark, not the kind of night for smuggling, but hey they had headlamps so that changes all the rules.  Perhaps best to stay away from well used passes, getting tough to be a hiker, apart form the altitude that is  .

I was in this hiking group of three involved in the armed robbery incident at the top of Giant’s pass. We were doing a S to N grand traverse and bagged Giant’s Castle peak late in the afternoon on day 3. When we reached the top of the pass it was 17:00, very cold, misty and we were tired after a hard day’s of hiking. Against my better judgement, I gave in to temptation to make use of the flat spots there to pitch our tents.

One of the guys went to look for water and met two men who came from the direction of the pass. He greeted them in Sotho but they answered back in English with a strange question (“what are you doing here – are you looking for us?”). They proceeded on their way, but lingered around on the opposite ridge, later joined by a third man, and then they disappeared.

Strange as it may sound, I have not heard the shot at 18:00, as mentioned in the report posted by Viking; to my defense I was in my tent with sidewalls flapping in the wind. Apparently the shot was a distance away, so that the two guys in the hiking group was wondering whether it was perhaps a rock that fell.

At about 19:00, the three of us were getting ready for bed and were walking around outside looking for a foam mattress that was blown away in the wind. Just as we found the matrass, we saw a headlamp approaching us. I called out ‘hello’ and was answered with a gunshot (into the ground, I think). The three of us sprinted away like world class athletes, switching off our headlamps in the process while changing direction – about four more shots were fired while we were running and then we hit the ground and stayed very quiet. It seemed as if there were about four men in their party, three with headlamps. They looked for us for a short while, but luckily it was very dark and misty and they gave up rather quickly. They went to the tents and raided pretty much everything (all three backpacks, one sleeping bag and most of the loose stuff laying around). After clearing out our tents, they called out a few times “ok, sorry” and then left.

We were scared of an ambush and stayed hidden for quite a while, shivering in the cold, before carefully going back. Without switching on our headlamps, we took down our tents and gathered the few things they have left and that we could found in the dark. We stuffed this in one of the remaining sleeping bags. Luckily the criminals left my GPS and we used this underneath our clothing to find the pass in the dark and mist. Only after we went into the pass, we switched on the two headlamps we had with us, which was not of too much use in the mist. It was quite a mission to get down the pass and we definitely opened a new route in the rock gully. Later we managed to find the path on the grass slope and we progressed a bit faster. We arrived at Giant’s Castle camp at about 03:20 the next morning, very cold and wet.

A shout out to the personnel at Giant’s Castle Camp for the five star treatment. They have also arranged for Mr Wayne Evans, Security Manager at Ezemvelo, and the police to meet us there to take our statements. They provided us with a room, meals, laundry service and a taxi back to Witsieshoek where we left our vehicle.

One theory is that the raiding party was stock thieves and they wanted us to clear the area so that they can move animals over the pass in peace. Apparently stock smuggling is a big problem nowadays (with dagga being legalised, it is becoming a less lucrative business and therefore also less common). There is a lot of fighting between Basotho groups stealing stock from South African groups and also other way around, and these guys are almost always armed. Anyhow, this is just a theory, backed perhaps also by the fact that the criminals were older men and not young shepherd boys.

The big message here is one that we all know: “DON’T CAMP AT THE TOP OF PASSES!”.

I would appreciate it if somebody who is going to Giant’s Castle would be so kind to do a walkabout at our camping spot and clean up some stuff that we left there – I know I left food in plastic bags, a hydration bladder, lots of red tent pens and maybe a few other things. I am not worried about the stuff but hating the fact of leaving rubbish behind. The camping spot was a bit to the right as you exit the pass.

Stay safe out there.

Thanks for the comprehensive report back. 
Glad you came to no lasting harm. 
This does sound like a new chapter in terms of modis operandi and the economics driving it sounds like it fits. 
Strange to think that dagga smuggling might = the good old days. 

Christine, so sorry to read of your ordeal - every hiker's dread. The robbery must have been terrifying. Thank God there were no injuries or worse.

We camped at the base of Giant's Pass on the 24th of September and at twilight saw a headtorch high up the pass. We immediately went into cautionary mode, kept our headtorches off, and considered moving our tent. After a while the lamp disappeared, and we figured it was probably a hiker who'd made a late ascent. Later on, I reflected on how sad my initial reaction was, but evidently one can't be cautious enough. This year I regrettably started taking pepper spray on Berg hikes.

There were numerous cattle bones on Giant's Pass, though there aren't signs of heavy use. We slept in the upper cave on Central Jarding on our second night, where there were traces of livestock and some human faeces. So there is definitely some sort of activity in the area.

I am so sorry to hear what you and your hiking partners went through Christine and relieved that no one was hurt.  A sad reality that we all need to be extra vigilant on the escarpment these days.  Thank you for the informative report

What a scary ordeal you went through, Christine, grateful no one got hurt.

Putting together the two quotations in Christine's report, namely:
“what are you doing here – are you looking for us?”
and
“ok, sorry” 
might suggest that the raid on the tents was to establish whether the group of hikers were indeed hikers or farmers/officials/police looking for the bandits.
Once the bandits had established that the group were simply hikers, they stole what they could carry away anyway.
Whatever the motivation for the attack, the outcome was the same in this case.
If the bandits believed without question that the group were looking for them, things could have been a lot worse.
 
And the bandits will now be aware of how easy it is to steal kit.

I wonder how best to combat this escalation in the Berg? The new tool here being the firearms.



 

That seems the likely explanation - an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The use of firearms, not in a robbery, but by smugglers/cattle rustlers we have heard of before, e.g. in that shootout in Gray's Pass  in 2017. As to combatting, there was some discussion related to this before, hikers taking armed guards , but my view is that any attempt to meet this threat on its own terms will have bad consequences for hiking in general and relations with the Basothos, and that the best defence is still taking the necessary precautions - e.g. as Christine said, not camping at the tops of passes.