Berg Alert 2024

I have emailed Estcourt police station to enquire if we can open a case assault by deposing an affidavit and emailing a copy to them.  We are residing in the North West Province and are not willing to travel back to KZN for a case to be opened  that has next to zero chance of ever being investigated.  Not surprisingly, I have not received any response from Estcourt Police. Our aim was just to report the incident to the park officials and VE to ensure that people are informed of the situation and take the necessary precautions to protect themselves. The Park Manager is however of the opinion that it will do good to open a case. 

Thank you Tiska,


I must say that I am relieved that I was in the position to act, and that I was armed with descent aluminum trekking poles! There are similarities between the two incidents and the overwhelming message I get comparing the two is not that the herders are motivated by resources but rather that this these two attacks have something to do with power / ego / control.

China wrote:

Thank you Tiska,


I must say that I am relieved that I was in the position to act, and that I was armed with descent aluminum trekking poles! There are similarities between the two incidents and the overwhelming message I get comparing the two is not that the herders are motivated by resources but rather that this these two attacks have something to do with power / ego / control.

Interesting assessment China. I wonder then what the best strategy is to deal with the power/ego/control element.

It's difficult to say Tiska , the only thing for sure is the herder  that attacked us , decided very early on in the encounter that he was going to inflict injury, he had many opportunities to leave us , especially after I gave him my hiking glasses but he chose  to stay with us until we started descending the pass.  He planned it this way because I am sure all of us know that you are not really able to run when descending a pass and you don't have allot of cover. 

I suggest being aware of your surroundings and make sure you are not being followed before descending passes. 

I have noticed a bit more of animosity especially on my recent escarpment trips as well as on my Facebook posts, to the point that I had to block certain people. Every one tells me that its normal to be attacked on FB, but I doubt it - it got very personal to the point of an almost open attach on me being in "Lesotho". Yes it was only on FB but seeing the more aggressive attitude towards hikers - I begin to believe it's something deeper. I personally had some encounters with herders - the normal asking for sweets, food, whiskey and even money - not giving them any thing the younger ones got a bit pushy but not violent and would push off. We also made camp way off from where we had the encounter.

After investigating my "stalkers" on FB, I came to the conclusion that there might be some elements that are deliberately causing animosity between the hikers and herders - maybe a bit political, as the feeling I got, its to do with money. Unfortunately tourists and hikers are seen easy targets - gear are seen as valuable and can be used by themselves or what they don't want sold off for a pittance. I have personally seen a herder walking around with a purple North Face jacket that I doubt was willingly given to him.

As a guide I need to always have my guests safety and wellbeing as top priority. The main concern is that when you ask the camp staff about safety in the area they always say no issues and its safe. Bigger groups is maybe one solution but not always an option. Caring a fire arm - not my first choice for safety. I think that the powers that be, need to improve the safety in the park.
I remember in the mis 1980's when I started to hike, we had armed rangers patrolling the top of the Amphitheatre over long weekends and holidays. So crime is not a new thing - it seems to just get a lot more violent with violent attacks at night seemingly on the rise.

DeonS wrote:

I remember in the mis 1980's when I started to hike, we had armed rangers patrolling the top of the Amphitheatre over long weekends and holidays. So crime is not a new thing - it seems to just get a lot more violent with violent attacks at night seemingly on the rise.
 

I told the Ezembelo why don't you patrol in the park? They told me it is not responsability. So either, I do not  understand the duties of a park ranger, or they are just inefficient and lazy.

Hello guys,
I did a shortened version of DGT (9day hike from Sani Mountain Lodge) in November. We were a group of 10. A storm was closing on us in the afternoon on Friday 15th November in the vicinity of Roland's cave, so we hide there for about an hour. When the weather cleared, we moved to Organ Pipes Pass. Ideally, we wanted to sleep around Tseketseke pass that day, but as other storms were coming, we decided to make a camp around here 29.0123119S, 29.1802341E at about 15:30. A storm came right after and lasted for about an hour, so a wise decision.

When the storm disappeared, we made a short hike to Castle Buttress and returned to the tents at 6 pm. We made ourself a dinner and went to bed. At around 19:13, one member went out of a tent for a pee, when he - very surprisingly - found a local man about 2 meter away from him. He was not a typically Basotho shepherd - had a Nike style sneakers, jeans, down jacket, a backpack. He was soaking wet from the previous storms, did not speak a word of English, didn't have any source of a light. I and two other members showed up when we were talking to him. As we could understand from his hand movements, he wanted us to accommodate him in one of our tents (we had 5, in each 2 people).

We obviously refused that, as all of our tents were occupied + numerous other safety reasons. We gave him some cigarettes, a lighter, two snickers and persuaded him to continue in his journey. It was pitch dark, moon would rise only about two hours after that, so I followed him with my headlamp for the first 100 meters. I wished him good luck and stayed awake for another half an hour to make sure he does not come back. We then put everything inside our tents.

At around 1:20 AM, we were all awaken by a loud speaker with some (presumably) local language rap. I looked from my tents, it was two men. They were pretty far away from me, so I did not notice any more details. It was almost a full moon, so they could see all our tents, but apparently were not interested in any interaction whatsoever. Their pace was about three times faster than the previous man. 

After that, the rest of night was peaceful, though obviously we had some problems getting back to sleep.

No harm was done to anyone, but I don't what would have happened if the first man came when we were on Castle Buttress. Since then, we never left our tents alone. As we were all Europeans, eventually we consider this incident pretty exciting, as we had to never deal with such issues before while hiking. 

Yep, I know the spot was bad, but with the incoming storms, it was the safest option at the moment. Everybody was heading from SA to Lesotho. Important to know that it was also Friday night, so one explanation can be a illegal workers coming back home?

Hi Borekj, thanks for the info. 
Did the group of two at 1.20 have lights of their own?
or were they relying on the moon?