The Bell Traverse

O ja, the traverse from Bugger Gully onto Cathedral Peak. It's less than 5m, not exposed, and on really good (broad and flat) footholds. Unfortunately this photo is a little useless because it only has the traverse and nothing to use as reference!

Hi All,
needing some info on bells traverse specifically, how safe ,co ords etc, looking at doint it in the next two weeks or so.
Want to leave from the hotel heading up and staying at twins cave , we then hiking up and over to to Ledgers cave or mponjwane and then down either Rockeries or Mweni? any tips or info most welcome

Thanks

J

Thanks Intrepid

We have decided to go up the afternoon before and night hike up to shermans cave, that way we can get a head start the following day and like you said; enjoy the route!Please post the tracks you have for Bell traverse, even if it isnt of good quality we will definitly make use of them.have hiked mweni and rockeries passes before so familiar with that area but will check grad traverse tracks as well!
Will let you knwo how it goes!!

Hey Joshua

We did the Bell Traverse last year during Easter, fantastic route and we had no problem with water at all. I've been keeping my eye on the Cathedral Peak webcam and I believe water will be abundant now as well - loads and loads of rain.

It was our first try at the route and route finding was no problem, except for two spots: Soon after crossing the Mlambonja river, the trail meets the Sherman Cave trail and turns sharply to the left, something which isn't very obvious. But if you plan to overnight there obviously this is no problem. Basically, if you start contouring before crossing Orange Peel Gap, you're off-route.

The second spot is after passing Cathedral Peak and the Bell, and the trail veers to the south side of the Cathedral range. There was a split and we took a right turn. Soon after the trail petered out. However after some quick recon and a scary moment or two we were back on the trail - just keep as high as possible, the trail contours at the base of the final, sheer rock bands on the south faces of the Horns.

We started from the hotel at 12h30, and reached Orange Peel Gap at 17h30. There are loads of camping spots in that area, PM me if you want a pic to clarify. This is better IMO as it kills the strenuous climb from Sherman's Cave to the Gap. If you can reach the base of Cathedral Peak, even better.

Oh, and be SURE to climb Cathedral Peak. It may look intimidating but it's nothing more than a hike with some really pleasant scrambling. And the views, well...!

Gollum said:

The second spot is after passing Cathedral Peak and the Bell, and the trail veers to the south side of the Cathedral range. There was a split and we took a right turn. Soon after the trail petered out. However after some quick recon and a scary moment or two we were back on the trail - just keep as high as possible

This might help at this spot; "soon after you come out from behind the Bell and cross over the saddle to give you your first view of the Northern Berg, keep your eyes peeled for a steep path which climbs the slope on your left-hand side (about where Gollum went right). This looks like an unlikely route to take, but it is correct. It climbs steeply to a higher ridge, then contours round at a higher level. Saves a lot of unnecessary scrambling to higher levels on faded secondary paths".
See image taken as you ascend path (image 21 under "Drakensberg" gallery).{joomplu:304}

Enjoy!

Thanks Intrepid for the reminder of how to link.

Sorry it is not a picture of the path, but the view behind me as I was climbing, was more noteworthy at the time.

Thnkas INtrepid..will make use of these co-ords.The better prepared you are the less chance of goin of track:)

We've just returned from a great weekend in the Berg, words cant explain what a fantastic experience this was!

We decided to to do this hike in preparation for our Kilimanjaro hike in Sept this year. It was just my girlfriend and I that set off on Saturday afternoon at 14h00 from Didima.

Our first night stop was to be Sherman's cave, the weather wasn't great but we set off in any event in the hope the weather report for the remainder of the weekend was correct. We were told to expect snow on the Saturday evening but have clear skies for the remainder of our hike.

We arrived at Sherman's cave shortly after 17h00 and pitched our tent for the night. The mist rolled in shortly after we were set up, we had a bite to eat and hit the sack in prep for a long day the next day.

We got up and were back on the trail at 8am, heading straight up towards Orange Peel Gap, this walk was made fairly tough due to the amount of snow that had fallen during the night. The climb through the gap itself was extremely taxing as the snow was anything from 500mm to 1 meter deep in places.

Once through the gap the mist rolled in really fast, we pushed on and were headed for Buggers Gully. Once we reached the gully we decided against climbing Cathedral Peak as it was too late in the day to begin this and decided to push on through the gully. Fortunately there wasn't any snow on the climb up Buggers Gully, this is a tough section to hike and took us a fair amount of time to reach the top.

Once we reached the top we were not prepared for what we were about to see on the other side! It was an amazing sight, the snow lying thick for as far as we could see. The problem was we needed to go that way We started our descent and took it extremely slowly!

We'd hoped to get to Twins Cave to night over there but the going had been slowed so much due to the thick snow conditions that we only managed to reach the Bell and decided to setup camp there for the evening, leaving us with a very long day the following day...

It was a totally clear evening but with us having no shelter it was a pretty cold and windy one so we retired to the tent by 7pm to rest for the next day.

We woke to glorious sunshine on day 3 which we were really chuffed about, by now we'd had enough of the snow and just wanted to walk easy for a while!

The trail from the Bell, past the Outer Horn and all the way to the Inner Horn was still a good foot deep in snow making this trekking tough too. We had some hair raising moments with the snow giving way under our feet on a few occasions.

Once we reached the Chessmen we finally had some reprieve from the snow and we were able to make up some lost time. We eventually reached Twins Cave at 13h30 and decided to push on a little more before stopping for a bite.

We began the descent down Mlambonja pass which for the first section was very steep and hard on the knees to say the least. Our Trekking poles were being put to full use and still the knees were aching! The entire pass was covered in snow so we eventually decided to slide down the snow on our back sides which proved to be a massive win as this saved our limbs for an hours or so. If it weren't for the snow here we'd have had to spent another night as we wouldn't have made it back!

This 3km section is a tough ask, it doesn't sound far but believe me it's tough!

We decided to head back via One Tree Hill as this was the shortest route and it was already closing in on 4pm...

Fortunately the contour paths on this section weren't all packed with snow so we made good time and after a really long hard push we arrived at Cathedral Peak Hotel at 18h30 albeit in the dark.

All in all we had a fantastic time! The snow was a first for both of us and it really made the going a lot tougher. Will I do it again? Of course we will.

While the initial excitement about the prospect of snow was lekker, I don't want to see snow on the trail for a while!