Mashai Pass - Rhino Peak hike

Great, thanks very much - apologies for posting in wrong section.

OK, misunderstood as I thought that Garden Castle was on Bushmans Nek road- stupid!

Have done Cathedral Peak easily in a day - just running shoes, waist belt with a bit of food and rainshell.

Thanks again - going to be fun!

Hi VE Members

For those who have not been to the berg for awhile and missing it's grand scenery.

Regards
Selous

Sorry, but my panoramic photo's are not loading up. I keep getting a 404 error even if I try loading one at a time.
So here is one of my better non-panoramic photos

Thanx dude. That includes me!!!

Hi All

So on Saturday morning at 5am I was at the Garden Castle EKZN office, I completed the registered (there was a pen and a brand new book! - so well done to the office).

The goal was Rhino peak and to get up and down as reasonably quickly as I could, at least that was the plan in good weather.

Getting out the car in the drizzle was already messing with my head and I was thinking about calling it off and heading out the next day rather. So I decided to head out and I would turn around when I felt to cold and wet, so I'd make a call at a point.

I got to pillar cave in good time, all walking mainly at that point, I'm happy to report that the cave is clean, and even though it had been raining on Friday and still drizzling it is still a cave with plenty of dry space, with only two small wet sections.

After pillar cave you drop down into the river from the left bank (same side as Pillar Cave), and then head us a short steeper section back onto the left bank of the river, between there and the next river crossing, at a point where the path gets close to the river, there is a section of the path that has fallen away, it looks like it has fallen away recently, and is not a sections that you could safely hop over, there is a big rock on the left of the path and you need to climb over that to get back onto the path on the other side.



Outside of my toes that were feeling frozen at this point I started to notice ice on the ground and fairly soon I could see I was heading to the snow line.

Admittedly I have never been to the southern berg so the route up Rhino was a first for me, the snow added to my excitement but there was enough of it that I really struggled find the path.

It is fairly amazing that you can struggle to find and see the path ahead of you in the snow but as soon as you look back you can see the path fairly clearly and the way that I should have actually gone.

Most of the way up the pass, while you are still on the right side , you head down to the gully (it was a little river of melting snow at that point) I completely missed the two cairns on the other side (I only saw them on my way down), with the cloud/mist, I just never saw them, and with the snow around it looked like the path went up the river/gully sections. As I went up it was eroded and very loose and in sections and fairly steep, I lost my footing to very loose soil and rock, and I was in disbelief that the route actually went up that way. I moved in the little river as it was the section with the most secure, I was honestly worried about how I was going to get down.

With the snow I just never found the path again, and just picked a spot above me and headed up, when I could see the first section on the right side that looked like it was the top of the pass I aim for that and when I got to the top I found the path on the top, I looked backwards and could see it heading into the pass, so that was going to hopefully be my safer route down.

On top the sun was out and I was above the clouds, it was great I warmed up and ran most of the way to the peak, the wind picked up close to the peak so I didn't stick around on top for very long.







When I got back onto the path at the pass, the sun had melted a fair bit of the snow, most of it in fact on the north facing slop. So I could see the path down and took it, there are parts that are fairly eroded but nothing like what I had to climb up. Using the path was great I was a lot happier, and when I got to the section where I had gone wrong, I had to laugh at myself as it was fairly obvious, I had just missed the cairns in the mist and snow.

As I got lower I was able to start running and I quickly made my way down and past Pillar Cave cave and back to the office.

I have a fantastic morning out, and it was defiantly worth the start in the drizzle and having to push through the cold and wet.

Does anyone have info on the condition of Mashai Pass after all of the heavy rainfall?

I went up it a few weeks ago - but there have been more rainfalls since, so it might be worse. One washaway needs a new trail around it, so you just have to bundu bash for 10m, but the rest of the trail goes. Just lots of the rocks that you have to scramble over are loose at the moment, presumably either that some of the sand underneath has been washed away or they have recently fallen from higher up and not settled yet (or maybe I'm forgetting that there have always been loose rocks on Mashai Pass).

The ladder out of the first river crossing (about 2km from the car park) has been washed away, so that's a bit scrambly at the moment.

Even Langalibalele Pass has suffered from these rains - with a new washaway near the top.