The alternative to Durnford Gap explored

For a while now I was thinking that there had to be an alternative way over Durnford Ridge other than Durnford Gap. I was always under the impression that there were only two options to get over Durnford Ridge - you either go through Durnford Gap, or you walk all the way into Lesotho to go around it. The first time I crossed Durnford Ridge, I went through Durnford Gap. I explored the area with my wife, Supertramp and Kevin. My wife and Supertramp followed the traditional route up the valley below Erskine and Bond, while Kevin and myself tried an alternative route.

As you enter the valley below Durnford ridge, instead of going straight towards Jardine pass North, you turn right into a little valley, directly at a (roughly) 90 degree angle to Durnford Ridge. Entering the valley, after crossing the river, you will travel about 1,1km's till you start hitting the steeper sections of Durnford ridge. Or, it's about 650m from where you entered into this new valley. Here, you will naturally want to turn left, the terrain sort of begs you to take the easier approach.Approaximately 485m ahead you will see a saddle. On the right side of this saddle is a smallish square rock. No help in thick mist, but helpful when the skies are clear, like this past weekend. Anyhow, on that first Durnford trip I got to the saddle, and as I exited it, I looked towards Durnford Ridge and saw a nice grassy bank that looked like it could go to the top. There were two more grassy banks, one on the left and one on the right, but the middle one is by far the most prominent one. It is about 260m away from the top of the saddle.

I wanted to explore it, but we had to meet the others at Durnford gap, so we simply traversed under the rockband and waited for them at Durnford Gap.This possible alternative approach has stayed on my mind ever since that first Durnford ridge crossing. FFWD a few years, and on another Giants trip 4 of us were planning on exploring the alternative gap. Everything was looking fine (Feb 2020), but on the morning we went up Durnford Ridge, thick cloud cover came in. You couldn't make out a human at 10m, and as it was already late in the afternoon we decided not to try and grope around for the alternative gap and possibly waste a lot of time, but rather cross over the known gap I had the coordinates for. Bummer - I came here specifically to explore this alternative crossing point, but that's mountains for you, they make their own weather.

So, with a possibility of finding fresh snow in the berg a couple of us went down this last weekend (29 Aug 2020) to Giants Castle. We went up Langies and slept in Bannermans cave on the Friday. The Saturday we were travelling South to Giants Castle itself. The weather was clear. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect conditions for exploring the alternative gap that has eluded me twice so far. We followed the route descriptions above right up to the top of the saddle. We looked at all three possible grass gullies and collectively decided that the middle one looked the most approachable. And so we ascended the steep gully, turned slightly left when the gradient flattened out towards the top and walked through the flattish rock band section at the top. Easy as pie. Taking this alternative route to the top of Durnford ridge is shorter than the traditional route, although a bit steeper. For me, it was nice to explore it and to finally having my suspicions confirmed that there are in fact other routes over Durnford ridge. Next time I'm going to explore the other two gullies.

The top of the saddle, looking north (the hikers are traveling south)


Getting to the top of the saddle


The top of the saddle, looking towards Bannermans cave


From the top of the saddle, looking towards Jarateng pass


The gully to the left of my wife is the one we took


The view from the top of what I'll call "Durnford Alternative Gap"


The route we took

Very interesting, Riaan. Will have to try that route

btw, did you find snow?

Nice! Its always fun to find alternative routes to the standard ones. That line won't add any distance on a GT, so definitely a viable alternative - since most parties use the Bannerman Cave gully and not the one behind Thumb.

Sabine, we unfortunately found no snow
We found lots of iced up waterfalls, and
on the way out on Sunday, sleet .