Manxome Pass

Thanks for the photos and write up Richard and elinda, I'm really pleased you guys had a great hike doing these two passes.

Congratulations are in order; two more people have reached the noteworthy milestone of doing all the official Mnweni Passes (I was along on many of the passes with them) on this hike - well done elinda and Thora.

tonymarshall wrote: Congratulations are in order; two more people have reached the noteworthy milestone of doing all the official Mnweni Passes (I was along on many of the passes with them) on this hike - well done elinda and Thora.

Impressive work ladies! Well done Elaine and Thora!

Here is some more pictures of the caves in Manxome pass from my recent trip. There are four caves in the main pass.

The biggest being approximately 300m from the pass summit has a low grade scramble to get into (nothing worse than the first scramble on the NHA into Corner). It will only sleep maximum 5 people, the floor is very slanted and sleeping space is minimal. The cave has been used before, note the stacked stone "wall". 


 



Approximateley 200m below the bigger cave is a overhang and below that a small cave that will fit 3 people.




The fourth cave is situated high above the overhang cave and I could not see a possible route into it without the use of ropes.



All these caves are situated on the lefthand wall while heading up the pass and above the halfway mark of the pass. The absence of flowing water anywhere nearby makes them quite difficult to use as a overnight stop, unless you want to haul a extra 2-3kg up Manxome.........
   

After a very hard day 1, and bivvying near the top of Pins Pass, we decided to skip Manxome Pass, and take an easy stroll around the cutback. The problem was that we were both very low on water, and there would be no viable water for a while.

We decided to detour to the top of Manxome Pass to see if we could find ice to melt.

Standing at the top of the pass, we decided to head down Manxome, but then head up Mnweni Pass instead of Mnweni Buttress Pass.



Manxome Cave is fairly high up the pass, but neither of us attempted to head to it. The scramble to it looks fairly committed, and getting back down would be a pain.



The top of the pass is a fairly gentle grass gully, that never actually gets that steep. It would be fairly painful to go up, but it is rather pleasant to descend. There is actually a trail developing, at least for the top quarter of the pass.





Naturally we stopped at the famous balcony for a short break, but with practically no water left, this was a short stop.


The views were great, although the smoke did obscure them at times.


The lower section of the gully got a bit overgrown. We picked a line that avoided this, and followed the gully right down to the river. We knew we had to break left to avoid the waterfalls, but decided to go for a break on the river first, mostly because we were both our of water by now.



After a nice long break, plenty to drink and a bit of a wash in the river, we went a short distance back up the grassy slope and traversed around to the ridge we would follow to get back down to the river below the waterfalls. This section was by far the hardest part of the pass, although it was just steep - would be hard ascending, but not bad going down.



We made our way down to the river, where we found a surprisingly good trail, which connected to Mnweni Pass just below 2200m - and upon reaching Mnweni Pass, we joyfully chortled "Callooh! Callay!". We proceeded from there up Mnweni Pass to Nguza Cave.

Overall Manxome Pass gets a rare 5* quality rating from me - I rate less than 7% of the passes I have done as 5 star passes, and this is definitely worthy of this title. For reference, the other passes I currently rate 5* are Cockade (kind of want to rate it 6 out of 5), Ifidi, Xeni, Camel, Organ Pipes, Leslies and Mashai.

As for difficulty, descending it is actually not bad at all. Going up would probably be fairly hard, as it is a long sustained pass. It's primary quality is a great view on good stable terrain.

Fun anecdotal side-note: the name of this pass is the origin of an interest that has resulted in people who spend considerable amounts of time with me being occasionally subjected to random Lewis Carol poetry. Notably including How Doth the Little Crocodile, You are old Father William, The Mouse's Tale, and obviously Jabberwocky.

Great pics Ghaz. Youa re getting your eye in.

What pack does your friend have?

Anyone got pics of inside Manxome Cave? Coords?

Serious tribe wrote: Great pics Ghaz. Youa re getting your eye in.

Thanks.

Serious tribe wrote: What pack does your friend have?

Wild Craft 65L. I believe it was one he bought when he was in India.

Serious tribe wrote: Anyone got pics of inside Manxome Cave? Coords?

See Vivo's post above. Tony's post above also includes photos of the cave that is at ground level and doesn't require a climb to get to. If you download the GPS track under downloads, it includes a co-ord of the cave.

The cave with the scramble "Upper Manxome Cave" has very little usable floor space for such a large cave, due to the sloping and uneven front. Also looks like it can be damp in summer.

Last time I went up Manxome I found 3 caves, all on the left as you ascend (true right as you descend). I've posted all three below, starting at the bottom and then working my way up to the top one. Of the three, I would only rate the top one as "livable". Well, I don't even think I would fit into the first two caves, they are simply too small.

This shelf in the top Manxome cave was quite level and large enough for my 2m frame. Still, for such a large cave the usable space was limited.

Nice view from here. Can you see the two Basuthos on the left of the image?



We went up in Dec, and boy it was a hot day. And yes, this pass just goes on forever! With no water even when you top out, unless you want to walk all the way into Lesotho and find water in a river to the NW. We opted to just walk around the cutback as we were overnighting in Ledges cave anyway.

Ok, so I won't be unrolling my mat in this cave!