Manxome Pass

Hi there. I want to try manxome next month. I have one or 2 first timers to the berg coming with. They will be fit enough but nervous about safety. Which is the safer route in ur opinion? The ridge between pins or around the waterfall?

Hi. I've only done the riverbed / waterfall alternative and found it quite easy. The higher approach looked a bit steep for my liking (personal view from below). Noted that it was in the month of Aug with the river level being quite low.

Enjoy Manxome, it is such a special pass!!! 

I've done the ridge and as Supertramp says, it's STEEP.  But you get into the pass quickly.
There is this one section where you cross over the ridge into Manxome that is a bit dodgy. Not difficult, but you traverse around a rock with maybe a hikingshoe wide section of grass clinging for dear life unto the rock upon which you have to walk for about 2m. The drop-off is.........intimidating. My wife's been in Rolands and she found this short traverse more frightening. I stupidly relaxed just as I finished the traverse and stepped on a wet grassy patch which slid down about 40cm. That woke me up real quick!!!

So, if you don't mind heights then you could consider this section of the ridgehop. 

There is also the possibility that you can hop over the ridge a little bit higher up. When we ascended Manxcome I looked back and from the Manxome side and it looked like you could cross over between the saddle ( a bit higher up) and the lower spot I talked about above. I couldn't see what it looked like on the Pins side, but it looked like there is a bit of rock on the Pins side, but it wasn't too high, so there is a possibility that it can work. Next time I'm going up here I plan on checking it out, except if you want to investigate and post pics on VE

I came down Manxome Pass over the Heritage Day long weekend 2020 - definitely one of the best passes in the Drakensberg from a scenery perspective. After doing it, I demoted Pins from a 5* to a 4* and put Manxome Pass in its place as one of the 7 passes I rate 5*. Technically I could have both on the list, but I prefer to keep the list as short as possible.

I used the line on the GPX in the downloads section, which uses the lower waterfall bypass - which I found pretty straightforward, no harder than anything on many Drakensberg passes. As for a beginners route - they need to be very fit beginners, it isn't a trivial pass. The bit from the bottom of Mnweni to the gully is the hardest part, but generally the route is a wide grassy gully - which means the only complexity is overall fitness, nothing technical.

Not sure if I wrote it up on VE, but my writeup is at this link:
jonathantheghaznavid.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/mnweni-traverse-the-manxome-jabberwocky/

Thanx for the replies. Ya if it was up to me I'd love to try the ridge but I'll go waterfall.we will start early to give newbies time to get up. Just very keen to climb it. A few years ago I did mweni and when I looked back at manxome I checked the map to see what it was called and couldn't believe it wasn't marked as one to climb. It's such a striking dramatic looking pass compared to others. So glad it's doable. Can't wait. Fangs was always my fav but might have a new one. Must give pins a try too. Looks hectic. 

My wife and I descended Manxome pass over the June long weekend looping it with Madonna Pass. With this post I just want to provide an update on the pass, specifically the choice of route at the Mnweni River. On our previous visit to the pass in 2020, we ascended it using the Mnweni river/waterfall approach as indicated on this thread. Going down this time around, we were in two minds between using the Pins gully exit to the true left (as per Manxome VE download) or the waterfall/riverbed route. We ended up deciding on the latter which, in hindsight, was probably not the best decision. The two alternatives is clearly indicated on the new Slingsby map below (we used the section in purple).

 

We had no problem initially exiting the pass just before the waterfall at point A (image below looking back up the pass) 

 

Once in the riverbed (just upstream of the waterfall), we exited almost immediately on the steep slopes on the right to start with the traverse (image below is the point B exit).

 

 The impact of the 2021 floods that washed away Chi-Chi bushcamp was already evident. It is worth mentioning that this exit point is very steep and the side-slope traverse and subsequent descent back to riverbed on the northern side was not a lot of fun. The ground was quite loose and it required presence of mind.

 

After eventually making our way down the steep grass bank towards the riverbed (point C), we were confronted with a severely eroded riverbank along all sides. We eventually found a ‘less dodgy’ exit point to reach the riverbed below but it was definitely outside my typical comfort zone. If one rock we stepped on had to give way I'm sure that entire bank would have collapsed. This section looked entirely different than during our last visit 6 years ago. The image below is looking back up from the riverbed.

 

Although I have not done the Pins gully exit alternative myself yet (I did scout it properly during my 2 visits), I would highly recommend future hikers to rather consider this route instead of the riverbed/waterfall bypass we used. The riverbed erosion poses quite a risk.  Other than that, Manxome remains a splendid pass. We thoroughly enjoyed the descent although our quads took a proper battering