Cockade Pass

Haven't there been some recent troubles at the campsite near Cathedral Peak, or am I wrong? Maybe just keep that in mind if you camp over the night before...that none of your gear goes "missing".

Hi Kelly,

Thanks for the warning, I think you're right. This thread mentions it:
www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/2-drakensberg-security/1098-current-state-of-things.html?li

Well, we did the round trip this weekend, and despite being very unfit managed to survive. Cockade took us much longer than expected (probably due to the fitness level), so we had to spent the night on the escarpment. Luckily the river had a bit of flowing water, otherwise we would have had to rely on the few litres of water we had on us. As a side note, there was quite a bit of old snow in the shades - how save do you reckon it is to boil the snow for water? We had to hike from the top of Tseketseke to the hotel on the final day, which was hell on the knees but very doable otherwise.

Cockade looked much the same as when I was there last time, which probably means that was after the rock slide as well. The part between the camp side and the Cockade/Xeni split is overgrown with no clear path and very few cairns. The first bit of Cockade involves a lot of boulder hopping, once again without a clear path, but it gets better after about a quarter of the way up. Tseketseke has a very clear path, and although the bottom parts are also overgrown, it isn't as bad as with Cockade.

I see that Stijn rates both Tseketseke and Cockade a 6/10 for difficulty. Maybe because of the rock slide but Cockade certainly feels as if it deserves a higher rating than Tseketseke. The path felt more challenging and was certainly more difficult to find and follow than for Tseketseke.

Finally, for anyone still wondering about "fake Tseketseke", if you start down Tseketseke this is NOT what you should see:

Cockade is "Good to Go" as of September 2011.
(going up)
Nothing to worry about in the pass, just keep an eye out for path or markers from the camp to the Cockade/Xene junction. If you do venture to the right like we did, stay there and walk straight into the junction, don't try getting back into the river.

VE GPS data was sopt on

George C

Moderator note: Post #63064 to #63107 merged into this thread from Twins Cave thread

Hi Tony

Planning to come down Cockade Pass on a hike over Easter. See that you have done it this last weekend in these posts.

Looks really,really steep on the maps. Pass section of this site rates it 6/10. Is this an accurate assessment of it?

Regards

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Cockade Pass is quite steep, but not difficult, and I would agree with the 6/10. There is a lot of bush to negotiate lower down once you are in the Xeni valley and on the contour path, and although this is not really difficult it is frustrating and time consuming.

I plan on doing a write up at some stage, but just find myself with quite a backlog of things to do at the moment, so I'm not sure when that would be.

Thanks Tony

Think we will rather go up it than down then. Got caught out on Ships Prow last year on our final day with the all the hacking, bashing and hopping - so we will give ourselves lots of time this year!

Thanks - just what I was looking for!