Mzimkhulu Pass North

Hi All

Last week Thursday I tackled both the North and South Mzimkhulu Passes

I will submit some photos a little latter. I was also wanting to writer more detailed trip report but due to time constraints I will just have to give a brief summary.

North Mzimkhulu Pass

Very distinct path leading all the way up from the Mzimkhulu River. The Pass was very easy. Upper reaches are grassy. The middle of the pass are stable rocks that you weave your way through.

South Mzimkhulu Pass

No path but very easy all the way down. Towards the bottom it consists of bands of ridges and I just linked into each ridge and then linked back into the path we came in on. Doddle back home

Distance: 32km
Left: 06:30am
Back: 16:40pm
Temp Start: 3 degrees C
Temp upper reaches of Passes: 4 degrees C
High Berg Temp @ 12pm 11 degrees C

Two easy passes to tick off

Regards
Selous

Mzimkhulu North



Middle Section - Mzimkhulu North



Upper Section looking down - Mzimkhulu North



Mzimkhulu South

Thanks for the info and pics.

I hear the easiest pass at Garden Castle is Stones Pass (any of the 3). These obscure passes are often thought to be at Cobham, but the border of the reserve runs up Masubasuba Pass according to the current maps...

Maybe the easiest way of hitting them all is to a Stijn style super traverse - I want to do all passes south of Sani anyway...

there are 2 approach options - start at Castle View farm (I think that's the farm name, will double check though) and take the Mzimkhulu Pipeline route to fun cave (apparently there is a good path on this route).

Option 2 is the harder way (this is how I did it), you go without a path up over the Little Rhino ridge and over the ridge coming off Verkyker Peak down into the Fun Cave valley and you find the path around the river.

From Fun Cave there is a good path the entire way.

Hi Ghaz
Ya, I did Sones South up and Stones North down two years ago also in June. Very easy. The central one seemed a little more difficult. I think I submitted some photos of the passes. They also top out at a much lower level at around 2800m
Regards
Todd

Hi Ghaz

When I did Stones passes I started from Castle View Farm, but I had to get permission from the owner who is a Dr in DBN. I then had to phone a chap at Elands Store to collect a key for his gates. It was a mission as I normally start early and the owner of the store was not happy to be woken early. I also hot the impression from the Dr that he does not like to do this too often.

I am fortunate that on this walk one of my mates owns a cottage very close to Garden Castle and this is where we started from. If you look at map #6 you will notice a dirt rd heading off to the right about 2Km above Castle view Farm on the main rd heading to Garden Castle. His cottage is one of the last along the rd. you could probably safely park your car at the end of the rd and walk from there. You will cross some private property owned by Lake Naverone and then you gain access to Ezemvelo KZN turf.

Going back to what you said about doing all or most of the passes in the Southern Berg. My mates cottage would be an ideal place yo use as a base.

Your option 2 is 100% correct.

Regards
selous

Thinking of doing Mashai pass from Garden Castle Office/Fairways , up the Rhino then returning and then down Mzimkhulu North and back to Fairways/ the Office 
We did a July camp a few years ago where we stayed at Fun cave and the the pass, on returning to the manin camp we went along the ridge/river back to the farm , some other thought it would be quicker to go via Drakensberg Gardens and along the road, and use the farm road back to camp. which was over a bridge just near Castleburn.   We arrived back around the same time.. I think they took longer but not by much!
Anyone done a similar route?

Seeing as there seems to be interest in writeups once again - and I can't find a writeup about Central Mzimkhulu Pass - here's a very brief writeup on my hike in March this year.

There are a lot of different pass lists out there. We may not all exactly agree on what counts as a separate pass vs a variation, e.g. Camel/Organ Pipes/Thuthumi complex - which one could count as anywhere between 3 and 9 different passes - or cases like Injisuthi Pass, which could be argued to be climbing routes, but I think we 95% agree on what does and doesn't count.

On my Excel spreadsheet of passes, there has been one that has been bothering me for some time. I mark a pass in yellow when I've done it, but since November 2019, there has been just a single line of white between Sani and Knuckles Traverse: Central Mzimkhulu Pass.

So in March 2025, while training extra hard to prepare for a trip to the Andes - finally, after taking about doing this for almost a decade - I teamed up with Mike to do a day hike at Garden Castle. We started by hiking up Mashai Pass (my 29th time doing this pass), and then descended North Mzimkhulu Pass. Both of these passes are well written up on VE, so I won't bother with detail on that. We debated how far one has to descend for it to constitute the full pass. We hiked till the point where the two major passes join. The middle pass is definitely the least notable of the three.

There's a waterfall at the start of the pass, which we bypassed by the steep grassy slope on the left. It was surprisingly steep and a bit slippery in places.
 
We were so close to the nose of the ridge, that we decided to get onto it and follow it from there - as this would save us the foot killer side-slope.
 
Higher up there's a short rocky scramble one has to get up, nothing serious.
 
  
After the initial rocky section, one has to decide between heading back into the gully - which looked very cliffy and wet, vs staying on the ridge and traversing into the gully below the main cliff near the escarpment. We opted for the latter. As is often the case with hikes like this, the part where photos would be the most useful is exactly when they are most difficult to take and one stops taking them.
 
The initial scrambles weren't too bad, but you spend a lot of time on questionable Drakensberg rock, and having to decide between easy moves above a fall of consequence, or harder moves where a fall would be less serious. We tended towards the latter. This section ends with a step-across that's not even 1m wide, but with a lot of air between said steps and next to you. This top section felt very sketchy!

After that step across, you walk around a corner, and there's actually a clear trail from there to the summit.
    
With this pass, I've now done every High Berg pass I'm aware of between Sani and the Knuckles. There are variation approaches to Amakehla Pass that I've seen listed and haven't done, but I don't consider those to be separate passes - although Amakehla was one of my favourites, so I should go back and do it again sometime.

From there we went down Rhino Pass, we actually passed two locals making their way up the pass, which was surprising. It was a good day!

My assessment of the Central Pass:

1. It is definitely the sketchiest of the three.
2. It doesn't feel that distinct from the south pass. While it is entirely separate, when on the ridge, I was very aware that we were only about 100m away from where one walks on the south pass, and in places, one could simply traverse from the one to the other.
3. While the views are good, I'd rate it a 3* (on a scale of 5 Cockade/Camel to 1 South Saddle) - mostly because it is fairly difficult to reach, and is nothing extra special over the nearby routes.
4. Difficulty rating would be a 4, and I'd say it is a rock pass. We didn't need to take off packs, but we had light day packs. Main source of difficulty is just getting to it. The lower section is steep, but the pass is short and tops out fairly low.

I anyone would like the GPS track - you can get it off my Strava at www.strava.com/activities/14023585814

Some pretty steep bits.  That sandy section near the top with little ballbearings can be not so nice on a steep slope, expecialy with a big drop below.  Speakiong of AmaKehla, it also has some nice steep ball bearing bits.