Walker's Pass - Mzimude Route

Excerpts from ghaznavid's Walkers Pass/Andre’s Knob: The Winds of Winter write-up:

ghaznavid wrote: Walkers Pass can be approached from the north or the south (called the Mzimude Gully or the Walkers Ridge routes). We opted for the north/Mzimude Route. Strictly speaking one should follow the approach to Mzimude Pass to reach this route, but we opted to use the approach I had used on Mzimude Pass a few years back.

We took the right side of the Cobra, the wind was howling, but the small Berg was reached after a while.

From the top of the ridge we traversed around to the Mzimude Pass gully. Walkers Pass follows this gully till you reach the waterfall near the base of Mzimude Pass. Just before this scree field and cliff, there is a side gully that is used to get above the lower cliff line. The official start of the pass is marked by a large boulder – sounds arb, but it is easy to spot as it is much larger than any other boulder in the riverbed.

The initial gully is almost 100m vertical and is very steep. Upon topping out you reach a massive grassy slope leading to an obvious saddle and break in the cliff line.

The slog up this slope isn’t too bad, but a howling wind doesn’t help.

Upon reaching the gully, there is a large cave to the left (true right). It is in a small cutback and down a small slope. It has 2 walled off sleeping areas, both could sleep 2, but barely. We had to do some “gardening” to get it to a point where we could use it.

Dave wasn’t up for hitting Andre’s Knob, so I set off. A short 3m climb put me at the top of the gully, but technically not the escarpment (although it depends on how you define the escarpment). From here I traversed around the Walkers Ridge. There were bits of snow around, and the ground was loose in places – this combined with the wind resulted in a few minor slips. In photos the ledge looks very wide, but it is at quite a slope and above a cliff, so you don’t want to fall on this ledge.

ghaznavid wrote:

ghaznavid wrote: