Thumb Pass

On the third day of our four pass hike at Giant’s Castle in mid December last year, The Real Dave and tonymarshall descended Thumb Pass. 

We had seen the photos in the preceding posts with the stunning scenery, and were looking forward to seeing these views ourselves, but after pretty great weather on the previous two days, the mist that had been forecast on our last day, that we hoped would delay it’s appearance, was there, and we had to be content with only intermittent views above the top of the mist. 

We used the summit route described by ghaznavid, and depicted in the first photo on the previous page, in the post of 26 Feb 2014. With the mist swirling around and sometimes creating low visibility, it was a bit tricky finding the correct descent route, but after several false starts we found it. In the photo below David descends with the top of Thumb Pass visible in the left background.  

 

Once we could see the traverse ledge below, we could figure out the way down to it, and descended with some scrambling.  

 

David followed after I had gone across most of the grass slope ledge, and could confirm that we were on the correct route once I could see the gully ahead up to the ‘false top’ of Thumb Pass.

 

The photo below shows the grass slope ledge leading into the gully which is ascended to get into the main pass gully on the other side of the ridge, with the 'false top' visible.  

 

David ascending the gully to the ‘false top’.  

 

We commenced our descent of the main gully in the mist.  

 

After going down the first section of the gully, we came to the land bridge section, and walked to the end of this anyway, although all we could see was the mist below us, and at the end the top section of The Thumb above the mist. We returned to the gully, and continued down, reaching an obstacle which I was not comfortable to go down with my pack on, perhaps sensing some apprehension after what I experienced on a similar descent in August, so David went down, leaving his pack with me. Once he was below the obstacle, he could see that the descent was not nearly as difficult as I had thought, although seeing as he was already down and his pack was with me at the top with the rope already tied on, I lowered the packs down anyway.  

 

A short way down we came to the grass ledge with the large cave, and the photo below is the view down the pass gully below this ledge.  

 

We walked along the ledge for a long way, but the mist was all around and we again missed out on the views we had been looking forward to, so we returned to the cave where we had left our packs and continued down the pass in thick mist, and along the contour path and back to Giant’s Castle camp in light rain. 

It was a pity not to have visibility on the pass, but maybe another opportunity will come for me to do it again, and try the summit route used by Warren M and Nicolaas. 

With these few passes, I have now completed all of the passes at Giant’s Castle area, although I would still like to try some of the variations some of the passes have (Gypaetus and Giant’s Castle Passes), and perhaps Eastern Gully if I can get confirmation that it is not too technical for me. 

What's with Thumb Pass and thick mist! Of the 6 times I set out to do that pass, only 2 weren't in mist - one was in winds so strong that Hobbit couldn't stand up, resulting in us bailing before we even reached the contour path. The second time I successfully did the pass was the other time I had clear weather.

Nicely done on finding the route in the mist, that top section is a bit tricky, especially in the mist. I'm sure you can see why it took us so many tries to figure out the route the first time - considering that we only knew there was a pass there, but didn't know where it actually went.

Nicolaas wrote:

Over the weekend I decided to do some escarpment exploring between Mount Durnford and Bannerman's face. I tented in the lower berg, and went on a day mission up Bond pass and down Langies (the weather on Sunday was superb; typical autumn weather, all would agree who were in the mountains over the Easter weekend). Following the comments of Ghaz that crossing the ridge of the Thumb is one of his coolest experiences, I had to visit and possibly cross it myself. I gained access from the northern side of the Thumb Spur. In the below photo, it's the grass slope coming from the top right of the picture, that leads into the top of Thump pass gulley (Probably what Warren described). The gulley is very steep, even though I only had to go down approximately 10m before I turned onto the ridge (land bridge?).

 

Hi. I am in the process of planning an ascend of Thumb pass at the end of April. Studying this thread, I am still a bit uncertain regarding the exact route if one decides to, instead of looping around and approaching the summit from the south, to rather follow the direct approach as per WarrenM's and Nicolaas' explanations. 

By analysing Nicolaas' photo, I am wondering whether the "...grass slope coming from the top right of the picture, , that leads into the top of Thump pass gulley..." might not possibly be depicted by the line in red below? I do not mind exposure if it saves a bit of effort and provides some cool views   Any insights or tips will be greatly appreciated!

 

The top of the pass isn't visible in that shot, and there's a cliff between where you'll be and the ledge marked in the photo. When you get to the top of the gully, you'll be at a false summit between Thumb and the escarpment. You go over this and drop a bit on the south side, where you'll find a ledge to traverse along and a short steep grassy slope to access a gap in the escarpment cliff line. The top bit is tricky, be careful. Remember that this tops out very close to the top of Hlubi Pass, the summit is south of Thumb, even though most of the pass is north of it.

For the record - it took me 5 tries to figure this pass out, although notably all 5 were in bad weather. Figuring out the top section was always the problem, the bottom is obvious. If Intrepid hadn't posted that he had done the route before, and then proceeded to provide no useful route information, I would have given up on the prospect of looking for a pass there. And consequently would have missed out on one of my favourite Drakensberg stories, being my quest to find Thumb Pass  

ghaznavid wrote:

The top of the pass isn't visible in that shot, and there's a cliff between where you'll be and the ledge marked in the photo. 

Thanks a million for that CRUCIAL bit of information ghaznavid. Now the picture is much more clear in my head 

It is quite an epic quest you undertook to figure this pass out. I (and I believe others too) consider myself fortunate to be able to absorb your learnings, including those of other VE contributors that so generously share their tips, to continue exploring these lesser used passes and thereby maximize the love we have for the Berg    
 

Happy to report back that we had a successful ascent of Thumb Pass. @Ghaznavid and TonyMarshall - your detailed advice on how to navigate the section on the southern side of the gully top was super helpful, thank you! The grassy traverse was shorter than expected and once we identified the access point as per Tony's photo below, the line to the summit was easy-pickings   (no notable scrambles worth mentioning if you get your line right)

 
We had 2 shepherd spectators who were curiously observing us from the Thumb Spur Peak as we made our way up the steep gully, walking around on the "land bridge" and finding our way to the summit on the southern side of the gully. Needless to say, they seemed to be quite surprised to see people ascending this pass 

Regarding my question below:

supertramp wrote:

By analysing Nicolaas' photo, I am wondering whether the "...grass slope coming from the top right of the picture, , that leads into the top of Thump pass gulley..." might not possibly be depicted by the line in red below? I do not mind exposure if it saves a bit of effort and provides some cool views 

This image is hidden for guests.

 Any insights or tips will be greatly appreciated!

 

The image below indicates the view looking northwest as you stand at the top of the gully. You'll be able to see our spectators at the top. There is an imposing section, probably only a meter or so across (indicated in red below), that would make doing this line a bit too risky in my view. I did however contemplate it for a good while. I am however confident that this might be the line that Nicolaas referred to in his post. 

 

We also found the scramble section in the main gully to be quite a bit harder than originally expected. Both sides of the chockstone are just a bit too narrow to properly wedge oneself or to use the chimney technique. We managed to get my wife up on the left side (with some support from below), and then I handed her our backpacks (which was quite a tricky maneuver) from where I managed to ungraciously make my way up.
 

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed Thumb Pass and will definitely do it again in the future. The approach from the contour path is really straightforward. The gully itself, although steep, was quite solid underfoot and was easily managed (excluding the chockstone)