Leslie’s Pass

What pack did you get?

Fitness wrote: I'm envious

Me too. Kind of. My hike this weekend took a forced cancellation due to work

Oh well - Cathedral Peak next weekend, Cathkin the following weekend, taking my mother hiking the weekend after that, and Mafadi the weekend after that. Ok, all is good

Hi ASL,

See some write ups of Leslie's Pass on the "Re: Leslie's Pass" thread, and I've done a write up on the escarpment route of Injisuthi Summit Cave to Leslie's Pass on the "Injisuthi Area Summit Escarpment Exploration" thread.

Indeed an awesome hike. pm me if you need gps info.

This hike was awesome!

It was a bit epic as we took a pretty direct route up Leslies pass and were scrambling for over 3 hours. A word of warning here about hiking with climbers.. they seem to enjoy ignoring paths in favour of anything that looks rocky and a bit challenging! There is also an intense 4km bushwacking section from Marble Baths to the base of the ridge before the pass which was rough.

Basically we were quite poked before we started the ridge and then the path up the ridge is most direct and steepest I have used in a long time. Due to my back injury this year I haven't been able to train so by the time we started up the pass I was very tired. The scramble up was also very tough and only pure stubbornness got me up.

We topped out at 430ish and then cruised over to a really pretty valley and set up our tent 3m from the stream. Summit Cave was an option but we decided we rather chill out and test my new tent. Once we cleaned up a bit and got properly settled in it was 6.20pm. Both of us had pushed so hard on the scrambling that we felt like puking so we decided to nap before dinner. Actually we passed out and I only woke at 9pm! I tapped Nico on the shoulder and said "dinner time"!

From there we were good though and enjoyed a bobotie and rice from Backcountry with a litre of Game and some hot chicken soup for me. Don't mention the half slab of chocolate..

The weather was incredibly kind to us and it was mostly overcast with no wind. It did drop to 1 degree in the early hours but we were toasty in our bags. Next day was a crisp and clear start and we only got going after 730am. The return route was a lot easier and quicker as we decided to try and stick to the path as much as possible and avoided much of the scrambling of the day before. There was a lot of slipping and butt sliding as the path is particularly loose and steep but we got it done and were back at Injisuthi camp by 3pm.

Post the hike I can say that I really enjoyed it. It's very deceptive on paper and the up route is the harest pass I have done in the Berg, mainly due to the scrambling aspect and the bushwacking and steep ridge just before. I may feel differently if I was in fit condition but rate it much harder than Mweni, Rockeries or Greys which I did in the past year. Nico said that Rolands Cave was a doddle by comparison too.

I have to say that I loved it though and it felt remote and more adventurous than most. It hurt so I'm not sure if I'm rushing back but I'm really glad I did it. Stunning scenary as usual for this area too. check pic..

sorry... struggling with pic uploads!

maybe today is better... a couple more pics

It was a fun and testing trip ...... Thank you ASL for having me

Check out this old post card the Parks Board is selling. The trees are still tiny...

Nice snow...

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