Buttress Pass

After our ascent of Hlatimba South Pass in the morning over the August long weekend, elinda, Richard Hunt, Lorinda, Thora and tonymarshall descended Buttress Pass that afternoon.

A view down the pass from the top. The ridge to the right of the photo with the long, narrow firebreak on top running into the background is the ka Zwelele ridge which we walked in along the previous day.



Commencing the descent on the grass slope at the top of the pass.



A little lower the route narrows and we were forced into the gully which was still choked with snow from the snowfall two weeks earlier. The easiest (and only) way down was to slide down in the soft snow.



When the gully widened out a bit we were able to get out of the snow onto the grass side slopes.



Descending a steep section of Buttress Pass.



We then continued down the true right grass slope. Buttress Pass is also known as The Passage, and it is not hard to imagine the narrow, steep sided gully being likened to a passage.

A view back up the grass side slope.



A view down to the bottom of the pass. When we got down to the bottom we found a flat area to tent on next to the stream near the Contour Path just across the firebreak at the centre of the photo below.



Lower down the pass we crossed over the ridge into the next gully to the (true) right. The pass is not the gully in the background, but the next gully to the right in the photo below, obscured by the rock band above. The gully in the background is not a hikeable pass as it is blocked by vertical cliffs in the upper rock band.



A view back up the ridge. Buttress Pass is the gully to the right of the ridge running down the centre of the photo below.



A view up Buttress Pass, the right hand of the two snow filled gullies in the photo below. Hlatimba Buttress is the peak on the left.



Our campsite near the Contour Path with the view back to Hlatimba Buttress and Buttress Pass.



The next morning we headed north east along the Contour Path to the path coming down from Redi Pass, and followed this path down the ridge below Redi back to Lotheni.

Tony Marshall in long pants... surreal

I was in shorts for the whole hike, as always, see the photo on the Hlatimba Pass South write up. Richard is the guy in long pants (and blue top) in these photos.

I almost wished I was wearing longs in the snow slide, the shorts served as a great snow scoop to fill up with snow around my butt and really get things cold and wet.

Drakensbergie wrote: Tony Marshall in long pants... surreal

Tony in long pants is about as common as me in shorts