Four passes- Ifidi, Icidi, Fangs, Ntonjelane.

George ( Geordie), Jackie ( Jax) Sabine ( Sabine), Penny, John.



Well, we did it. Four passes in the Mnweni over 7 days. Starting on the 28th April and finishing on the 4th May. Seven daze of glorious berg weather, no serious injuries and all according to the plan with the exception of finding one or two caves. 5 of us in total, 4 with enough good berg experience to accommodate John, who was strong but a little lacking in packing and rock hopping skills, but a fast learner and a pleasure to have along. Jax was once again the baby of the group, leaving me nervous about hiking with people under 50 years of age, but she managed just fine, in spite of the disadvantage.
We planned to do the Northern most, Southern most, most beautiful, and longest of them with a bit of technical thrown in, and we got it right in the mix of :
Ifidi (up,) Icidi (down), Fangs (up) and Ntonjelane (down).
We thumbed a lift to the “new bridge” and followed the beaten track up to Cycad cave, where some kind soul had recently grasscut a camp just below the cave. Nice and flat and much better and less dusty and exposed than the cave. Thanks to them, and no thanks to those before us who have still not learnt how to take a poo in this environment. Sies.
The pass itself is not as intimidating as the reputation but still required a lot of hard work and at one point below the first “Choke Stone”, we had kept on the slopes to the right and had a hairy time getting back into the river. As mentioned by others who have recently done the pass, no ropes necessary, but 2 back pack passes in our case. We topped out at about 3PM and met some friends who had come up from the Sentinel for the weekend. Spent the night camping with our friends and then started down Icidi the next morning. Sorry GAZ no time to look for Ifidi cave.








Icidi is long, with the biggest problem seeming to be negotiating the side gullies. John struggled a bit here and we wound up finding a nice flat spot among the boulders in the river bed to camp, just 500m short of Grass cutters cave. A great little camp with the only contra indication being a flash flood, but the weather man had promised that this would not happen. Lucky that we stopped here, because grass cutters was occupied by, well, grass cutters, I guess, except that they had not cut the grass. They must have hidden away when we came along but we found their smoking fire and blankets. Imagine their surprise when they returned to find sweeties and a few cigarettes on their pot top when they returned.







Day 4, was then called a rest day, but it’s still quite a way around to 5-Star cave and then still further up to the Fangs- Mbundini split. There is a great place to camp here in the triangle between the respective rivers, just look around a bit, there are flat spots and rock kitchens a plenty.
Fangs was easily the most beautiful pass in this area and not at all difficult to negotiate, although we were never sure of exactly where the “fangs” were. Quite strange though, we had a good path in the beginning, with lots of mule poo, leading us to believe that our friends may have now started using Fangs for their transport activities, but this does not seem to be the case. I think the mules are kept here, hidden possibly, while they tend a rather large dagga plantation between the rivers above our camp. Strange again was that the plantation is fallow at the moment but the mule poo fresh????





OK, where were we, topping out of Fangs at lunch time, and spending the afternoon and next day waddling off towards Ntonjelane.
We camped about 3 Km short of the pass head , woke up early and started our last pass with some sadness, swiftly overridden by thoughts of showers and a steak at Bingelela. The pass is taking a lot of strain from the local activities and is severely eroded in most places, and slippery too with Penny notching up more than 10 bum slides (It’s them Hi-Tec’s girl, get something else). It seem to be the mules causing the most damage as they wheel spin (or brake)on the steeper sections and we counted over 7 carcasses of these poor creatures. But on the bright side they keep the local vulture colony viable.
There were several groups of smugglers on their way up, looking very pleased with themselves but still respectful to us and only too happy to indulge in some broken conversation, accept a cigarette or two and pose for some pictures. (I always ask first). A couple of them took a shine to young Jax with her golden locks and demanded a photo opportunity. All good fun and again, never feeling threatened once. The only intimidating thing was an old man who started walking down with us, and matched our pace the whole way down, in gum boots.
At the new bridge (Ntonjelane side this time), we met the construction manager and asked for a lift back to the cultural centre. He wasn’t too keen at first, but when he noticed the picanins getting the last of our offerings and the fact that he would have 3 pretty looking ladies on the back of his truck, he relented.













We showered and signed out at the cultural centre and headed for the fresh fruit of the Bergville Spar, booked into a bungalow at the camp site and then headed off for that steak.

GPS track and chit chat on the hike available on request.

I am even more that I could not make it ,It looked like a great hike , Whens the next one.

Looks flippen awesome...!!!
We are looking at Fangs for our next hike...or Ntonjelana....ONly doing a one nighter..Which would you recommend for sheer views?

Beard wrote: Looks flippen awesome...!!!
We are looking at Fangs for our next hike...or Ntonjelana....ONly doing a one nighter..Which would you recommend for sheer views?

Fangs for sure. Hard pressed on a one-nighter though.

Well done guys - sounds like a fantastic hike. I have yet to do Ntonjelane.....

By the way - I loved your profile photo "Beard" - amazing! It looks a lot like Rolands........A real leap of faith to be sure...... or surely not???!!! Do tell......

elinda wrote: By the way - I loved your profile photo "Beard" - amazing! It looks a lot like Rolands........A real leap of faith to be sure...... or surely not???!!! Do tell......

That looks very much like photo shop, but the lighting on it is darn well matched. The give away is his left arm. His right leg has some sun light on it and thus from the angle of the sun, he would be outside the cave (refer to the bit of light at the entrance of the cave) and thus would not be alive to post on this forum. His size compared to the size of the entrance of the cave also would mean he is not in the cave (although once again it has been done very well). He should have a bit of light on the top of his arm for a short distance above his wrist which is also a give away. Took me a while to find some clues though... Maybe I should stop watching so much Medical Detectives

Hey yes thats Rolands. For some reason we got into these jumping pics, looks cool with the horizon under the jumper.
This is an are we have frequented, its a really cool pass, mikes, and the cave is too cool. Hairy ledge getting into it but once in, its amzing. Espciall in the morning.
Next morning coming out was REALLY windy, and on the ledge i had my hat blown off, but reacted quick enough to catch it (stupidly) as i nearly lost my footing. Great hike though.

I only saw the photoshop comment now. Hahah...This is totally legit...It is taken with 4 mates...ill post more. Its about 1.5m from the edge of the cliff outside the mouth of the cave. Ill try find more and post them. We have about 40 or so of these...

Wow! I am totally fascinated - can't wait to hear ( and see) more!