Sani Pass to Giant's Castle

2016-12-11 Thabana Ntlenyana to the Hawk and Tent valley

[ After hiking to Thabana Ntlenyana from Sani Top early on 2016-12-11 I continued onwards towards Giants Castle intending to go well past. My trip to from Sani Top to Thabana Ntlenyana was documented at:
www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/19-lesotho-hiking/55778-thabana-ntlenyana-from-sani-top.html?start=10#70481
but since the rest of the trip was not appropriate to that topic I have continued the story here. ]

A few minutes after 8 I headed down the northern side of Thabana Ntlenyana into the valley to join the standard GT route. I made quick progress along the even ground approaching the Mlahlangubo ridge and during this time the sky clouded over. I also noticed that my Windows Lumia 640 phone (used for GPS tracking) was not charging from the solar charger which showed that it held much charge. At the end of the trip I was able to confirm that the cable had an internal break preventing a connection from the charger to my phones and this was most exasperating as I finished with a solar charger fully charged and 2 phones with totally flat batteries, one with my GPS navigator on it.

After my trip I extracted the Followmee ( www.followmee.com/ ) GPX track from the site for most of the days trip and put a screenshot of it here. Once my phone had to be switched off my Followmee location could no longer be updated, but I got most of 11th December uploaded.

My earlier review of using Followmee is at:
www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/8-drakensberg-hiking/3012-epic-day-hikes.html?start=130

I got over the ridge by 11:11 (2986m) and then headed through the next long valley towards the Litseketseke Ridge. Now the visibility got bad and it was drizzling with rain most of the time and the battery on the phone was getting very low. I got off track in the mist in the valley, but eventually started the arduous climb close to the correct line up the Litseketseke Ridge heading towards Redi Peak in the light rain. By the time I got onto a good path that traversed round Redi peak I had to switch my phone with GPS off to save what little battery it had left. I knew that the path would later veer right to get into The Hawk and Tent valley and was looking for a right fork in the path which I never saw and so I went too far and ended up doing about a 3 km circular detour to get into that valley over the ridge further west of the Kamasishenga Pass than I should have. I eventually got into The Hawk and Tent valley and got a good photo of both as the weather opened up a bit.





I then set off towards Giants Castle but did some more unnecessary detours as I had forgotten the correct line and my phone with GPS was now permanently off. I eventually found a good spot to camp for the night before dark at the end of the valley and fitted myself into the bivy. I got a fix of the GPS location of my overnight spot the next morning using my small Nokia cell phone (that I had kept off) at: Lat: -29.37444 ; Long: 29.44277 ; altitude roughly 2940m.

2016-12-12 Hawk and Tent valley via Giants Castle summit to over the Durnford ridge

I was rather cold in the bivy and did not get to sleep due to keeping warm actively. Without a GPS I was not motivated to get moving before dawn so I deferred rising to after 4:30. I took my time packing up and headed off soon after 5 a.m. towards Giants Castle which was clearly visible due to clear weather at dawn.






I took a line around the base of Giants Pass Peak and got to Giants Castle summit by 8:12 which was 15 days since I last summited it. Fortunately no trace of altitude sickness this time!


I took a summit photo with my alternate phone which was also very low on battery now and very unresponsive so that my selfie photo shows me in an exasperated state trying to get the shot.



I sent an SMS from the summit notifying those following me on the Followmee website that due a flat battery on my phone my position could no longer be updated there. I stated my intention of heading to Langalibalele pass and coming down that day.

With both my phones off, but with good visibility (though storm clouds were gathering) I headed back down to the top of Giants Pass and immediately started up the ridge next to Long Wall. I crested that ridge and then made my biggest blunder of the trip as a thunderstorm got going. I had forgotten that the Durnford ridge was much further off and imagined that it was nearby to the left. With rain and small hail coming down I pursued a line over a ridge too far East and headed down that valley initially thinking it was the valley adjacent to Potter Hill, Bond and Erskine which I had only vaguely remembered from my previous GT. Well to cut a long story short my line took me deep into Lesotho and it took me several hours to get back to the escarpment via a circuitous route. Fortunately the rain stopped and the sun came out so I switched on my Nokia phone and got a GPS fix as Lat: -29. 33285° Long 29.41240° Alt. 3268m which I plotted on the map which was now finally safe to open up. I then walked out on a compass bearing East by North East to the escarpment at Katana. I got a view of Giants Castle summit and Long Wall due south to confirm my position.

I then headed up the steep line to get over the Durnford Ridge late afternoon. Fortunately I saw the cairn marking the Durnford gap and got over this before it got dark. By this stage my feet had been wet all the time since mid day the day before and had developed several large blisters, and one large one popped soon after getting through the Durnford gap. I made my way down the valley till I found a camping spot behind a rock opposite The Bond.

2016-12-13 Walking out via Langalibalele Pass

I found that my sleeping bag had absorbed much moisture (seemingly from the humid air as I had carefully protected it from the rain inside a plastic bag). The damp sleeping bag made this night colder than the last one and probably about 1:30 to 2 a.m. I had had enough of actively staying warm. I packed up and with good moon and star visibility then headed down the valley and around to the top of Langalibalele Pass. I topped up with water there and then decided to head down the pass. I went slowly due to poor light and a degraded path which I found to be difficult to follow in places for a pass rated only at grade 2.
I eventually went too far left and got into some serious scrambling and then decided to rest until good dawn visibility. Around 4:30 I resumed the descent after moving right and finding the path again. I got onto the long ridge of the pass in good clear weather and then tried to switch my Nokia phone on and send an SMS of my position to Andrew Melrose who was to collect me. The phone was very low on battery, but stayed on over more than an hour on prominent parts of the ridge that seemed to offer visibility of most of KZN to the sea, but even with multiple resend attempts I could not get any signal and the SMS never was sent out before the phone died completely.

Eventually I hiked in to Giants Castle camp after 8 a.m. with feet in very bad shape and was able to phone from there. I was treated to being allowed a warm bath at one of the chalets at the camp. A hearty breakfast also had me in a much more pleasant state of mind. Andrew arrived to take me back to Howick and Cedara about an hour after my arrival.

I was hoping to make this hike more epic with a finish down Leslies Pass at Injasuthi, but failure of my GPS due to a broken charging cable induced navigation errors that cost me much time as did severely blistered feet from being continually wet reduced my walking speed. After my return I addressed these issues especially by a thorough waterproofing of boots, backpack, clothing etc using clear silicone dissolved in mineral turpentine. However, I will do a posting of that and how well it worked on my next hike elsewhere on VE.