Mnweni hikes - 4 days or longer

If you put your mind to it, yes.

Hi markj,

in winter I always take my drom bag with. Heading towards caves does take some planning in terms of when to fill up on the approach. You either have to know where the last water will be, or make an intuitive guess. Normally water is not an issue to find - you may however have to walk a bit to fill up. If you are camping near Pins Pass on top, this area is notoriously dry. And on the approach to Mponj Cave you should defintely fill up when you hit a good water supply - dont wait till you get to the cave first.

There normally is cow dung lying around everywhere on top. If you get to a stagnant pool where the dung-density is higher, you may want to treat your water, or boil it. I have never gotten sick myself, but some of my buddies have. This is more of an issue on longer hikes such as the Grand Traverse, since, if you are going to get diarrhoea, this can take a while before it sets in.

Melting of ice and snow definitely works. However, you will have to tolerate dust and grassy bits in your water, and it takes large volumes of snow to make up enough water.

As ST mentioned, it is a dry season this year (don't be fooled by the snow). The Bell Traverse will be very dry. Do not expect anything between Bugger Gully and Twins Cave. There will definitely not be any water at Twins Cave either, unless you can melt snow. You may have to fetch water from the Kwakwatsi on top.

The Bell Traverse is not dangerous in my opinion, but it has the potential to freak people out if they cannot tolerate a bit of exposure. The maps have to issue a warning like that to keep the type of people away from there that definitely shouldn't attempt it. There are 4 exposed bits, which are short-lived, the rest is fine. Read through various threads on this forum. If there is ice and snow around, I definitely have heard of people having a challenge on the tricky bits. Can be done though.

Giant's Pass itself will be very dry. You can fill up before and after though (hopefully the stream before you get to the main gully where the pass is will not have dried up this year). On top, if you traverse around to the Lotheni side of the Giant's massif, you will pass by one seepage area, and eventually get to a second where there is a campsite right by the Makhaza Icefall where the ice climbers go. The ice in this area is formed mainly by seepage, so there is always ice and water around. The wind and temperatures around here are typically savage though.