The ridge linking Mnweni Visitor Center to Cathedral Peak

The maps suggest it is possible to hike from the Mnweni Visitor Center to the Didema area. The bulk of this is along a prominent ridge line. I have now used this ridge a few times during the X-Berg and also as a way of doing the Bell traverse from the Mnweni side.

From the Mnweni Visitor Center, walk backwards along the road a few hundred meters. Cross the bridge and almost immediately afterwards, follow a steep path up the ridge. As it starts levelling out, aim a bit leftwards through some trees. You will now get onto a road and can follow this towards Scramble Kop. After a while, the road bends right and at some point it will seem sensible to leave this and to go straight across the grasslands, aiming for a path leading up into the obvious saddle.

This path goes up to the saddle and then continues through the next rock step in the ridge. A very badly eroded section of path takes you through this. From here, a series of surprisingly good paths lead along the line of the ridge, aiming for the outer base of the puddings. You get great views of the Cathedral Ridge, the Saddle and also the ridge sticking out in front of Mponjwane.

The flat easy going is eventually replaced with a path up a steep ridge line. Follow the path and where it traverses out to the left, and then aim diagonally right up the next bump. (you do not want to go too high up the ridge itself due to a hidden saddle ahead)

I continued up to a height of about 2500 m before traversing leftwards under the puddings. The outer pudding is easy to get up, while the middle and inner pudding need a little scrambling and some route finding. The easiest line for both seems to be from the saddle between the inner and middle puddings. If you follow the traverse line, you eventually reach the path at the base of bugger gully.

You can now either hike to Orange Peel gap and then down to Cathedral Peak, or you can follow the Bell Traverse towards the escarpment. In the later scenario, Ntonjelane Pass provides the easiest way back to the car.

If you want to do the route in reverse, follow the path down bugger gully to where it breaks out to the right. At this height, traverse left under the puddings to the outer ridge, and drop down this.


The traverse under the Middle Pudding

How much is the distance approx.? And is the a GPX file of the route somewhere?

@AndrewP....I have attached a photo, is this the valley you walked up?

That valley looks really interesting, I have never hiked up or down it.

I did cross it during one of my x-bergs, and admit to a sense of humour failure when I saw the grind I was going to have to do to get from way down there up to Orange Peel Gap.

Attached pic is a screenshot of my GPS map. Highlighted path is the route taken. (Mnweni Visitor Center is the Parking sign) The red arrow is what I interpret as the valley Richard is referring to (?)



It is about 15.5km with 1400m altitude gain to get from the visitor center to the base of bugger gully.

I posted a write up on the Mini Hike Reports thread of the six pass hike I did from Mnweni at the end of September. The first pass was the Scramble Kop Ridge route from Mnweni Cultural Centre to the base of Cathedral Peak, and then the Bell Traverse from Cathedral Peak to the top of the escarpment. 

The hiking maps show a path from near Scramble Kop going along Scramble Kop Ridge, and joining the road at Baboon Rock, in the Cathedral Peak area. I must have been on this path for some of the way, but there were so many paths going off the main path that I really couldn’t keep track of them all or where they were likely to go to. Fortunately I had the good route description, and gps information from AndrewP to assist me. 

On Saturday morning I left Mnweni Cultural Centre, and the photo below shows the view to Scramble Kop, Scramble Kop Ridge and Cathedral Peak from the road just outside the Cultural Centre. 

 

The route starts by going back over the road bridge over the Ntonjelana River and then ascending a well defined path to the right up the
ridge up towards Scramble Kop. The path then joins a road, and the road is followed for a while, being paved with concrete paving blocks on the steep section. The photo below shows a view back down the road, with the Ntonjelana River in the valley below and the road across the river that goes to the start of Rockeries and Ntonjelana Passes. The Rockeries, Mponjwane and Mnweni Needles are at the top left of the photo. 


 
After leaving the road along a track to the left, a well defined path continues up the ridge towards Scramble Kop. The photo below shows the approach to Scramble Kop, with the ridge towards the Puddings and Cathedral Peak at the left of the photo. 

 

The route goes through the saddle between Scramble Kop and the ridge to the south, and the photo below shows the view up Scramble Kop from the saddle. I left my pack near the saddle and ascended Scramble Kop which surprisingly didn’t require any scrambling, it was just an easy grass slope going around the base of the rocky section to the right and ascending another grass slope up the back of the peak.

 

From the top of Scramble Kop a panoramic view of the escarpment from Cathedral Peak to the Amphitheatre Eastern Buttress can be seen. 

 

On the summit of Scramble Kop (1762 m) with The Saddle, Rockeries and Mponjwane in the background. 

 

Scramble Kop also afforded a good view of the ridge to the south, with dozens of eroded paths going off in all directions. I would follow
the path to the right going up to the top of the ridge through the rocky area. 

 

Near the top of the ridge, the path followed an interesting narrow fissure in the rock, not too steep and obviously used extensively by
animals.

 

Once on top of the ridge, I followed the main path along the ridge, and had this view back to Scramble Kop, which shows the easy grass slope on the right that can be used to get to the summit. 

 

Being on the ridge for most of the day, I was worried about water, and had noted that about 10 km from Mnweni Cultural Centre there was a stream near the path that I could descend to to get water. I had started off carrying 2 litres of water, which I would ration to get me to the 10 km stream. I had already drank about 1 litre of that, and was pleased to find a trickle of water to the left of the path, where I had a good drink before continuing on with a litre of water. It was a fairly flat walk along the ridge, and the distantPuddings and Cathedral Peak were coming closer. 

 

The ascent necessary to get to the base of the Puddings was also very apparent as I approached the next section of ascent up the next level of the ridge. Strangely the path I was on turned to the left, and I walked about 150 m through the grass to join the next path that was going up the ridge. It
was up this ridge where I would leave my pack on the path, and descend to the right to the river to get water for the rest of the day. 

 

Glad to have water, I continued on the path up the ridge, until the main path also turned away to the left, and a fainter path I was on petered out. Mindful of Andrew’s advice not to head too high up the ridge, I angled up to the right, and soon saw the saddle that connected to the base of the North Pudding. I decided this was a good place and time for lunch, and was enjoying the shade the clouds that had moved in offered. The photo below shows the view back down the ridge from the saddle, with Scramble Kop way below in the distance. The stream where I collected water was one of the tributaries of the stream at the left of the photo, close to the natural forest on the side of the ridge.

 

Some cows were grazing nearby while I had lunch, with the photo below showing the ascent ahead from the saddle up the slopes of the North Pudding.



After lunch I continued up the slopes of the North Pudding, before contouring around to the left and then to the right towards Cathedral Peak. As I rounded the base of the peak, I got a view of the route to the summit, and couldn’t resist going up, of course leaving my pack behind. The photo below shows the summit of the North Pudding with Cathedral Peak dominating the background.



While I descended back to my pack, I had a good view across the Nxwaye valley – this is the valley in Richard Hunt’s photo in the earlier post - to Orange Peel Gap and the path from Orange Peel Gap towards Cathedral Peak on the ridge across the valley.


 
At the saddle between the North and Middle Puddings, I admired the view to the north, with both peaks of The Saddle, Rockeries and Mponjwane,
and the Mnweni Needles prominent. Although it doesn’t really show in the photo below, the path of Ntonjelana Pass wasn’t very far away. 

There was a faint trail on the slopes around the Puddings, and the Middle and South Pudding didn’t show an obvious route to ascend either of them, so I continued past towards the base of Cathedral Peak.  The photo below shows the view from the slopesof the South Pudding to Cathedral Peak, with the saddle between the South Pudding and Cathedral Peak in the foreground and the source of the Nxwaye River on the slopes of Cathedral Peak. 

 

A view back to the grass slope I had followed around the Middle and South Puddings. 

 

When I got to the Nxwaye River, there was no water in the stream, so I headed downstream, hoping to find water and a flat spot for my tent, after chatting to a large group returning from summiting Cathedral Peak. Anticipating that there wouldn’t be water where I joined the stream, this had been my plan, which I deemed preferable to carrying water for the night and next morning to Bell Cave. Water was available not too far down, and a small flattish spot, so I tented in the Nxwaye valley for the night. The photo below shows the view up the valley, with Cathedral Peak on the right. The path from Orange Peel Gap follows the ridge on the left, and enters the valley just below the major rock band at the centre of the photo. 

 

The view down valley. Flat tenting spots were not very plentiful, and I was pleased to find this one, especially on grass that hadn’t been burnt. 

  

Taking enough water to get me to Twins Cave, I departed the next morning up the steep valley, soon joining the trail from Orange Peel Gap. The photo below shows the view down the Nxwaye valley, with the trail visible at the right. 

 

The view to the top of Buggers Gully. 

 

At the top of Buggers Gully, I met a group returning from Bell Cave. After a short chat, I continued on my way, stopping to admire the view to Bell Cave (at the centre of the photo below) and to the rest of the Cathedral Range once I had descended the other side of Buggers Gully. 

 

I stopped again on the slopes of the Mitre for a tea break to avoid carrying the water I had up the ascent to Twins Cave. This spot also gave a good view of two of the passes – Ntonjelana North Pass and South Saddle Pass – I intended doing during the next two days, and the top of Twins Pass, which I would descend the next day. The photo below shows Twins, the approximate position of Twins Cave which is just out of view, and the top of Twins Pass, the gully on the right of Twins going down immediately below Twins Cave. The photo also shows, as was recently discussed on another thread, that it is quite possible to contour along the Bell Traverse path height into Twins Pass, and then ascend to Twins Cave, as an alternative to using the gully to the left of Twins with the exposed section of path near the top. 

 

Hiding a lot of my gear near Twins Cave, I headed up to the top of Mlambonja Pass with a light pack, before going down to the Kwakwatsi River for lunch. After lunch it was a short trek upstream to descend Xeni Pass and ascend Mlambonja Buttress South Pass in the afternoon, before returning to Twins Cave to overnight. 

Special thanks to AndrewP for providing navigational assistance on the Scramble Kop ridge route. 

Thanks for sharing

tonymarshall wrote:

Interesting shot of Cathedral Peak North East Ridge route.

tonymarshall wrote:

Is that a cave in the centre-right of the photo at the top of the lick of lighter coloured grass?

I still muse about the location of the fabled Trenchers Cave.

Hi tiska,

I think you mean here, in the red circle.



Enlarging the area a bit from the original photo gives.



Not really clear enough to see, although I think that face is part of the area that intrepid searched without finding any sign of Trenchers Cave.