Giants Hut

tonymarshall wrote:

Yes, long ago there was a jeep track from Giant's Castle Camp roughly along the Oribi Ridge route, to the top of Taylor's Pass at Lotheni. The materials to build Giant's Hut were taken by vehicle along this track and dropped off somewhere near the hut. The scars of the jeep track, which has been closed for many years, can easily be seen along most of Oribi Ridge route, and along the Contour Path towards Lotheni and the top of Taylor's Pass. At one of the stream crossings on the contour path, the old concrete drain pipes of the track can still be seen. In places the path follows the old jeep track, while in other places the path is quite far from the old jeep track.
 

Ah ok. It would be nice to use the track again to rebuild the hut, because the transportation costs by helicopter is what prevents the hut to be rebuild as the staff told me. vut, I guess reopening the track is not possible due to the road erosion it would create.

Noticed these pics on facebook posted by berg adventures of Giants hut..... Shooo not in a good state at all

  

It's been in this state for years. We normally just pitch our tents in the tarn in front of the hut (when it's not raining).

Pity that these structures are not maintained. Same with the footpaths. Spoke to the camp manager at Giants last year, excuse she gave me is that there is no money for maintenance. Seeing about 5 employees in the office section and 10 on the grounds, I thinks it's more a case of not wanting to go out and do some work, much easier to sit on your behind and wait for the money to roll in than to go do some hard manual work outside. Guess when the place finally falls apart and the tourists move away they'll try and do something. I personally don't mind the berg returning to its wilderness form, it simply means less people there. I just don't like paying entrance fees and to see it squandered rather than put to productive use.

On the other hand, next door at Injasuthi they are at work and definitely doing lots of maintenance work. They were fixing the entrance road about a month ago and we saw nearly 30 guys working on the firebreaks there 2 months ago. So some staff are certainly pulling their weight.