Cathkin Mountain Pass (Ships Prow North Fork)

Its not technical at all, other than the usual boulder-hopping and small waterfall-clambering that belongs to passes such as these. In addition to the 5km pleasant approach that it shares with the South Fork, it just gets even worse till you reach the base of the real climb. At this point you are rewarded with a considerable scree field. Its probably the worst that I know of in the Berg and you can easily see it from a distance. This is the most dangerous section of the pass, see story of some narrow escapes from a rock avalanches and falling boulders here . Personally I wouldnt bother with a helment. Its still a risk even with one on. We had to cross the scree field and walk right in it at some point, its pretty unavoidable, though you can find strips of more stable terrain, and walk next to it a little higher up. After the scree field its just plain long, steep and never ending, but grassy - much like Manxome.

I will look at some pics and see what I can add here a little later.

This is roughly what I am remember of the route (I'm learning these days that unless you draw these kind of topos directly after a trip, the exact memory of minor details becomes increasingly difficult to remember). But you will get the gist.



The warm-up section after the split with the South Fork is basically done right in the gully. When we started hitting the scree section we first stayed on the true right until we were forced right into the horrible loose stuff. This we crossed diagonally right (looking up) towards the true left were we at some point gained a somewhat more stable, vegetated strip (the green tongue surrounded by scree in the picture). This enabled us to gain critical altitude through the scree section. I seem to remember needing to circumvent the large, dark boulder at the bottom, necessitating a short foray into the nasty stuff to the left and back onto the tongue. We did not walk this tongue right through to the end (though you probably could). A quicker escape to the upper grass slopes became evident, but which involved recrossing the scree diagonally left towards the true right again. This proved effective, but this is also where a rock avalanche was triggered onto two members of the group, who luckily managed to crouch behind a large boulder, with the avalanche parting around them on both sides, to avert a serious situation. I was on the dark green patch just above this part when it happend, close, but out of eye-sight. Even this dark green patch is pretty steep with lots of loose delights. I remained there until those behind me came into view and as they were busy relating what had just happened, a microwave size boulder started bouncing down towards us (having been indirectly loosed by the guy ahead of us), missing me by a few meters, and narrow missing one of the members that had just survived the avalanche.

Once beyond the dark green section, the risk calms down considerably, but be aware that this upper section is longer and steeper than what you might think by looking at it from below.

This is the warm-up section after the South Fork split:



The scree section:




Reaching the more stable tongue in the scree section:


Bear in mind that the severity of the gradient and the depth is definitely lost in these shots.

Hope this helps.