Ship’s Prow Pass

Hi Andrew

We did the trip as you're planning it exactly over an Easter Weekend. Great trip with great views from the top, but man, was Ship's Prow a mission. Problem was we had lots of rain over the weekend, which meant the stream was flowing pretty strongly. So while the top section of the Pass was easy (we used the South fork at the top, which is very much the recommended route) we spent a LOT of time in the middle and bottom sections.

The pass relies on dried up streams mostly, and when these fill up with water you basically have three options: 1) Walk in the sometimes knee high water / 2) Boulder hop / 3) Hack through the extremly thick undergrowth. We did the best combination of these we could, but by the middle of the day the girls especially (who are fit, but not particularly strong) were struggeling, and the going became painfully slow.

We too wanted to camp somewhere on the way to Cowl fork, but we only just made the campsite in Cowl Stream (M6 on the maps) at nightfall where we pitched our tents best we could in the dryest (but by no means flattest!) places we could find.

All in all, the trip ate about three cameras, a tent, and we never heard from the two 'new' people we took along again. So while we have some stories to tell, I'm not sure I'd recommend it.

If everyone in the group are comfortable boulder hopping taking big steps for the entire pass carrying their packs, and can do this at reasonable speed, you'll be fine. For myself I'd definitely use this pass again if I needed it, but I'd aim for just after winter when the undergrowth should be less dense and the river less full.

Good luck on your hike!

Does anybody perhaps have the coordinates for the southern part of Ships Prow Pass? I couldn't find it under the downloads section, apologies if I missed it.

Hi Intrepid,

Yes, I was referring to the tracks for the pass, not just the summit.
If none exist then I will log it when we do the pass.

Maybe someone has mentioned this already, but it would be worth taking GPS points for the top of the pass or else digitising the point off the map. Ships tops out in an unlikely place - its high compared with many other passes, there seem to be a few alternatives when standing at the top of the escarpment and, importantly, you can't see the middle bit of the pass from the top of the escarpment because there is a 'false step' in the first few hundred metres. The thing to avoid is taking the other limb of the pass to the north.

PM me with your email address and I can send you the track for Ship's Prow southern route

Re. Ships Prow (South gully)

Apart from being very long, overgrown (lower down) and steep, are there any technical challenges on Ship's Prow Pass? Like scrambling that may require rope etc?
And does anyone have a GPS track for this pass that they may be willing to share?

Thinking of tackling this from Monk's Cowl side and linking it up with Gray's Pass, but having trouble deciding which to ascend and descend. My thinking right now is to leave the climbing for Gray's since it is (presumably??) easier, overnight in Nkosazana Cave, and then have a monster of a day descending Ship's Prow back to Monk's Cowl. Anyone have any thoughts/suggestions to the contrary?

First prize would be to get dropped off at Monk's Cowl and picked up at Injisuthi!

We went up Grays and down Ships last year, you can read the trip report on VE, think it was called something like Up Grays down Ships Pass. The only "difficult" parts was on Grays where we missed the turnoff for the upper path and I had to do a bit of scrambling to get back up it, and then the bundu bashing at the bottom of Ships which was really slow going. Just watch out for a large pine tree on the left as you go down the river, the path runs just below it. You do want to make sure you exit the river at the righ point as the undergrowth up to the path is really really thick.