GT2014/15 - Don't Follow the Lights

You guys khulu record is really impressive, well done. A pity you missed the lot around the Didima Cave to Nkosazana area due to the weather otherwise it could have been even more.

I'm just curious about the 28 (well 27, after agreeing with Ghaz that Sehonghong 2 doesn't count) khulus that I did on the April 2014 GT I did the write up on, seeing as Stijns 24 khulus (TN is not a khulu?) was regarded as the previous GT khulu record. Does anybody know of someone doing more than 27 khulus on a GT, and if not would you consider that this was the GT khulu record before your GT?

Tony, my list certainly includes quite a few peaks that are not Khulus and no, I've never considered it to be any sort of record. As with most of these things, we could adopt the FKT (fastest known time) concept and consider yours the record until somebody else claims otherwise.

Or at least until Ghaz finishes his next GT thesis!

tonymarshall wrote: I'm just curious about the 28 (well 27, after agreeing with Ghaz that Sehonghong 2 doesn't count) khulus that I did on the April 2014 GT I did the write up on, seeing as Stijns 24 khulus (TN is not a khulu?) was regarded as the previous GT khulu record. Does anybody know of someone doing more than 27 khulus on a GT, and if not would you consider that this was the GT khulu record before your GT?

We were working off the assumption that Stijn had done 35, just so that we would make sure that we get the record. We knew you guys did a lot, but didn't know the exact number. We were doubtful that anyone had done more than 35. Andrew had predicted that we would either go crazy at the end or loose interest - you will soon find out which one happened

My biggest concern is that khulu bagging is very time and energy draining, and you don't want to end up not finishing due to using too much energy. Michael and I both knew we would not beat Andrew, but neither of us seemed to want the other to beat us. At this stage I was 3 ahead of Michael.

I would assume that the progressive record would show Stijn and co as the original record holders, Tony and co in 2nd place, and, I guess technically the record only changes hand upon finishing a GT, and you only finish a GT when you tag the border fence, so I beat Andrew to that by about 8 seconds - so I guess I must have briefly held the record as well

At this stage Andrew wasn't very far ahead of the rest of us - only 3 if I remember correctly. The 3 being Caboose, Cowl View and Old Man. He also did Ifidi Pass Peak, but we have agreed that this doesn't meet the definition and will be coming off the list due to the summit not falling within SA.

Stijn wrote: Or at least until Ghaz finishes his next GT thesis!

Hmmm, I wonder if one could get a masters degree for a thesis on khulus. Some field within geography perhaps?

Now, as with all good stories involving multiple characters, at some stage the other chaps have to get off their butt and do some work to justify their roles.

The next morning we all awoke at the normal 4am. I though had a mission in mind and managed to set off alone just after 5am, heading off into some too familiar mist. I conveniently left the heavy jetboil stove and gas cylinder with Jonathan and Michael (so that if we did not meet up later in the day, they would at least have a stove to cook with).

I started off on the good path that leads from the cave to the saddle between Injasuti Dome and Trojan Wall. Here, the mist cleared so I dumped my pack and ran up to the summit of Trojan Wall. Kulu bagged, I trotted back to my bag (which weighed a solid 22kg or so still) and promptly dropped down the hill to gain the highway leading up towards Judges Pass.

At a suitable point in the valley just before the pass itself, I turned right and headed up to the saddle on the escarpment side of Popple Peak. I bagged that summit easily enough and then followed the ridge until a gained what Jonathan calls The Auditor. I bagged that as well, making sure I got GPS co-ordinates of both this and Popple Peak. Jonathan and I disagree on the distance between the 2 summits, but to be honest mine would be shorter because he later moved the summit cairn of Auditor. (me thinks we need to audit that). At this stage, the mist was following the good old typical summer pattern with cloud firmly set in South Africa, but with lots of sunshine in Lesotho. So, I had good views of everything except the dramatic cliffs below me.

I then dropped down into the next valley taking a line that would bring me close to Gypaetus Point. I dropped my bag behind a suitable boulder and ran up and down the peak to bring my total up to 4 for the day. By now mist was starting to come in, so I headed over a rather blind Bannermans Pass and started up the ridge beyond without any real idea of where to go. I intentionally aimed a bit right to get a bit closer to Sanqubethu. With hindsight, I could have avoided several cliffs by going further left on the conventional line and I eventually hit the ridge a mere 2 minute jog from the summit of Sanqubethu. It thus took me a bit longer than planned to follow the ridge to the top of Bannerman Face, which I found easily enough despite the mist. I followed a line close to the escarpment downwards and knocked off Thumb Spur as well.

I reached the top of Langies Pass at 9:26am, 7 kulus up, which I was rather proud of.

Here, I dropped down the pass. At the waterfall, I had a much needed swim and washed a set of clothes. I then carried on down and somewhere on the ridge above the contour path I stashed my bag. With a spring in my step I ran down the ridge, passing a pair of hikers along the way. One of them is also a trail runner so we had a short chat about various races, especially the 4 Peaks Challenge which we both enjoy. Somewhere below the "hurdles" I found Sarah and Tony. Mission accomplished!

We had a little chat to catch up on events the last few days and I then carried Sarah's pack up the ridge, as far as the point where I had stashed my bag. After running down the hill, I did find the hike back up it some honest, hard work. I did though really enjoy being in warm sunshine for the first time in several days. We made steady progress up to the waterfall for some lunch.

By the time we reached the top of the pass, we were in mist again. Jonathan had said something about going past the graves, but I could not see them, and just took the best line I could. I knew anyway that all I had to do was to get into the same valley as Jonathan and that we would meet them somewhere between 3000 and 3100m. We had agreed the side of the valley (I promptly forgot which side) and Jonathan kept referring to the top of Jarding's pass, but as I have never been in the area, that did not help me much.

The great thing though about looking for Jonathan is that you can find him anywhere. Even in the mist, and likely in the dark as well. We had just passed 3000m when we heard voices ahead. Party united and up to full strength.

They had arrived a short while earlier and had just finished setting up camp.

Thanks Andrew

My side of the story will follow in the next few days - Andrew only beat us to Langies by 5 hours

Day 7 – Addition in the mist (Upper Injisuthi Cave to Durnford Base Camp – 27km)

Today was the day that our group was set to grow by 2 people – Andrew left early to go and meet up with the others somewhere around Langalibalele Pass. He had left his gas stove with us so that we would be ok if we did not manage to find each other again that evening. The others would bring up a stove, so both teams would have one. We agreed to meet on the river behind Bond, Potterill and Erskine, between 3000m and 3100m on the east side of the river.

Michael and I started the day by bagging Trojan Wall as we left Upper Injisuthi Cave. The mist had partly cleared, giving us a bit of a view of the triplets.

We had hoped to hit the highway that leads from Mafadi to Judge Pass, but didn’t find it till we were on the river in the valley below. We discussed the history of Chief Langalibalele and how it was funny that he had been painted as a cattle thief in the past, but today he is viewed as a struggle hero. Assuming what I have read is true – it would seem that neither story is actually true. As Napoleon was recorded as saying – history is the series of lies we agree upon.

We began the long slow slog up the Popple ridge with mist moving about. The valley wasn’t entirely misty, but mist was rolling in and then clearing up every few minutes. We hit the saddle between Popple and Auditor, stashed our packs and made our way up Popple. I had failed to climb this peak on my first 3 attempts, and now I had succeeded on 3 consecutive attempts. This was the first khulu I had ever bagged three times. Although I knew that once I reach Giant’s Castle I would not be able to get any first time khulus until Giant’s Pass Peak (technically in Lotheni, and far out of the way).

From there we made our way across to Auditor. Armed with a GPS co-ordinate of the Popple summit, I planned to check the distance between these khulus. I always forget that Auditor is actually quite a long walk from Popple, and you do put on quite a bit of altitude from the saddle – a good 40m at least. When we reached the summit cairn we found a distance of 995m, but we realised that the summit cairn was on the wrong spot. Michael moved the summit cairn to the higher spot (he seems to enjoy doing that), and it was noted to be 1005m from Popple. There are a few different summit cairns on this top – but I rate the one over 1000m is the highest and thus Auditor is a valid khulu. If the definition gets refined to require higher prominence, khulus such as this one will probably fall away. But it is more a khulu than Amphitheare. Anyway – mist aside – we had another khulu.

We made our way down into the Sanqebethu valley. There was a rather substantial amount of livestock walking about. Michael wanted to bag Gypaetus Point, and I knew that the ridge above us would be a slog, so I sat with his pack while he made his way up. He was now 2 behind me. I knew it would be difficult to find me in the mist without a GPS, so I made a point of whistling a few songs as he made his way back down. This ploy worked and we were soon slogging up the Sanqethu ridge.

I always like to start this ridge by taking a side ledge over into the Bannerman Pass summit gully and the climbing up the small alternative south summit route (the steepest top option). No particular reason, I just like doing this. It seems that someone else is also doing this – there is now a solid trail over this line, and the trail seems to lead up the ridge. We followed it for a while, but it wasn’t climbing the ridge. Actually I have no clue what the trail was doing – it was leading towards the large cliff that is Bannerman Face, but was not putting on altitude. Of all the ridges in the entire Drakensberg, this is probably the single one I know best, and I could not see what this trail was there to achieve. So I ditched it and we started climbing the ridge properly. In the mist the saddle can be hard to find, but I had Tony’s GPS track as a backup for when the mist was really bad, and when it cleared for a few minutes, I could see the summit cairn and adjust our line accordingly.

When we reached the top we decided to bag Bannerman Face. We hauled our packs over the khulu in order to take the line down closer to the escarpment. Michael doesn’t like steep descents, so my normal line over this ridge wasn’t really an option. We bagged the khulu, and about 10 minutes after using my tripod for the summit shot I realised that it must have fallen out of my camera bag. We spent about 10 minutes retracing our steps to find the tripod, but no luck.

On the way down the rather gentle slope, we stopped at Thumb Spur Peak and bagged it in the thick mist. We could barely see the ledge that Thumb Pass leads to – a ledge that is difficult to connect with the escarpment.

We took a late lunch at the top of Langies. The escarpment was in the mist, but we went about 30m below the summit cairn and could see the entire pass clearly. We looked at the trail and couldn’t see the guys on the pass. A thought occurred to us – we had made all our plans on the assumption that Andrew would catch up to us, but it was entirely possible that the others could already be up the pass at 2PM, in which case we could be in for a rather difficult afternoon – especially if they don’t realise that they are ahead of us.

After about 30 minutes we began slogging up to the Carbineer’s Graves, we then swung inland, gained some altitude around the corner and slowly dropped down to the river, hitting it at 2995m. This route is a foot killer, but cuts off a substantial distance relative to the solid trails established by the locals. We had also hoped to not be as noticeable to them by taking this route. We had looked for people up this valley as we traversed into it, but no such luck.

At 3000m I left my pack, GPS marked the spot and walked right up to North Jarding Pass. I GPS marked a few possible camping spots on the way back, all on the wrong side of the river though. At around 3020 on the correct side of the river, but not as close to the river as I had hoped, I found a really nice spot. I had not found Andrew, this worried me. I know with a 9AM start one can normally be up the pass by 2PM with an overnight pack. The others had stayed in Escourt the night before, so the drive in shouldn’t have been an issue. Perhaps car trouble – but either way, we knew we couldn’t contact Andrew in this part of the Berg, and we were not sure what we would have to do if we didn’t meet up again today.

We moved to the camping spot I had found and began to set up the tent. Just as we had finished setting up we heard voices on the river. We were both very relieved that the team was back together again. The others set up their tents, Sarah stayed with the camp and the rest of us went off to bag Erskine, Bond and Potterill. The mist was very thick, thick enough to make you rather wet.

I had bagged 8 khulus this day, thus breaking my record of 7 a few days earlier.

Day 8 – Unknown and Unseen (Durnford Base Camp to Hlathimba – 26 km)

Day 8 started with what I rate to be the hardest ridge in the entire Drakensberg (well hardest GT ridge anyway). It was no accident that we had camped so high the night before, when done from 2900m near Langies, with the long walk up the valley, this ridge can be a real killer. We slowly made our way up. The weather was clear and I soon eyed out Durnford Gap. We gradually made our way up to it, and soon (well, not actually that soon) were sitting on the summit of Mount Durnford.

We gradually made our way down the hill, now in the mist once again, tagging both central and south Jarding Passes on the way down. Michael and Andrew shot up Kambule, but declined Carbineers Point.

After passing south Jarding Pass, the river becomes the next goal and we quickly lost altitude. On hitting the river, the sun briefly came out and we set our tents out to dry.

Long Wall ridge is quite an easy ridge from the north. We bagged Long Wall on the way past – I failed to get a summit shot the last time, so it was good to get one this time. The mist briefly cleared, but then it began to rain when we were on our way back to our packs.

We began the long climb down the Giant’s Ridge in pouring rain and thick mist. Mostly following Andrew’s judgement with Tony’s track as a backup, we eventually found the local highway that we knew we had to follow for a while. We followed it until Tony’s GPS track indicated we needed to leave it.

The mist had cleared, and we could see some locals and a lot of livestock in the Hawk/Tent valley. We decided to stop for lunch on the river – knowing there was still a long way to go, but at least we had done 2 out of 3 ridges for the day. We had been sitting for about 10 minutes when we agreed to pack up urgently and set off – a massive storm was approaching. Before long, everything that wasn’t under my raincoat was soaked. I had long since come to terms with my Tibets being wet – they had been wet since Yodelers and as soon as they began to dry, the weather would turn again.

The rain only lasted about half an hour, and once we had found the trail that leads up over the Redi ridge, we began to follow it. Shortly after finding it, the mist was back. We decided to stop for lunch, again, on the river before the climb up the hill by KaMasihlenga Pass. 10 minutes after we sat down it was raining again. This time we sat it out, I opened my raincoat zip, arms around my legs to keep my legs dry, and we sat it out. After the rain cleared, we had a bit more of a break, and then continued in the mist.

The GPS track I had received from Tony was a massive help, but never more than on this day. I had been over this section of the Berg once, Andrew had never been here before. Thick mist and rain in unfamiliar territory on one of the most complicated ridges in the Berg is not a good mix. We stashed our packs and shot up Terateng in the mist. We had Tony’s track to lead us to the top, we could have just as easily bagged some random Lesotho peak and we wouldn’t have known any better. It was fortunate that Tony had bagged this one before.

As we rounded Redi, with it having rained most of the time, the mist briefly cleared, giving us a glimpse of the surrounding terrain, although no views of what was below us. We bagged Litseketseke Spur as we walked past it – it is no more than 10m out of the way anyway.

We began the slow descent down towards Hlathimba Pass. Memories of getting lost in the mist around here the last time I had done a GT. I couldn’t help by notice how different this valley looked to what I remembered. Admittedly the mist was thick enough that I could barely see anything, but still.

We eventually found a reasonable spot on the river and set up camp for the night.

Day 9 – Getting High (Hlathimba to Phinong – 25km)

The day began like any other, mist was in the air, and the weather had remained rather cold. Around the time that we had begun to think about putting away our sleeping bags, it began to pour with rain. I shouted “everyone up for sleeping in a bit this morning”, and I heard back a volley of “sounds good”.

After half an hour it had stopped raining and we were soon packing our tents away. I had a good feeling about this day, and it had nothing to do with it being New Years Eve and the fact that I had passed by goal of 750km in the Berg in 2014 the previous day. I just had a feeling that the bad weather was now a thing of the past. I found myself whistling Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python.

So bad weather had delayed play, but it was now time for us to begin the run chase for day 9. Ghaznavid on strike, the Dragon runs in to bowl…

We walked through the long Hlathimba valley. Michael had decided to head off on his own mission around the direction of Mlahangubo Peak – he had no GPS and had never been in this valley before. But he was off before we could explain how to find us on the other side. We knew that locals could help him get to Sani from here, so we weren’t very worried, although admittedly not very happy about it.

As we began to climb the Mlahangubo Ridge, mist came over once again. But it was more sporadic than before. We crossed the ridge, avoiding kraals and dogs everywhere, with plenty of locals posing for photos and getting a sweet or 2.

As we dropped down to the river on the other side, Michael let us know that he had bagged Mlahangubo on the way through. He was now equal to my number of khulus.

We stopped for a break on the river in the valley. We knew we would be on the Mohlesi river for a long time, and still had 2 ridges to do after that, so we continued along.

By this point it was clear that Andrew would easily get past 50 khulus, but myself and Michael were exactly on track to end on about 47, so we knew we had to up our game a bit and go for the big guys near the end.

We took about 2 hours to get to the Mohlesi/Thabana Ntlenyana ridge. Andrew, Tony (Sarah’s brother – he had joined at Langies) and Michael went off to bag Nhalngeni in the mist, but they all ended up climbing the wrong peak.

After our break at the base we began the long slow slog up the hill. We had decided to leave Thabana out in favour of Mohlesi and a few other khulus in the area. But we were back in the all too familiar mist, and as we slogged up the hill towards Mohlesi Pass, massive dogs were making their presence known. Perhaps our last day before the resupply wouldn’t be so great afterall?

We slowly got up the hill, meeting many more locals than anywhere else on the GT. As we walked past Mohlesi Peak, the storm was going, but we were right by one of SA’s highest khulus and couldn’t resist. We bagged it, not finding any substantial summit cairn, but this is Vergelegen after all. We built one, got our summit shot and moved off.

The rain cleared and the sun came out, so we decided to stop here for lunch. It was windy, but this was the best weather we had had since Cleft Peak. This had not been normal summer weather by any means. Well, not the summer weather I am mostly used to. I usually find that the mist stays in SA for the early morning at a minimum and you usually get a storm in the afternoon. This weather was windy, the escarpment was misty all day and rain was continuous, although lightning was not common. Definitely not what I am used to.

After lunch we bagged Sehonghong and then made our way slowly around to KaNtuba Buttress. The weather was pretty good now, although the valleys below in SA were misty – this is more the summer Berg weather I expected.

We then made our way up SA’s 5th highest peak – KaNtuba. This completed the top 7 we had been shooting for. Top 30 had been considered, but when we lost the Yodeler’s ridge, that went out the window.

According to the map – the same series that says Fangs Pass tops out at 3800m - KaNtuba Pass tops out at around 3250m. Similarly KaNtuba Buttress is marked at around 100m lower than it actually is. Walking through the summit of KaNtuba Pass at around 3340m we realised that Ship’s Prow and Cathkin Mountain Pass are not actually the highest pass summits in the Berg.

The KaNtuba valley had been mostly flat, but dropping into the Phinong valley proved a bit steeper. We could see our first ridge for the next morning wasn’t particularly big, but we still had to get down there. We eyed out Mqatesheni Peak and agreed it was clearly well back of the border and thus not a khulu. The map concurs with this opinion.

The mist came in – late afternoon escarpment mist had always been expected – and we pitched our tents a bit of the way up the next valley. The ground was soft and damp, but the flowing water was close and we couldn’t see anyone else in the area anyway.

42 khulus, 230km in and 4 days to go. We were starting to get to a point of realising – we were on track to actually do this.