Drakensberg - Walking in Monk’s Cowl - The Sphinx and Crystal Falls

Quathlamba

“A mass of Spears. Named thus by the Zulu warriors before the white man came. Today called the Drakensberg, Mountains of the Dragon. Evocative names, both equally applicable to South Africa’s mightiest mountain range with its spear-like peaks – reminiscent of the saw-toothed spine of a gigantic dragon.”

 

“Listen to the streams as they gurgle from their cradles and you will hear the story of the mountains. You will hear fascinating tales if only you listen! Lie next to a stream and listen to the song of the mountains. The smiling faces of the flowers, dancing in the wind. Venture into the remote valleys or stand on a peak at sunrise or sunset, after snow has fallen, and you will hear a song that you will never forget - the Song of the High Mountain".

DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS PHOTOS © WILLEM PELSER

  “In the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing lawn....
Climb that goddamn mountain"

Unknown

Drakensberg  

Walking in Monk’s Cowl

The Sphinx and Crystal Falls

Monk’s Cowl Reserve, in the Central Drakensberg, is very popular with both day walkers and multi-day hikers. It is a vast area with some spectacular scenery. The only limit as to how far you can go depends on your own stamina. The reserve lies close to the N3 highway and is very easy to get to. It is a place well worth a visit. Here follows some walks which can be done in the area.

The Sphinx and Crystal Falls

Route: Monk’s Cowl EKZNW parking area to the first level of the Little Berg.

Distance: 6 km

Duration: Two and a half hours

Grade: Easy

General: What does ‘easy’ mean, exactly, when hiking in the Berg? The fact that this walk is short in distance does not mean it’s a walk in the park. You will sweat, and it will seem a whole lot further than it really is, but that’s mountains for you – they make you work for their pleasures. Once on top of the Sphinx, if the weather plays along, you’ll return home with photos that show you were among true warriors with their up-pointing spears.

   Start off from the car park, heading past the office diagonally to the left, following the Sterkspruit upstream. About 500 m from the office there is a direction sign where you head off to the left. After another 500 m you come to a T-junction where you must head to the right and up some steep zigzagging steps where you should keep strictly to the path to avoid erosion. You might find the local inhabitants selling walking sticks here. This is a heavily used path and so highly susceptible to degradation. Try not to step on the wooden erosion barriers, but over them, as continual tramping destroys them.

  A fence at the top of the zigzags channels people on the right track. There are some kraals above the right-hand side of the path. Here the path heads around to the right as it makes its way onto the lower section of The Sphinx – the obvious headland. Where you cross the second tributary of the Mpofana you’ll find Crystal Falls in a small shady cove; but this a barely 2 km from the start and so hardly even qualifies as a hike. For children, however, this would be good place for a rest before tackling The Sphinx.

  The path first contours right under the large, pitted, head-shapes sandstone band, weathered into interesting shapes and colors. At the top of The Sphinx – completed in a steep 1-km pull up onto the Little Berg – slip off your pack and enjoy the views among the rocks and silver-leafed protea bushes.

  Here the path swings to the right and you reach Breakfast Stream just a short stroll from the top of The Sphinx. If this is as far as you plan to go, then you’ll have plenty of time to walk around and find great angles for photographs, using the proteas or other plants as foreground detail. It is amazing what can be done with a well composed picture in the Little Berg with the contrasting light of the early morning or afternoon when the main peaks are back-lit for some dramatic shots. Return along the same path back to the car park.

We as hikers, explorers and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

The End.

Safe Hiking.

References and Acknowledgements

From the book – “Best Walks of the Drakensberg” – David Bristow

Photos:  ©W Pelser

Compiled by:  Willem Pelser

Drakensberg – Mkhomazi - Hikers Paradise

Quathlamba

“A mass of Spears. Named thus by the Zulu warriors before the white man came. Today called the Drakensberg, Mountains of the Dragon. Evocative names, both equally applicable to South Africa’s mightiest mountain range with its spear-like peaks – reminiscent of the saw-toothed spine of a gigantic dragon.”

 

“Listen to the streams as they gurgle from their cradles and you will hear the story of the mountains. You will hear fascinating tales if only you listen! Lie next to a stream and listen to the song of the mountains. The smiling faces of the flowers, dancing in the wind. Venture into the remote valleys or stand on a peak at sunrise or sunset, after snow has fallen, and you will hear a song that you will never forget - the Song of the High Mountain".

DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS PHOTOS © WILLEM PELSER

  “WHEN WE REACH THe MOUNTAIN SUMMITS AND THE WILDERNESS, WE LEAVE BEHIND US ALL THE THINGS THAT WEIGH HEAVILY ON OUR BODY AND SPIRIT. WE LEAVE BEHIND ALL SENSE OF WEAKNESS AND DEPRESSION; WE FEEL A NEW FREEDOM, A GREAT EXHILARATION, AN EXALTATION OF THE BODY NO LESS THAN OF THE SPIRIT.”

JC Smuts

Drakensberg – Mkhomazi  Hikers Paradise

The Drakensberg used to be a jigsaw of land ownership until the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park was declared several years ago under EKZNW. Wilderness areas fell away within the park, although the two old game reserves, Giant’s Castle and Royal Natal, have been retained as management entities within the new park. South of Giant’s Castle, most of the entire southern half of the Berg fell into either the Mkhomazi or Mzimkulu wilderness areas, studded within which, like raisins in a Christmas cake, were some small reserves such as Lotheni, Kamberg, Highmoor, and Vergelegen. Both their conservation status and management policies were different from those of the wilderness areas because the reserves existed before these were proclaimed in the early 1970s.

   The EKZNW offices serving this area are at Lotheni, Kamberg, Highmoor, Vergelegen, and Mkhomazi, which used to be a forest station. This area is well known by fly-fisherman and less so by hikers, as the Mooi, Lotheni and Mkhomazi rivers are stocked with trout. The Mkhomazi area is the least-visited area of the Berg where there are EKZNW offices and rest camps. This is a great pity, since it is a place of many and big rivers, caves galore, forests and numerous easy summit passes. It is an absolute hiker’s paradise. The reason it is less visited than all the other areas is because the Escarpment or high Berg is far from the various rest camps. Kamberg in particular, which lies due each of Giant’s Castle, have trout filled dams on the Mooi River, and the rest camp is jealously guarded by fly-fisherman. But what should attract other visitors is the Bushman Art Interpretive Center from where walking tours are conducted to Games Pass Shelter, arguably the most important rock art site in South Africa. It was there that the art of the Bushmen was first seriously studied, in the 1920s. It was from the panel dubbed the Rosetta Stone that the connection between the art and the supernatural was first discerned. A high quality film which puts the cave and its paintings into a universal perspective is shown before each tour to the cave.

   The cave is easily reached in one hour along a very well-constructed path. There are several distinct panels, starting with some faded scenes, then the Rosetta Stone, and finally the main attraction which is a section a few meters across where numerous poly-chrome eland seem to walk right across the rock wall. You should not miss it.

   Lotheni is also used by fisherman, but it has a nice hutted camp and a camp site from which the popular peaks of Redi, the Hawk, and the Tent are reached. It is in general a hiker’s paradise. Lotheni Pass itself is neither easy nor convenient, but Hlathimba and Mlahlangubo passes to the south are much easier. The latter two are accessed from Vergelegen camp. Vergelegen is in fact the most popular starting point for hikers as it gives access to many of the easier passes, as well as to Thaba Ntlenyana, at 3 482 m the highest point in southern Africa. Rudimentary camping facilities only are provided. There are plans upgrade the camp and the hiking paths around Vergelegen, but, other financial concerns take priority. The two most direct routes to this peak are Nhlangeni and kaNtuba but, as both are long and hard, Mkhomazi Pass is the one most often taken. It’s also a long haul up from Vergelegen, but as it was originally intended to be the route up to Lesotho before the construction of Sani Pass, it’s easy going.

   The other passes that give hiker’s reasonable access to the summit are eNtubeni, Hlathimbba (all three of its branches), Mlahlangubu, and Phinong, which is the main dagga smuggling route from Lesotho and should be avoided. It is not often recognized that this section of the Berg includes many of its highest ‘kulus’, some of which are well known. Redi Peak (3 314 m) is a favorite one for summit hikers to bag and often the aim of hiking parties. To the south are two ‘kulus’ one seldom hears of, but Mhlesi (3 301 m) and kaNtuba (3 355 m) stand out among giants.

   A small and inexperience party set out from Lotheni one sunny Friday in July, under the leadership of medical student David Harrison. They were bound for Lotheni Cave, up the already snow-filled and never very pleasant kaMashilanga Pass, and a hike they will never forget. That was the weekend of the ’big snow’ of 1988. Harrison, his sister and two friends were not equipped for snow (they had no tent and only one had proper boots), and even before they reached the summit they were wading through deep drifts. That they reached the top at all is an indication of either their tenacity or their foolhardiness. They never found the cave, in fact snow covered everything, and they could not recognize any feature at all. Near tragedy led to amazing escapes, first over the lip of the Escarpment (down sheer cliffs, using the snow as a cushion as the leapt over precipes and down ice falls), and then into a tiny shelter that finally saved their lives (but not all their digits from frostbite). For three days helicopter rescuers searched for them, finally locating Harrison, who had left the other three to go for help, in the maze of Little Berg ridges and valleys where they had gone off-course. It is a harrowing story, and well worth locating a copy of Reg Pearse’s book The Dragon’s Wrath (later published under the name of his co-author James Byrom), for the full account. Another favorite in this book is the story of how crippled photographer Gunter Stein finally conquered the Amphitheater, and so very nearly died doing it.

   Sani Pass was originally a mule route over the mountains until, in 1955, David Alexander and friends began constructing a road for their Land Rovers, so they could trade between Himeville and Mokhotlong. So the Mokhotlong Mountain Transport Company was created, and the pass which it made famous. Over the years Cruisers, Hilux’s and others joined the Land Rover, and the pass was continuously upgraded. A simple inn was built at the top of the pass to give shelter to travelers. Some years ago it came into the hands of Jonathan Aldous, whose family had run the Himeville Arms for many years, and it has since been expanded – but the spirit remains the same at ‘southern Africa’s highest pub.’ MT was sold and moved to Underberg, where it became Sani Pass Tours (as it is still known). There are now plans afoot to tar the pass. This idea is greatly favored by the Lesotho 4x4 minibus taxi men and other traders who ply the pass in their heavily laden trucks. The thought shocks mountaineers and the owners of Sani Top Lodge as well as the three or four tour companies that ferry sight-seers up the pass every day of the year that it is not closed by snow or rockfalls. A fair compromise between these two opposing parties might be to upgrade the pass but keep the surface gravel. A tarred road through the heart of the Drakensberg World Heritage Site does seem to be a travesty – but then I don’t have to make my living up and down it as a taxi-driver.

   The old Giant’s Cup Motors, which used to be the base for MMT, is now Sani Lodge backpackers lodge and tea garden. The ruins you see at the bottom of the pass are those of Ridgeway’s Store, which did not survive the building of a 4 by 4 route into Lesotho. The main establishment in the upper Mkhomazi Valley is the wall-enclosed Sani Pass Hotel which does not encourage hikers or day-visitors, and is more of a golfing resort and conference center. There is another small guesthouse on a farm in the valley. If you plan to visit Sani Top Lodge, and you should not miss this mountain highlight, you can take advantage of packages offered by Himeville Arms and the lodge, including 4 by 4 trips up the pass. If you time it right you could get snowed in for several days (the statistics say late July is the most likely time for this). Just take good boots.

   Following a land swap whereby EKZNW gained the farm Duart Castle, the old Mkhomazi Trail has ceased to be; the huts at Surprise, Kerry, Bundoran and Glenora are ruins, and a valley that was once pristine wilderness now rings with the busy sounds of people, cattle, and minibuses.

  Apart from the Summits and the Escarpment, the wilderness in this area is a vast and beautiful place offering the hiker/explorer magical hiking, scenery, and opportunities.

We as hikers, explorers and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

The End.

Safe Hiking.

References and Acknowledgements

From the book – “Best Walks of the Drakensberg” – David Bristow

Photos:  ©W Pelser

Compiled by:  Willem Pelser

THE EXPLORERS - MOUNT EVEREST

Quathlamba

“A mass of Spears. Named thus by the Zulu warriors before the white man came. Today called the Drakensberg, Mountains of the Dragon. Evocative names, both equally applicable to South Africa’s mightiest mountain range with its spear-like peaks – reminiscent of the saw-toothed spine of a gigantic dragon.”

 

“Listen to the streams as they gurgle from their cradles and you will hear the story of the mountains. You will hear fascinating tales if only you listen! Lie next to a stream and listen to the song of the mountains. The smiling faces of the flowers, dancing in the wind. Venture into the remote valleys or stand on a peak at sunrise or sunset, after snow has fallen, and you will hear a song that you will never forget - the Song of the High Mountain".

DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS PHOTOS © WILLEM PELSER

“NO MATTER HOW GREAT THE ODDS THAT ARE STACKED AGAINST YOU, IT IS POSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE WHAT TO MANY WOULD SEEM IMPOSSIBLE.”

WILLEM PELSER

THE EXPLORERS

MOUNT EVEREST

At 11.30am, on 29 May 1953, a lanky beekeeper from Auckland stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest and into the legend books. Together with the Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, Hillary was the first to set foot on the summit of the world’s highest mountain – 29 028 feet above sea level – a feat which had eluded seven major expeditions between 1920 and 1952.

   Recalling the details of the epic climb in 1954, Hillary summarized the excitement and relief of the last moments.

   “I cut my way cautiously up the next few feet, probing ahead with my pick. The snow is solid, firmly packed. We stagger up the final stretch. We are there. Nothing above us, a world below. I feel no great elation at first, just relief and a sense of wonder. Then I turn to Tenzing and shake his hand. Even through the snow glasses, the ice-encrusted mask, the knitted helmet, I can see that happy, flashing smile. He throws his arms around my shoulders, and we thump each other, and there is very little we can say or need to say.”

   Once they have completed the treacherous route down the summit, Hillary’s reaction was more prosaic. “We’ve knocked the bastard off!” he famously told George Lowe, a fellow New Zealander on the expedition. His life would never be the same again. Knighted by the Queen, he became world famous. With Sir John Hunt, the expedition’s leader, he co-authored The Ascent of Everest, an instant bestseller. To this day, all Everest climbers who approach the summit from the south must first negotiate the Hillary step, a forty-foot ice-covered rock step named in his honour.

   It is easy now, more than half a century after that legendary ascent, to forget how much uncertainty then surrounded man’s ability to deal with such extreme altitudes.

“We didn’t know if it was humanly possible to reach the top of Mount Everest, and even using oxygen as we were, if we did get to the top, we weren’t at all sure whether we wouldn’t drop dead or something of that nature.”

   Hillary was born in 1919 and grew up in Auckland. As a child he was something of a dreamer, who did not have many friends. He was a very keen walker and as he walked along the roads and tracks around the countryside area, he would be dreaming. His mind would be miles away and he would be slashing villains with swords and capturing beautiful maidens and doing all sorts of heroic things, just purely in his dreams. He used to love walking for hours and hours and his mind would be far away in all sorts of heroic efforts. At 16, he made his first visit to the mountains and fell in love with the snow and ice. He went on to start climbing seriously, first in his own country, then in the Alps and later still in the Himalayas, where he demonstrated his prowess and suitability for the attempt on Everest by climbing 11 peaks of 20 000 feet or more.

   In 1951-1952, Hillary threw down another marker on two Everest reconnaissance expeditions which brought him to the attention of Colonel John Hunt, leader of the 1953 expedition. A Swiss expedition had turned back 1 000 feet from the summit in 1952 so all knew it was make or break for Hunt’s team. Together, they seized the opportunity.

 

   For a man whose childhood hero was the British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, it was fitting that Hillary should turn from climbing mountains to traversing the Antarctic. Between 1955-1958, he led the New Zealand section of the trans-Antarctic expedition and reached the South Pole by tractor. Though the expedition continued, - in 1977 he led a jet-boat expedition to the mountain source of the River Ganges – increasingly it took second place to improving the welfare of the Nepalese. Above all, he threw himself into providing the Sherpas with airfields, schools, hospitals, and medical clinics. It was his way of thanking them for Tenzing’s help in getting him to the top of the world.

   Personal tragedy intervened in 1975, when his wife and daughter, flying into the hills of Nepal where he was working on a hospital, were killed in a planer crash. It was “an absolute disaster”, he said later. “The two people that meant the most to me in life had been killed in one fell swoop.” Solace was slow to arrive and came only with his marriage to June, a family friend, years later.

   Friends and colleagues describe Hillary as a modest man, never one to brag or boast about his achievements. He described himself as a very mediocre person.

   With full-blown exploration behind him, the scope of Hillary’s interests and activities broadened. He has worked on medical and conservation campaigns and founded the Himalaya Trust. Whatever his protestations to the contrary, the rest of the world will remember him in grand, heroic terms. 

   As the Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the 1953 expedition, said: “In the human terms of physical effort and endurance alone it will live on as a shining example to all mankind.”

   Hillary’s own message to future generations is typically pithy. He is not a man given to extended monologues. He says: “Aim high! There is little virtue in easy victory.”

   

We as hikers, explorers and adventurers have the absolute duty to respect and protect our Wildernesses. Nobody else will do it for us. Take ownership!

The End.

Safe Hiking.

References and Acknowledgements

From the book – Faces of Exploration – Joanna Vestey

Photos:  ©W Pelser

Compiled by:  Willem Pelser