Tag Archives: rock climbing
Sani Supertraverse
I have always considered Vergelegen to be very appropriately named. A region of the Drakensberg tucked between Lotheni and Sani Pass – with no campsite and a poor quality jeep track as the most common access, it is most certainly not the most inviting region of the Drakensberg. I first visited Vergelegen in 2017 and […]
Mbundini Abbey Spire in a day
When I was asked to relocate for work purposes, I knew my era of being in the Drakensberg on roughly every second weekend would be coming to an end. The symmetry of the era starting and ending on the summit of Rhino exactly 10 years apart added a bit of poetry to it all. But […]
The Magic Valley
“I can say with a fairly high level of certainty that Hilton Pass is not a pass that will ever form part of my list of bagged passes” – me, 31 August 2011 Hilton Pass has been a bit of a Drakensberg mystery for a while. I had read an old account of a team […]
Vergelegen Passes: Hitchhikers Guide to the Drakensberg
My charge through the marked passes I had not yet done south of Giants Castle in the KZN High Berg had been going amazingly well. A cluster of 4 passes near Sani Pass was all that remained. My logic was simply – drive to the lower Sani border post, hike up Mqatsheni, down Ntshinshini, up […]
Pins Pass/South Saddle Pass: T’is but a scratch
My slow progress of loading my old hike reports here continues! This was a 4 day hike in March 2016 which remains one of my most memorable hikes. 2016 was the year where I trained the hardest, with the Double Grand Traverse being the end goal. I hiked 1375km in the Drakensberg that year, by […]
Cathkin Peak
Cathkin is one of the best known peaks of the Drakensberg. It has a notorious reputation – so how will Ghaz cope with this one?
Giants Castle via Sherman’s Route: through the fire and the flames
Giants Castle is one of the most recognisable peaks in the Drakensberg. It can be seen from as far away as Harrismith, Ladysmith, Escourt, Hilton and Underberg. It is a peak I have summitted many times, and is one of my favourites. For many years I have looked at the eastern ridges of the peak […]
Pyramid Standard Route
The Pyramid is a large, well, pyramid shaped peak at Didima Nature Reserve in the Northern KZN Drakensberg. I first saw it in person on a hike in 2010. For many years I admired it knowing I would never stand on its summit, I would never take up rock climbing for a number of reasons, […]
Water, water everywhere
So on a Friday afternoon a team of four of us found ourselves at Injisuthi. The road on the drive in had been in a very bad state, but we had all arrived safely. We set off down the road in light drizzle. The river was flooded, and my choice of Boundary Ridge over the […]
Are you Redi?
Sometimes a hike report title is fairly obvious – and then something happens that causes you to abandon the easiest pun and provide a proper report name! In this instance, this report title was going to be allocated to a hike up Redi Pass in 2016, but the hike ended up going comically wrong and […]
Ghaznavid Hiking 
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