This hike is one that we had attempted before but changed plans as Roger had been feeling unwell on the walk in. The route in question is Walkers Ridge Pass descending via Mzimude North Pass. The latter had long fascinated me as it’s a massive fissure and a completely straight line down from the escarpment. So it’s always been on the backburner and we made plans again to try it again this last weekend. There was a lot of uncertainty with the weather – despite me studying it every day for the week running up to the hike, the forecasts remained stubbornly unpredictable ranging from rain every day to very little rain. We had a few team members pull out which left our numbers down to three by Thursday morning ( Thora, Roger and myself) Should we, shouldn’t we………….. in the end we decided we would take our chances and in the words of Richard Branson “ Screw it lets do it!”
We drove to Garden Castle in thick mist and slight drizzle which cleared up once we arrived at the carpark. We set off and made our way along the Giants Cup Trail and then cut off down Hidden Valley to Wave Cave which was our stop for the night. The skies were still overcast which made for cool hiking but it then started to drizzle for the last hour to the cave. We spent the afternoon relaxing and chatting and keeping warm in our bags as it was pretty chilly.]
We were off to an early start the following morning and made our way on the ridge above the cave to the plateau, following a very strong path all the way up – making us think this is a smugglers path. It certainly was not there many years ago when I first started hiking. It had been misty to start off with, but the sun was starting to appear amongst the clouds and we were hopeful that we would get some good views along Walkers Ridge. This was indeed the case the higher we climbed but a strong wind had sprung up which made the going a little difficult in places, especially on the traverse sections. Once through the notch we were on the South side of Walkers Ridge and continued along under the top rock band until we reached Corncob Cave. We had hoped the cave would be in a better condition than the last time we were there, but it was unfortunately much the same – rubbish lying all over and full of soot and smelling of smoke. It would take hours of hard work to get this cave back to its former state. So it was onwards and very much upwards - that final climb of the day to the Walkers Saddle was tough on tired legs. From here it was downhill to the Mzimude South Caves and we found these also to be in the same condition although a bit cleaner. Shepherds have made the main cave much smaller by moving the rock wall back and making space for a small bed behind it. We had a look at the other cave further along but this was a bit wet. In the end Thora and I put up a tent just outside the first cave and Roger elected to stay in the cave. We had not seen any sightings of shepherds or their animals in the area at all which was quite odd, especially for this time of year. We enjoyed the last warmth of the sun before settling down for the night. I was awoken at 9.00pm by a massive lightning and thunderstorm accompanied by gale force gusting winds. Thora and I did not get any sleep for some hours afterwards whilst the storm crashed around us – Luckily we had used some big rocks to weight the tent pegs down but I must confess to having visions of the flysheet being ripped off. Roger had to move further back into the cave and endured gusts of wind driven rain but we all managed to survive the night.
An icy wind was still gusting heavily in the morning once we had left the cave and were making our way across the short distance to the top of Mzimude North Pass. There is a short grassy section at the top before you reach a boulder field which is easily passed on the sides. There is a huge eroded area at the top of the fissure and it is evident that this is being further eroded as time goes by. We chose to descend on the left hand side looking down. This was not as easy as we had first thought as once we descended to this level, there was a lot of loose scree about and the rock was very wet, making climbing down into the gully very difficult. The photos do not give a good indication of just how high and steep this section is. We did not have a rope and Thora decided to ‘drop’ her pack down on to the bed of the gully below. We all watched in horrified fascination as it bounded away down the gully, and only came to a stop some 80 metres further down. Most fortunately nothing was damaged ( good advert for an Osprey pack!) We noticed that the water in the stream was very brown which indicated recent heavy rain and soil slip . The going was very slow as the boulders were not stable and we had to exercise extreme caution. Despite this a boulder was dislodged which caused Thora to take a fall and for the boulder to fall on Rogers foot. Osprey to the rescue again as she landed on her pack but sustained a nasty graze to her arm. Rogers foot took the brunt and at the time of writing is very swollen and sore, but we don’t think anything was broken. A biggish waterfall had to be negotiated by walking on the loose scree on the sides, an exercise in concentration and fancy footwork!
We were all quite relieved once we reached the base of the pass and were able to climb out onto the grassy section alongside. It had taken us far longer than we had thought to get down the pass, testimony to how difficult it was to negotiate. From here it was straight down the valley to where it joins in with Hidden Valley and then back to Garden Castle via the shortcut over Sondomzima Ridge. The latter was a big ask as we were all on very tired and wobbly legs. We got back to the carpark just after 3.00pm. It had been a long day.
This is a pass that is not recommended for inexperienced hikers and definitely not in the wet Summer months. I think Tony Marshall did this in early June when it would have been drier and easier to negotiate. Having said that, Tony is also a bit of a machine! We were very fortunate to get away with what we did, and a sobering reminder to again take these unmarked passes very seriously!
(Apologies to the non hikers for the numerous images of the pass itself - this will be of interest to fellow mountain enthusiasts!)
