Amphitheatre (Drakensberg) Mar 2007

Chris drove through to my place on Friday afternoon from where we left at around 4pm. We got to Sentinel car park at 21:30 – it was raining and an icy wind was blowing so we fled into the hut quickly.

Day 1 (3 March): The alarm went of at 05:00 but we snoozed another 30 minutes before finally getting up. We were away by 06:45, making good progress up the zig zags. Chris was feeling a little groggy so we didn’t hike very fast but we still got to the chain ladders in 1:45! Getting to the top quickly we walked straight to the hut and then climbed over the ridge behind the hut. Although the morning started out cool, it had become hot on top. We hiked until we got to Ribbon falls and sat for a quick bite to eat. We still had to climb the ridge behind Ribbon falls to get to the gap between the Amphitheatre and Inner Tower. Both of us started to feel the heat and we wanted to get to shade, so we quickly walked the final bit to the top of the wall and quickly found the descent gully to the saddle between Amphitheatre and Inner Tower. We geared up and started the extremely steep gully, holding onto grass as far as we went. The route description for the descent gully proved to be accurate and we quickly found the chimney which we had to skirt to access a very steep ramp leading down to a few metres below the saddle. Sitting on the saddle we were a bit daunted by the very scary-looking traverse we had to carry out onto the east face of the Inner Tower. We started up very steep grass, kicking in steps and pulling up on grass as far as we went. About 30m up I had enough. I was freaked out by the insecurity of the grass and the consequences of a fall. Chris agreed that things looked dodgy higher up and we started going back down the neck. From here we struggled up the gully back to the top where I finally sat to have a breather. We were both disappointed about not getting Inner Tower but it really looked scary from where we were. We then walked back to Ribbon falls where we passed out at the very edge and rested in the shade for almost 2 hours. We then decided to go sleep at Bilanjil and started walking there. However, we saw Basothos walking all over as we approached Bilanjil. We were in a bit of a quandary as to what to do. Finally we decided to eat dinner at Bilanjil and as it got dark, to walk over to a different spot close to the escarpment. Chris provided cook-in-the-bag cous-cous with tuna packets which was really nice. We finished with tea and as the moon rose brightly in the east, we packed up and walked to the escarpment, finding a good spot only about 20m from the edge. We pitched the tent in the moon light, avoiding our flashlights completely. Although lightning threatened in the east, it was a beautiful evening and we sat on the edge for more than half an hour before getting into the tent at around 19:30. Only about 5 minutes later, the wind picked up and shortly after it started raining. Luckily it didn’t storm too much and later in the night it eased up and we slept well. It seemed our move was a good idea since we didn’t have any visitors in the night.

Day 2 (4 March): I rose shortly before 6am in the hope of getting nice sunrise pictures. Unfortunately there were lots of cloud around and a pretty sunrise was not to be. We packed up and got ready to go, aiming to go climb Sentinel before going back. As we got over the ridge, clouds from the west started colliding with a front from the east and things got dark as we got to the chain ladder. Below the chain ladder we had just decided that we should probably not chance climbing Sentinel if the rain threatened, when it started to rain. A guy coming up behind us told us that they’ve been robbed the previous night but luckily nothing valuable and they were able to recover some things that have been dropped by the Basothos. Chris and I decided to rather spend the morning driving to Fika Patso and Monontsha to check out future hiking options. The last bit of the walk the rain came in pouring and by the time we got to the car park we were soaked. But as we got dressed in dry clothes inside the hut, the rain stopped and it started to clear. Soon we were on our way home.