Cathedral Peak (Drakensberg) May 2007

We arrived in Bergville just before 21:00 and booked into the caravan park. We asked the park owner about snow on the mountains and she confirmed that the Berg did have snow earlier the week. This made us optimistic about getting snow on Cathedral peak. At the tennis court we packed out and set up for the night.

Day 1 (26 May): The alarm went off at 05:30 but it was cold and we were so cozy in our sleeping bags that we slept in ‘till 06:00. During a quick breakfast I registered -4.8 degrees as a minimum during the night – we were sure it would be considerably colder in the high Berg. We left before 7am and arrived at Cathedral peak before 8am. We signed in, paid and then heard from the rangers that there was no snow except on top of the escarpment and that we should expect Bell cave to be dry. Consequently I changed my plans and decided to sleep in Sherman cave instead of Bell, and then do Cathedral immediately, and return to Sherman’s for the night. We parked the car and I left in shorts and T-shirt despite it being chilly. By the time we reached the path leading up towards the trout dam I was warmed up and we were setting a good pace. With so much to do for the day we pushed hard and soon reached the path leading to Barker’s Chalet. With the split going to Cathedral not being indicated I missed the split and carried on, eventually arriving at a cave that I didn’t recognize at all. It was a decent cave to sleep in so we left our bags and pulled on daypacks for the long haul to the top. However, when we walked right to the end of the trail I realized that we walked to Barker’s Chalet cave instead of Sherman’s. We retraced our steps and got onto the right trail. Pushing hard, we overtook one lone guy on his way to Orange Peel Gap. Just past Sherman’s cave, where the path ramps onto the Little Berg plateau, we filled our water bottles at the stream and started up the ridge leading to Orange Peel Gap. We progressed well and as we exited the gully onto Orange Peel Gap we reached another party of 3 guys, also on their way up. After a brief rest we carried on, eventually reaching nasty bit leading up to Bugger gully. Its here that our pace diminished significantly as we discovered that we’ve probably pushed a little hard so far – we’ve already climbed 1000m and the effects of altitude were starting to tell. My legs were jelly when we reached the bottom of Bugger gully but we’ve come to the bottom of Cathedral Peak and I wasn’t going to turn around. We ate lunch here as we watched one other group as well as the 3 guys we met earlier starting slowly up the standard route. We didn’t break for lunch long as we still had to return all the way down. As we got to the first rock band, one of the group of 3 guys wasn’t prepared to scramble through the rock band and proceeded to wait for the others. We overtook the group and scrambled on, making good progress despite being knackered. We reached the chain ladder, scrambled up the grass slope and reached the last rock scramble to the top. As we climbed to the top the group we saw ascending earlier came down and went past us. We reached the summit at 13:10 and celebrated. The remaining two guys came up soon after and we took photos of each other with the Mnweni peaks in the background. At 13:20 we left the summit, eager to get down before sunset. With Gordon going well at his own pace, we quickly got off the peak and descended the gully fast. We overtook the one group at the top of Orange Peel gap and as I ran out of water where we rested just below the gap, I decided to make a beeline for the stream above Sherman’s cave. On my way I overtook the lone guy again and got to the stream very quickly. I drank lots of water and waited for Gordon who arrived about 15 minutes later. The last bit was completed at a very sedate pace and we arrived back at our packs at 16:10 – 2 hours 50 minutes from the top of Cathedral peak. We decided to rather sleep in Barker’s Chalet than the annex so before we got really cold we walked the 100m and set up camp. We got dressed warmly early on and waited for the cold to arrive during a very good dinner of bacon, pasta and cheese. However, it never dropped below 5 degrees during the night.

Day 2 (27 May): With a very tough day behind us and a very short walk-out, we slept in and only got out of bed by 7am. We had breakfast and took our time packing up. Still, we were up and going by 07:50. It was a glorious morning and if it wasn’t for the still very sore and stiff legs it would’ve been a very pleasant walk-out. We were back at the car before 09:00, signed out, had a hot shower and drove back.