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Botmaskop is a 910 m peak near my home and is the first mountain I see when I leave for work each morning. Its form is unique in the Jonkershoek ranges, resembling the prow of a dreadnought. The hike up takes about 2 hours, following a spur through municipal tree plantations before it steepens sharply […] Up Swartboskloof and down Kurktrekker, Jonkershoek Nature Reserve The last time we ascended Swartboskloof I ended up under the knife to fix a ruptured disc. So this hike, once more with Santie – and Dorette – was something of a rite of passage, a reckoning with past trauma. The going was hot and my […] It was fantastic to get back into the mountains again on a serious hike for the first time since the back op in February. And the Boland served up the perfect day: warm, windless, impossibly blue, water coursing out of the rock and seeps everywhere, and the veld ablaze with colour. The next day the […] Paul Verhoeven arranged this exclusive adventure for a small group of mountain club members. It involved climbing the Peaks (¨Pieke¨), some of the highest summits in the Jonkershoek area and then 9 abseils down Tierkloof, the cleft that angles down south of the westernmost peak. I was a little nervous the night before and slept […] Heading up Slabs As Paul, the hike leader, had warned, the climb of the Cathedral (Second Ridge Peak) and Banghoek Peak would make for a “lang dag”. And so it proved to be. The MCSA party of fourteen covered 16.5 km and climbed a total of 1790 m over 10.5 hours. We ascended via […] Eikenhofkloof is much more benign than Volstruiskloof. There are only about 7 shortish abseils down sloping walls rather than the precipitous, long drops down Volstruiskloof. So I would recommend that you do this one first if you are a novice. Paul Verhoeven led this Mountain Club outing and once more we were blessed with wonderful, […] Duiwelskloof (Devil’s Ravine), Duiwelstand (Devil’s Tooth), Groot Drakenstein (Great Dragonstone), Helshoogte (Hell’s Heights), Banghoek (something like Scary Corner) – these mountain feature names suggest something about the nature of the mountainscape in which this annual, mountain club abseil trip is located. The Groot Drakenstein massif rises to the east of greater Stellenbosch and is indeed […] The best experiences are always born of spur-of-the-moment decisions. Kevin Koorzen and I were both suffering from cabin fever after weeks of winter had gripped the Cape spring but as the first sunny day revealed white peaks, we were “on”. An early setback was being told at the Jonkershoek gate that the road was closed […] This hike will long be remembered for the sweet surprise of a birthday cake at 1105 m ASL. Yolanda and Kevin hatched the plot and Kevin carried it up in his already very full pack. He even played dumb when I happened to mention that it was my birthday as we took photos from the […] Kevin led an MCSA hike from Botmaskop along the watershed to Saaltjie, the north-eastern rim of the Jonkershoek valley. It was the reverse of a route previously hiked. A pleasant morning that left me with stiff flanks. It must be because of all the cycling … This video will not play on […] Some of the benefits of being a mountain club member are that you get to go to places that you would not normally be able to explore – and camp out there – and share the mountains with like-minded people who also know what they are doing in these lofty places. Although this hike uses […] So there I was in bed, sleepily easing into a lazy Saturday morning with no particular plans or obligations when an SMS pinged in on my ‘phone: would I like to join the mountain club party that was heading up that morning to the Dwarsberg plateau to overnight under full moon? Somebody had withdrawn at […] Square Tower Peak has attained a degree of notoriety in the Stellenbosch Section of the Mountain Club. When a club trail leader from Cape Town called Stellenbosch’s Paul Verhoeven asking for directions down from the peak, the helpful reply went something like this: “What are you doing of up there? Nobody ever goes there!” Well […] The tree where the leopards sharpen their claws Katedraal is the Afrikaans name for the Second Ridge Peak, one of the thin, serrated ridges that line the eastern rim of the Jonkershoek valley south of the Pieke(Twin Peaks). The Mountain Club’s Stellenbosch section tackled it as yet another cold front made ready to pounce. […] Henge with roof When Paul bailed from our planned hike I was so desperate to get into the mountains again that I did something that is not recommended and is potentially stupid: I went hiking alone. It was the first hot day of spring, 34°C or so, and crystal clear. Cape Point was clearly […] The Panorama Route is one of the Jonkershoek valley’s classic day trails. From the bridge (Witbrug) at the apex of the circular road, where you climb the left side of the valley, to where you descend to the Swartboskloof parking area, you will walk about 17.1 km, climb through 1665 m (maximum elevation is 1267m) […] Assegaaiboschkloof looking east on a clear day The mountain club’s plan was to walk from Franschhoek to Jonkershoek along the watershed via Emerald Dome and Victoria Peak. We would ascend Fortsnek and cross Noordkloofpiek, the scene of last year’s firefighting. It promised to be a long, hard, but spectacular, day. But an unseasonal south-easter […] Twin Peaks Last Sunday I hosted some of the Patagons and other hiking buddies at Jonkershoek for a day hike – “not too long, too high and too hard” was the request. So I thought it would be nice to follow the eastern watershed from north of Twin Peaks to Botmaskop – not too […] Kelson above Jonkershoek valley At the beginning of the week that I finally became a member of the Mountain Club of SA, some of the Patagonian trekkers and I headed for Victoria Peak, the highest peak in the Jonkershoek mountains. It was a warm day with high cloud and haze and no wind. Pretty […] Another mountain club uitstappie to Haelkop peak (1390 m), one of the loftier peaks that rim the Jonkershoek valley. The route upwards to the watershed north of Haelkop is a fairly easy, yet relentlessly uphill, hike. Near the top the gradients steepen markedly. From the summit the views are panoramic and breathtaking. On […] Climbing Jonkershoek’s Twin Peaks (“Die Pieke“) is one of the outdoor experiences in the Jonkershoek mountains. On this occasion I went with the mountain club (MCSA) on the “uitstappie“. An uitstappie is one of those wonderfully euphemistic, Afrikaans terms that could mean anything from a stroll in the park to a mission. A Twin Peaks […] Unfortunately – and unsurprisingly – my words were prescient: it has indeed become an “interesting” summer in the Boland mountains. Since December Volunteer Wildfire Services Jonkershoek (VWS-JNK) has been called out at least 6 times to fires in the local mountains (“local” is a relative concept – in our case it means 290 000 ha […] As I was contemplating a short post about the Volunteer Wildfire Services (VWS), and specifically its rookie branch in the Jonkershoek valley, we were called out to mop up a plantation fire above Rozendal yesterday at around 6 pm. It was our first op since 27 Jonkershoek volunteers qualified in November – so there was […] Photos of the Watsonias in Jonkershoek after the big summer fire and the winter rains. Deon and I took a cycle up the valley to capture them before the summer winds take their toll. […] At 1589m Victoria Peak is the highest summit in the Jonkershoek area. It is visible beyond the valley from Stellenbosch and is often – as it is today – covered in a white blanket of snow. The route as shown in this Google Earth track winds up the eastern edge of the Jonkershoek […] |
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