Amazing sight while hiking on Towerkop

Hottentots Holland section of the Mountain Club - really nice guys
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Dominating the town of Ladismith on Route 62 in the Karoo is the distinctive cleft dome of Towerkop, a peak full of character, legends and history. The story goes that the peak was slashed by a witch. In a hurry to fly home, the peak loomed before her and in a rage she thwacked it with her broomstick splitting it in two.

One Easter weekend, myself and six other hikers set off to explore Towerkop’s nooks and crannies, little knowing what an unusual spectacle was in store for us. There is a clear path on the leisurely three-hour ascent to the mid-way point where, despite a forecast of good weather it started to rain. Fortunately there is a broken down hut, built by the forestry department many years ago and still providing shelter for mountaineers. We entered to find standing room only with the dirt floor covered with rock climbers cooking supper while three large dogs wandered in and out clambering over legs, packets and cooking paraphernalia. There was only one thing for it, my friend and I hauled sherry and schnapps from our backpacks and toasted the witch, the rock climbers and Gustav Nefdt.

Tyrrolean Traverse thanks to a witch

Viljoen on the Tyrrolean Traverse
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At 2197m, twice as high as Table Mountain, Towerkop is one of few peaks in the world that can only be summitted with the aid of climbing gear. Gustav Nefdt, who grew up within sight of Towerkop, was first to climb the peak. On a bright October night in 1901, 21year-old Gustav and five of his friends were sleeping on the ledge below the summit. Nefdt woke early with Towerkop emerging from its morning mist. He snuck out of camp, traversed to the opposite side of the peak, removed his boots and in stockinged feet, with superhuman strength and nerve, climbed to the summit without a rope. Elated with his success, he built a mound of stones under which he buried one of his socks.

Ladismith was not overjoyed at the news. In fact they didn’t believe him. Not even a lizard could scale the sheer face of the dome! They must have been turning in their graves at what we saw that weekend!

Nefdt was cross and gathered a party to prove what he had accomplished. Climbing the peak, he once again removed his boots and climbed the sheer face. He then lowered some string and towed up a rope, pulling up two of his friends who reached the top and recovered Nefdt’s sock.

He never climbed that route again but it became a challenge to other climber’s. Famous mountaineer GF Travers-Jackson made the third ascent in 1906 on a different route. In 1929 Frank Berrisford climbed what he thought was Nefdt’s route, but it proved to be yet another one. Two years later Bert Berrisford also tried, but it took 64 years for Nefdt’s original route to be led again.

From the wooden shelter the route crosses a vlakte before ascending scree, known as the Escalator. At the end is the Golden Gate, a passage through tall yellow rock walls. Not much higher is the final ledge and the massive rock pinnacle known as Nel’s Cave Buttress, discovered by Cornelius Nel whose ashes now rest in the soil of the Black Hole just above the ledge.

Climbing the final rock pinnacle was not for us, instead we would be circumnavigating the three peaks that make up the dome. On the southeastern corner of the ledge is a deep gorge where, on the opposite side and far below there is a huge arch, bigger than the Wolfberg Arch in the Cederberg. Horizontally the distance is short but it would take a couple of hours to reach passing through rugged terrain – another time.

Slipping and sliding, a small-pebbled scree leads to the higher ledge below the famous chasm splitting the eastern and western peaks. Flat topped, about half the size of a sports field, the entire western summit is adorned with cairns marking rock climbing routes.

It was here that we came across the climbers from the previous night, members of the Hottentots-Holland section of the Mountain Club. They were setting up a Tyrolean Traverse, a complex system of ropes and pulleys enabling climbers to slide from one pinnacle to another. To do this they first had to climb both peaks where they would throw a rope across the chasm in order to tow a climbing rope and set up belay points. They then fixed pulleys to these ropes in order to attach to their harnesses along with a safety rope. All this effort enabled them to have an all too brief flight across the abyss.

We watched for a while before continuing around the two pinnacles, occasionally stopping to admire awesome views of the Swartberg range and the start of a six-day traverse to Seweweekspoort. The air was filled with the fragrance of aniseed, possibly emanating from the rare buchu, Acmadenia teretifolia.

Not far from Towerkop is Toorkop 1843m, from where there is an impressive view through the chasm that is so dramatically visible from Ladismith below. On the opposite side of Toorkop is the Laingsburg-Seweweekspoort valley, split by a road passing through a ribbon of lush green farms, despite very low precipitation. Further north is the Klein Swartberg Range and the Elandsberg Mountains, folded to almost ninety degrees with a projecting band of rock following the range like a spine.

Retracing our steps, we continued around the ledge, all the time hearing the clunk of friends, karabiners and nuts while mountaineers called: “on belay”, “rope up”. With the development of climbing gear over the years since Nefdt climbed the peak, cairns have sprouted up marking more than 32 climbing routes with names like Saturday’s Corner, Crazy Cracks, Super Faffer, Space Captain and Afterglow. What would Nefdt be thinking as he watched the spectacle of the Tyrolean Traverse from his lofty peak in the heaven’s?