Kammanassie Traverse 22 to 24 June 2018

While the rest of humanity was watching the opening matches of the World Cup, we were playing a match of our own.

Round One of the MCSA vs Kammanassie (the Kam) Challenge took place in September 2016 and ended badly. There was blood, sweat and crocodile tears from the sky. We came away scratched, drenched and freezing. The silverware stayed in the Kam’s display cabinet. But at least we had managed to suss out the Kam’s game plan, and were hungry for a rematch.

Round Two was charted for the last weekend in June. A small strong team assembled for the rematch and this time the odds were stacked for Team MCSA. The sun beamed from cloudless skies and a recent burn took care of the vegetation. We left with the silver and the bragging rights.

Most of you should know by now where the Kammanassie actually is, so I won’t go into that again. But for those of you with dodgy memories – probably all of you – here is the low-down on the actual challenge. Jeep tracks start at each end of the range, but do not meet in the middle. There is an eight-kilometre as-the-crow-flies gap between the two ends. The challenge is to link these ends by any route. Two members did an east-west traverse in 2005, using caves for shelter, crossing the imposingly-deep Rooirivier gorge and taking four days. We decided on a west to east traverse, staying high, sleeping in tents and taking three days.

The Rooirivier has two major tributaries, one flowing due east, the other due west, and a minor one from the south. They all join up and flow north, forming the impressive gorge which splits the mountain into an east and west massif. None of this is blindingly obvious from either a map or Google Earth, which led me to believe that the ‘tributary’ valley would make a good traverse line. When we got to the col and saw how deep and bushed the valley was, we decided to stay high and skirt around to the south.

The hard-core crazies who turned up, besides me obviously, were Cheryl (aka The Boss), Johan Huisamen, Gillian Forbes and Werner Frei. We met up on the road near Buffelsdrif at 08h00 on Friday and took Werner’s car to the finish point. We then drove up to the start and started walking up the track just after ten. We passed the usual camping place below Kammanassieberg and continued on past the first of the four big gullies that seem to block the route. Here we made a startling discovery – a definite path starts at the end of the jeep track, continues on in the right direction for quite a while and then fades out.

We camped on top of one of the noses between the gullies, where there were ample flat spots and water a short way off. The night was warmer than expected and a breeze kept the dew away in the morning. We were under way again before 08h30. We crossed the other three ravines quite easily and headed up to the saddle. The going was steeper than it had appeared to be, and was populated by blackened plant-skeletons. It was when we got to this saddle that we decided to stay medium-high. High-high follows the ridgeline and is bound to be longer and much-much harder.

The traverse was fairly easy going for a while, until we crossed the small southern tributaries of the Rooirivier. A long hard gully led out of the river and we regained the high ground with difficulty, turning north at the end of the big valley. We eventually gained the top of the last ridge and gazed down on Perdevlakte and the jeep track. Picture a flat 2 km x 2 km bowling-green on top of a mountain and you have an idea of Perdevlakte.

The jeep track to the shelter was an interminable slog, with the sun going down and no end in sight. We got to the shelter after dark, but with a strong moon we were able to pick out tent spots and find a trickle of water. The night turned very cold with ice all over the tents in the morning. The sun only hit the shelter at 10h20 that morning, by which time we were long gone as it was too cold to hang around. We watched the sun rise on the shelter from a ridge high above. It took about five hours to get from the shelter to the car.

We walked for a total of 20 hours. Day two was 12,6 km with 1162 metres of ascent and 868 metres of descent (aggregated) The days were only 10 hours long, although first-light to last-light was a bit longer. Day two really opened my eyes to the actual layout of the Kam and now I can say that I know my way round the mountain. As usually happens though, as soon as you tick off one item on the to-do list, another three take its place. I have a bunch of ideas already. Watch this space for Round Three.