Being the first Thursday meet of the new year, I looked for ‘something new’. The area between Skoorsteenkop and the Vlakkenberg trail met this requirement, consisting of two parallel ridges containing interesting rock formations and familiar views but from unusual angles.
We set off on a hot day with very little wind to cool us down, but being on the high ridges helped somewhat. After exploring the first ridge, that I have named ‘Blockbuster Ridge’ as it does not have a name on my map, we crossed an intervening shallow valley and made our way up to the second ridge. This, also undeservedly does not have a name, but due to the very adequate ‘double room’ just below the high view point, it has been aptly named ‘AirBnB’! We then had tea and soaked in the distant views – unfortunately there was no ‘room service’ but we all had sufficient refreshments to sustain us!
The ‘AirBnB’ ridge is the highest point between Grootkop on Table Mountain and Constantiaberg, so the views are far and wide. We took out a large pine along the way, but there are still a number of hakea that need to be dealt with and this will ensure a repeat visit to this very interesting part of our mountains.
The circular route took the 11 of us 5.5 hours to complete and we were back at the cars by 12:30pm.
Photos by Don Jepson
