Shortly after 08h00 our party of 9 started out from Baviaans Kloof, Hout Bay on a lovely winter day, with the streams in full flow, the forest full of life and the fynbos thriving happily! I pointed out our local community’s efforts regarding the clearing of invasive vegetation from the whole catchment (summit to sea) including huge pine trees (and tiny seedlings), myrtles, stinkbeans, various Australian accacias, etc. … and, true to form, our group, hunted out and removed ‘outlier’ pines and hakea en route… see, for example, the photo of Stefan’s demolished pine tree! Then to the business of bagging a few (4) peaks on the two western ridges of Skoorsteenberg (actually kop) … with peak three almost getting away, but Rik made sure it didn’t (see photo)!
Strickly speaking this little mountain is called Skoorsteenkop (see maps and letters on the beacon) … but the mountain really does lend itself to be called a ‘berg’ as it is just not a ‘kop’ per se!! There are so many peaks and ridges, and so which one is the ‘kop’ … probably the western most one which we did not climb (it is the highest). So … I am more and more inclined to think that Skoorsteenkop is just a historical misnomer for us to mull over!
Anyway, from there we ‘put foot’, by-passed the eastern ridges leaving their peaks for another day, connected with the Constantia Nek / East Fort path and crossed the multiple streams running off Constantiaberg, descending to Baviaans Kloof and back to the cars … however, some of us snuck in another lovely little peak on the way down, Kleinkoppie, where we had an early lunch before descending to the Waterfall and home! Thanks all for a lovely day on the mountain and to Stefan for the photos.
