Ark Ridge is a seldom visited part of the mountain – an area I only discovered a couple of years ago. From my research I could establish that it was visited on club meets many years ago – a faint path with cairns can still be found.
Our ascent route was Porcupine Ravine and the ‘ridge variation’ that provided wonderful views with the swirling cloud darting around us – of course that meant we had to face the wind once we reached the top of the ravine and entered Ark Valley. A short way further on we reached Ark Ridge which was our feature destination with all it’s interesting rock formations and distant views.
Tea was enjoyed at the Hard Rock Cafe at just over 900m – self catering only! We then descended via a hidden gully and traverse to enter the valley that runs from the top of Porcupine Ravine. A faint path leads one to join with the Kitchen Ravine path which we followed for a short way before branching off on another faint path towards St Michael’s peak, also in the 900m league.
After enjoying more distant views we descended off-path to join up with Backwater stream and headed towards Upper Disa stream where we stopped for lunch. We decided to descend via Kasteels Poort in place of Diagonal as the weather had started to deteriorate. The 15 of us arrived back at the cars at 2:30pm.
photos by Don Jepson
