The Devil’s Tooth is a spectacular spire of rock adjoining Hutchinson Peak in the Banhoek Conservancy, near Stellenbosch. To ascend the summit cone, the first order of business is to reach the saddle between the Tooth and Hutchinson Peak. These days the Northern approach to the saddle is blocked off by various estates. The alternative Southern approach is a steep gully which comes up from Duiwelskloof. When I last did this gully four years ago, it seemed fine. However, when we did the recce of the route in December, it became clear that this gully has become very loose and unstable in places, and is now close to the edge of safety. Nevertheless, we successfully recced the route, without any significant incidents. So I decided to go ahead with the meet, but with a group limited in size.
On arrival in Banhoek, we were met with early cloud cover, which meant my description of the route was left largely to the imagination. We decided to forge on to the saddle, with our faith in the weather forecast, which suggested that the cloud would lift through mid-morning. As luck would have it, we arrived at the saddle two hours later, to find the weather breaking, which was lovely. And thankfully we had made it up the gully without much incident.
From here the photos should really do all the talking.
Our way back down the gully into Duiwelskloof was somewhat more nerve-wracking than the way up, with more dislodging of rocks than I would have liked, but we made it back into Duiwelskloof intact.