Pass Ratings, QR Codes, and Rules and Regs for hiking in the Berg

Theuns van Rensburg [L] and the cartographer discussing the first draft of "Noord Drakensberg North" with Natal officials at the Cathedral Peak Forestry Office, 1980

25 April 2022

RATING THE BERG PASSES

There has been a fair consensus amongst map contributors that some sort of rating system should be applied to the escarpment passes, especially considering that these maps will not only be used by experienced hikers. Such ratings are always going to be subjective and we could all argue until the cows come home about this pass vs that, etc etc. Right at the start of the process I found the Vertical Endeavour ratings, and there are three reasons why I have more-or-less stuck with these:

1. They are not DANGER ratings, they are DIFFICULTY ratings. We have other symbols for danger, impassability etc. These VE ratings relate to length, steepness, bushiness, stoniness – all the factors that require specific kinds of fitness rather than sheer climbing competence and ability to deal with vertical rock faces or height exposure. Hence a really long arduous route that requires a whole day’s very steep slog up a broken stony route with lots of snaggy bush, little water and exposure to the hot afternoon sun might rate much higher than a route with one short C pitch in the middle, or higher than one that has a fairly easy ascent but a really dangerous descent IF you don’t turn out of the gully at the right point.

2. They are ratings for AVERAGE CONDITIONS. You can’t rate for every single kind of weather, temperature, ice or lightning danger, etc etc. In ‘Dragon’s Wrath’ Pearse says that ‘it would be a sad day if the Drakensberg were ever made totally safe’ – and the same surely applies to every wild place on Earth, and our apparently inborn need for the challenges of danger and excitement in our lives.

3. I found that three people involved with the original VE ratings had signed up for our mapping group, so what was more logical than to ask them to look at their ratings critically, and add passes that had not previously been rated by them? They are all highly experienced and I have no reason - including from my own now admittedly ancient experience - to doubt them.

Consequently the ratings have been updated with more precision in the later drafts, and stand for now with these words added to the map reference:

“Difficulty rating for Escarpment passes [where 10 is the extreme, requiring great experience and fitness]. Ratings according to Vertical Endeavour, under average conditions of weather and temperature. NB These are subjective DIFFICULTY ratings from experience, relating to the distance, altitude and steepness, state of path or substrate, need to bushwhack, scramble, etc etc; they do not indicate DANGER levels.”

I hope that we can all accept that there are issues in this process of mapping that we won’t all reach consensus on - otherwise the maps will never be made.

 

QR CODES

It's our intention to include a set of QR codes on the maps that link to relevant and informative websites. There are any number of free QR scanner-aps available for smart phones and they are a wonderful way of making the maps interactive and a rich resource in themselves. If you have a QR scanner on your phone scan the above and you'll see what we mean. We have room on the map for 20 codes and we have chosen those shown below. If you would like to suggest any others please contact us. NB if the codes below won't scan because they too close together block those you don't want with a bit of paper. If you click on the pic it will enlarge.

"RULES AND REGULATIONS" HIKING TIPS, SAFETY HINTS ETC.

We've published these as a separate Page [click here] -- if you would like to comment please feel free to do so. These are basically the same as published on the existing EKZNW maps but cleaned up with duplications omitted, etc etc.

All the best!

Peter Slingsby, April 2022