Hikes and trails

Mountain walking is great

• as part of a holiday
• as a day off
• as a once-off outing.

But it’s best as a lifestyle!

Mountain walking is the natural way to lose weight, get fit, meet people, clear your head and think again. Cape Mountain & Field can show you 50 (fifty!) graded options from easy starts to classic scrambles before you rope up and climb.

Easy Starters (1 to 2 hours, flat)

• Flower, stream and waterfall, Silvermine (Proteas, ericas, sunbirds)
• Time warp, Peers Cave (30 000 year-old real estate)
• The Eye of the Elephant, Silvermine (a thinkers view)
• Strandloper (Coast walk), Cape Point (shipwrecks, sea birds, stone age middens, rock pools)
• Animal tracks, Cape Point open veld (Bontebok, Eland, Red Hartebeest, wild Ostrich, Baboon)

Going up (2 – 3 hours, inclined)

• Gifkommetjie and Hoek van Bobbejaan (wild and wonderful )
• Baskloof (mountain, fynbos and the whole southern Atlantic ocean)
• Panorama, Silvermine (a view beyond imagining)
• Kleintuinkop, Silvermine (not a small garden)
• Vlakkenberg (wine and wonderful)

Getting confident (3 – 4 hours, getting steeper)

• Manganese Mine, Hout Bay (some history, some geology)
• Constantiaberg, Silvermine (to the mast, the easy way)
• Judas and St Paul, Cape Point (can such views be real?)
• Cecilia’s secrets, Cecilia Forest (forest, waterfall and rocky ridge)
• Chapman’s Peak, Noordhoek (drive? What drive?)

Getting stronger (3 – 5 hours, ups and downs)

• Hidden caves and valleys, Muizenberg (caving, fynbos)
• Orbit Devil’s Peak, Rhodes Memorial (up a ravine, over a saddle and round the other side)
• Klaasjagersberg, Scarborough (path optional)
• Tranquility Cracks, Camps Bay (“woody” you’ll understand, but why “corridor”?)
• Skeleton Gorge, dam and nursery, Kirstenbosch (forest, ravines, history and a huge staircase)

Getting braver (4 – 6 hours, welcome to rock scrambling)

• Smuts’s Track, Kirstenbosch (famous for a reason)
• Constantia Corner, Constantia Nek (start scrambling and maybe sit on the camel’s back)
• Spilhaus Ridge, Kirstenbosch (short and sharp)
• Agatha’s Gulley, Constantia Nek (not your average walk in the park)
• Diagonal, Camps Bay (now we’re climbing)

Getting bolder (5 – 7 hours, getting used to heights)

• Grootkop’s Yellowwood Traverse, Camps Bay (a chimney, a room with a view, the Earth’s curve)
• Devil’s Peak via Mowbray Ridge, Rhodes Memorial (is this really a path?)
• Myburgh’s Disas, Hout Bay (best in January and February, see Llandudno as never before)
• India Venster, Tafelberg Road (what a feeling!)
• Nursery Buttress, Kirstenbosch (yes you can, really)

Going further (6 – 8 hours, long and high)

• Duiker Ridge, Sandy Bay (nearby but away from it all)
• Blind Gully, Camps Bay (how do you get there?)
• Wood Buttress, Camps Bay (we will rock you)
• Three Firs, Camps Bay (big air)
• Blackburn Ravine via Noordhoek and Chapman’s Peaks, Silvermine (beauty beyond singing)

Walk forever (7 – 8 hours, now you’re fit, height exposure not an issue)

• Around the dams, Constantia Nek (stress less)

  

• MacLear’s Beacon, Echo Valley, Disa Gorge, Kirstenbosch (the grand circle, best in January or February)
• Swartkop to Smitswinkel bay, Simonstown (beautiful up, breathtaking down)
• Smitswinkel Flats, Cape Point (birds, beasts and beauty)
• Nek to Nek, Kloof Nek/Constantia Nek (forests, waterfalls, the big easy)

Away from the Mother City (full day trips to other Cape mountains)

• Panorama Path, Jonkershoek (stupendous)
• Kogelberg Trail, Betty’s Bay (smell the fynbos, swim in the river)
• Rockhopper, Bain’s Kloof (boulder hop down the Witte River)
• Kurktrekker to Swartboskloof, Jonkershoek (is this the Cape or Switzerland?)
• Helderberg Dome, Somerset West (a peak experience)

  

Overnighters (carry a pack, swim in the rivers, live big)

• Orchards Route, Grabouw (deep in the Franschhoek Mountains)
• Greyton to McGregor, Greyton (deep in the Riviersonderend Mountains)
• Boosmansbos, Grootvadersbos (wilderness trail)
• Arangieskop, Robertson (up where the eagle flies)
• Grootwinterhoek, Porterville (wilderness trail)