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This cache is hidden upon the fantastic route known as Grotto-Fountain-Cairn Traverse, so called as it starts at Grotto Ravine, and traverses across Fountain and Cairn Ravine, before arriving at the top of Kloof Corner.
I knew this was going to be a spectacular and exciting hike when I set off to hide this cache. With my handy description from Tony Lourense’s book on climbs and scrambles on Table Mountain, I set off at 10:30, secure in the knowledge that the route should take 2.5 to 3 hours . . . that Tony is a funny guy!! At last after just over 6 hours (allowing time to get lost, of course), I finally got to the top of the mountain, pretty shaky, and with cramping legs, with just enough time to find a cache and catch the cable car down. I’ll be darned if I was going to walk down Platteklip gorge after all that!
The good news for you is that you don’t have to do the whole route. You have the option to traverse, and then reverse! In fact, against my normal style, I don’t suggest you do the whole route, unless you have no fear of heights, some minor climbing skills, and are familiar with the kloof corner hike (look out for a cache coming sometime to that route).
The cache starts from the pipe track. I suggest parking in Camps Bay at Rontree estate.
Parking co-ords:
S33° 57.810
E18° 23.064
Head up to the pipe track, and turn left. Walk a while until you get to a peeling sign for Blinkwater Ravine.
Blinkwater sign co-ords:
S33° 57.629
E18° 23.651
Head up behind this sign for 10 – 15 minutes, and turn left at a small cairn on a rock.
Cairn Co-ords
S33° 57.705
E18° 23.804
The path now heads diagonally up to the bottom of Grotto Ravine. It is a bit faint at first, but this section is well marked with cairns. A short while before you each the start of the ravine you need to turn left at the following co-ords:
S33° 57.680
E18° 24.007
{If you don’t turn here, you will soon reach a pretty waterfall (possibly winter only), where you can get a drink and relax for a while. This might be a nice place for a cache for those who don’t want to go all the way up, so feel free to place one here.}
If you do go to waterfall, backtrack to the above co-ords and head up steepish path. You need to do a short climb, to get to the top of the first rock band, where an obvious path will be seen heading right into the ravine. (Apparently there is a perennial water supply about 30m higher up from here, in a cave on the right containing wall. I did not try find it)
Head into the ravine, and head up it or 60 – 80m, keeping mostly to the left of the river bed. After 60 – 80m, the path crosses over to the right of the ravine, marked by a cairn. Follow this steep path on the right for quite some time. There will occasionally be some tricky rock scrambles and confusion about which way to go, but just keep on heading up on the right of the ravine.
You can clearly see the traverse up above you. It’s the green line breaking the white cliff face above and the darker rocks below!
As you near the Traverse, you should path a large cairn in the path. Head past that to the following co-ords, where you need to head left for the start of the traverse:
Traverse (770m ASL):
S33° 57.780
E18° 24.218
To get to the start, you need to traverse left across a short exposed section to a small cave, and clamber through this. The cache is at the end of this first section of the traverse.
GPS reception should be pretty bad on the Traverse, but improves near cache site.
Just as you start rounding the bend towards Fountain Ravine, there will be a large, flattish rock on the corner. Cache is hidden about 10m further on, on a smaller flat rock, just on the edge of the cliff. (NOT on the rock straight down, also precariously on the edge of cliff)
Cache is under a largish rectangular rock, about 65cm by 40cm.
On this rock, my accuracy suddenly jumped to 180m, so you can try the following readings I also got:
S33° 57.618
E18° 24.156
S33° 57.618
E18° 24.172
All things considered, it is probably safer to try find cache from the description.
Once you have found the cache, you have a choice. Continue on with the rest of the traverse, or reverse back along the traverse, and head to the top of the mountain from there. I have not done this route, but the below is the route description from the book.
“At the 770m elevation mark, where the traverse starts, you can gain the top of the mountain directly by carrying on with the steep slope to the right of grotto Ravine to a height of 850m. Over here you can either carry straight on up a steep rocky gully, encountering some easy pitches, which brings you to the top of the mountain and the path leading to the top of Platteklip Gorge, or traverse off to the right across some grassy slopes to the top of Blinkwater Ravine”
Should you decide you want to continue with the full traverse, don’t say you haven’t been warned. Just round the corner from the cache the path narrows and there is a short very exposed section to get to Fountain Ravine. You will need to head 20m up this ravine, climbing up by the 2 strong trees. It was here that I almost lost my nerve and quit, but managed to press on. Don’t do what I did by taking the path left straight after the tree climb. Head up the ravine until you can see the 2 large cairns near the top on the left. Traverse across this exciting path. Once around the next corner, descend slightly down, and continue past 2 shoulders. There is supposed to be some path heading up to Fountain ledge from here, so I continued all the way to the end, where a notch in the cliff will allow you to access kloof corner. From here you can head down kloof corner, but you will need to descend 2 chains near the bottom to reach contour path. These chains are fairly tricky to go down.
If you don’t want to go down this way, you can head up Kloof Corner under the telephone wires to access fountain ravine. There is a very high scary chain to climb, and a very narrow gulley to climb up as well, but I didn’t have time or energy to note co-ords and directions, so I don’t really recommend this route unless you are familiar with it.
I will be uploading a rough map when I manage to locate one, and I will be happy to accompany anyone who feels they might need some assistance if they want to try the full route.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)