The Chain Ladder Route

One of the main reasons for us staying at the Glenn Reenen Rest Camp was the easy access to the Sentinel Peak and chain ladder route, it was only a 40 mile drive. We had read about this route before we left and this was one of our must do routes whilst we were in South Africa. We set out early after checking on the weather and parked up on the Sentinel Peak car park where we had to complete a visitors register and pay a nominal entry fee. As you enter through the fence there is a well maintained path that takes you along the side of a ridge line directly towards the Sentinel Peak. After around three quarters of a mile you hit quite a steep zig zag section which continues for another three quarters of a mile until it reaches a straighter path that slowly gains altitude as it climbs towards the base of the cliffs. The path then follows the cliffs for just over half a mile to the bottom of Beacon Buttress gully which is an alternative route, but steep scramble to the summit. If you continue on for another half a mile or so you will meet the base of the chain ladder that takes you in two sections directly to the summit.

The chain ladder is bolted to the rock face in two sections and there are also two ladders next to each other, one with large hand hold rings and one without. We climbed the bottom section side by side taking one ladder each, this section is approximately 24m high and vertical, it ends on a small ledge which you have to traverse about 70m to get to the bottom of the second section. This first section feels really high as the land at the bottom of the rock drops away quickly into the valley giving the impression of being hundreds of meters higher. Then the second section is a further 15m or so, I climbed that first and waited for Tracey at the top so that I could get a video of her climbing up. The video is in a link at the bottom of this page.

Once at the top of the chain ladder you are effectively at the top of the Drakensberg amphitheatre plateau. The area is quite flat and offers stunning views across both the Golden Gate Highlands National Park and the Royal Natal National Park a short walk away on the other side of the plateau. Once on the plateau we walked over to the Sentinel Peak enjoying the views and the thinking how lucky we were to have such stunning blue skies. The edge of the amphitheatre is quite an impressive place to stand and a great place for a photo.

After spending an hour or so on the plateau we decided to follow the path back down through the Beacon Buttress Gully, this is a steep and rocky way to get back down but is easy enough with a little care. At the bottom of the gully we rejoined the path that took us up to the chain ladder and retraced our steps back to the car park. This was a stunning day walk with a total altitude gain of around 500m and back down again.

Click on the picture to follow the link to our video of the chain ladder climb