Route breakdowns with real numbers
Distance, elevation gain and the shape of the day, measured on foot. You get the climb profile and the honest total, not a rounded figure pulled from a guidebook.
Every entry in the journal starts with someone walking the ground. Here is the path a route takes before it reaches these pages, and what you can expect at each stage.
A club member chooses a coastal or mountain line, checks the season against the terrain, and walks it on foot. No scouting by map alone, no borrowed notes.
Distance and elevation gain, water points that actually ran, wind exposure on the ridge sections, and the state of markers. Overgrown stretches and faded paint get noted as they were found.
The notes become a route breakdown: the months the traverse works best, where a shortcut saves an hour, and honest gear remarks on footwear, packs and layering for wet coastal weather.
Group walks go up with a meeting point and a difficulty grade, so you can judge whether the route suits your pace before you commit to the day.
Walked something worth recording? Submit the route name, region, difficulty grade and your trail notes. If you want weekend walk notices, tick the box on the form.
The next walker starts with better information than you had. That is the whole point of the journal, and it is why conditions get re-checked on later walks.
We walk coastal and mountain routes in South Africa, then write down what we actually found. That is the whole scope. No guiding, no bookings, no polished destination copy. Below is where our work starts and stops, so you know what a report can and cannot tell you before you plan a day out.
Some details sit with you, not with us. Check the current forecast against the exposure a ridge actually gets, confirm whether the streams you are counting on still run after a dry spell, and decide your turn-back point before the wind picks up. If you are joining a group walk, confirm the meeting point and grade in advance, and carry what the route asks for rather than what the last report listed. Conditions move faster than any write-up.
Found a path overgrown, a marker faded, or a shortcut that saves an hour? Send your route notes so the next walker starts with better information than you did.
Every route in this journal was walked first. A small group heads out on coastal and mountain paths across South Africa, records what the day gave us, and writes it up before the details fade. No destination marketing, no borrowed photographs.
If you keep your own notes, they belong here too. Send them in and they get read, checked against the route index, and filed where they help the next walker.
Distance, elevation gain and the shape of the day, measured on foot. You get the climb profile and the honest total, not a rounded figure pulled from a guidebook.
Where streams actually run, which seeps dry out, and how a ridge section behaves when the crosswind picks up. Both decide whether a traverse works on the day you planned it.
The months a traverse is at its best, and the months it turns into a different walk entirely. Heat, mud, short daylight and slippery rock all get named.
Footwear grip on slick rock, packs that stay put on scrambles, layering that copes with damp wind. Written from what members wore, including the pieces that failed.
Overgrown stretches, faded paint on markers, and the shortcuts that genuinely save an hour. Flagged so you know what to expect before you commit to the path.
Meeting points and difficulty grades go up before the weekend. You read the grade, decide if it matches your legs, and turn up. No booking, no guided package.
We use a small amount of local storage to remember how you respond to this notice. Nothing is shared with third parties, and no tracking runs before you decide. You can read how we handle data in our privacy policy.