How to get there:
Locate the fork near the east side of Windhoek where the highway to
the airport begins. This is near coordinate XX,YY.
Drive a bit more than 2 kilometer. You will pass under a railroad bridge.
Turn right (dirt road) at the first possible road immediately after the
railroad bridge. This road serves a lodge, the entrance gate is downhill
on your left when approaching the lodge. A new highway is being constructed
in this area. When completed, you need to get across it somehow. Thus, this
access may slightly change in the future. Ask for directions when you
contact the ranch people to obtain your permit and agree on what time you will
arrive there.
After passing through the ranch gate,
the road is a 4WD. There are several
farm roads in the area, but it is fairly clear which one to follow, as you
want to get pretty close to the mountain. The trailhead parking is at location
S22.63048. E17.16533, elevation about 1935 meter. There is a pretty obvious
(small) local peak nearby. Even much closer you will
notice a large boulder. Route description:
Walk downhill and pass the big boulder on the left side. Next, ascend the slope
ahead using obvious animal paths. Once up on the gentle slope below the local
peak, follow any small trail that heads uphill towards it. You will soon locate
a bigger trail that will traverse and ascend gently around on the left hand
side of the peak. This trail extends to near the saddle on the upper side
of this local peak. The summit is now in plain view straight ahead.
Now, head gently uphill tending more left until you
hit the 4WD mountain access road. Finally, just
follow this road to the summit. Comments:
I did this climb with Dave. This "bonus peak" would be the first on our continued
schedule to climb 6 more ultra prominent peaks in 5 more countries.
We had a spare day. As it turned out that there were no convenient flights from Windhoek to
Cape Town on Sundays. We had allocated this day to make certain that we had sufficient time for
the Brandberg mountain. We quickly discovered that there was a Ribu peak very close to
Windhoek, Moltkeblick. Dave did a great job in quickly finding all the relevant information
for gaining access to the trailhead, located inside a private farm.
We left around 0900 and drove to the gate where we paid the entrance fee, as agreed up front.
The 4WD road to the trailhead was pretty nice, but with a couple of rough and steep spots that
would have stopped any regular car. The parking at the trailhead was right next to an enormous
boulder having overhanging slopes all around. A difficult objective to climb.
We started at 1000, easy hike in nice terrain, mostly along a rough access road serving the technical
installations on the summit. Summit at 1130. The highest point is marked by a big cairn. There is a
fenced in area nearby,
but luckily lower than the location of the cairn. Nice views all around.
We stayed until 1145, then descended the same way, back at the car by 1300.
At the hotel in Windhoek, John was waiting to get to the airport.
He could easily have taken the hotel shuttle,
but somehow preferred me spending an hour driving him. At the airport, he just exited the car
without saying goodbye or thanking me for the ride?
I felt sorry for him, he obviously had a very bad day.
