Hiking

Wemmershoek Traverse

11 August 2026

Paarl

Paarl to Franschhoek, the long way

Ascent: 3000
Difficulty: 8

The Wemmershoek Traverse is a 35km-40km route with roughly 3000m elevation gain that runs along the ridgeline from the mountains above Paarl and Wellington through to Mont Rochelle above Franschhoek. It’s mostly off-trail and takes in Huguenotkop, Haelhoek Sneeukop, Winterberg, Wemmershoek Tafelberg, Olifantshoekpiek, Wemmershoek Peak and Perdekop along the way.

The whole thing came together last minute. I had a week off varsity for semester break and had set myself the goal of getting into the mountains every day, so when this came up it seemed like the perfect way to end the week, and it would push me over 110kms and close to 7000m of climbing while I was at it. The plan was two days with a night camping somewhere on the ridge. I’d done a bit of research and managed to download a few GPX files for guidance, which was about the extent of our preparation, and we set off not really knowing what to expect.

7 of us departed from Stellenbosch early and got to Huguenot Pass at the Miaspoort trailhead just as the sun was coming up. The first stretch went well and we were up at the saddle early, looking out over the Du Toits valley with the N1 buried under a sea of cloud, which is the sort of thing that makes getting up at that hour feel worth it. We did a short out and back to tag the first peak, Huguenotkop, with one of the guys sitting it out because he’d had a late night and was feeling it, wanting to save something for the rest of the day. From there we carried on steadily towards Haelhoek Sneeukop, and by that stage the heat had come up properly and the water situation was starting to worry me, since a few members of the group had decided a single 500ml pump bottle each would be enough. I was starting to think seriously about bailing. Then just past the peak we found water, and after that we made a point of filling up at every opportunity and it never became a problem again. This picked the spirits back up straight away. We also came across a berg adder somewhere along that stretch, which was a decent reminder that dehydration wasn’t the only thing out there worth worrying about.

At the edge of the Haelhoek Sneeukop buttress we got our first proper look at how far we had to descend before climbing all the way back up to the next peak, which was not what anyone wanted to see. Matthew was convinced there was a better line around it. He had no map, no GPS and no real idea where we were, and the direction he was pointing would have taken us back towards Paarl, so we stuck with the GPX and dropped down. At the bottom of the vlei there were some rock pools, so we made the most of the heat and had a swim. By then the afternoon was getting away from us and we’d only covered 12km of the whole route.

So we started up Winterberg, and there was some arguing on the way as the sun got low. Cam and I managed to talk the group into pushing for the summit, on the basis that it would put us at halfway and mean starting the next day going downhill. It was well worth it in the end, as we got an unbelievable sunset up there with Du Toits Peak sitting in the background. We ate dinner and watched the sky fill with stars, going back over the day and feeling a bit nervous about the next one, since we’d already pushed hard and with no trails, constant scrambling, bushwhacking and route finding, the going was slow and the distance never quite matched the effort.

We woke up to a pleasant sunrise, took a minute to enjoy it, and then I pushed everyone to get moving early again. My feet were in a bad way by this point. I hadn’t broken the boots in properly and I’ve been too scared to wear them since. All day, at every chance I got, I was taking them off and replastering my heels hoping it would help, and none of it made the slightest difference.

Matthew spent most of the day reassuring us that we were almost there and couldn’t be far off. Given that he still had no device and no knowledge of the route, this was pure optimism rather than information, but it lifted the group every time so nobody argued. The day threw more steep descents and sharp climbs at us with a fair amount of scrambling. We also found a bunch of crystals along the way, which was a nice distraction and slowed us down a bit more than it probably should have. We pushed on past Wemmershoek Tafelberg and then Olifantshoekpiek, skipping the summit of that one to save time, since we were all becoming aware of the day slipping away again. That left Wemmershoek Peak, which we’d decided between us was the last real challenge before easy trails through Mont Rochelle. As with every other assumption we made on this route, that turned out to be optimistic. The peak itself wasn’t the problem. It was standing on top of it and seeing how much was still ahead of us that was. We had to drop down a fairly gnarly ridgeline to link into the main Mont Rochelle mountains area and get back onto something like a normal trail, and while the descent was sketchy and intense, the views down over Stettynskloof Dam made up for it.

We walked past Perdekop without summiting, even though it was only 200m off the path, because the sun was already going. Then 5.5km of path down to the gate, which we’d left out of our distance calculations for the entire trip on the basis that it’s a path and would be easy. On tired legs in the dark it was anything but. The group split up, the guys feeling stronger sped off ahead, and I got stuck in the middle trying to keep up and then watching them pull away into the dark. My blisters had ripped open by then and my heels were shredded, and I ended up counting steps, walking 100 and then resting 30 seconds, over and over. I’ve run that section plenty of times and always loved it. That night it felt like it went on forever. We got there in the end. The guys behind me caught up right at the finish and we met the rest of the group at the gate.

We caught Ubers back to Stellenbosch and then beers and pizza at Gino’s, the best way to wrap up an adventures. With rest and recovery being the most important part of any trip, a few sick notes went in for work the following morning.