The Unsettling Reasons This South African Hike Is So Deadly

The daunting Drakensberg Grand Traverse across South Africa's Royal Natal National Park is as rewarding as it is dangerous. Widely seen as one of the world's great bucket-list treks, it includes all manner of terrain, from ridges and riverbeds to sheep trails, and crosses the border between South Africa and Lesotho more than once. It's roughly 130-miles long, depending on the decisions you make along the way. Up or down? Around or over? With no fixed trail, it's an exercise in route-finding as you navigate your way from one waypoint to another. It's also fraught with danger. Drakensberg means "dragon's back," and the range's jagged row of peaks resemble the serrated spine of a slumbering green dragon — wake it at your peril.

In making your way from the beginning to the end of this trail, you must summit 6 peaks: Mont Aux Sources, Cleft Peak, Champagne Castle, Giant's Castle, Mafadi Peak (the highest mountain in South Africa), and Thabana Ntlenyana. That, in a nutshell, is the route. Along the way, climbers have died by falling, freezing, or even being struck by lightning, while just about every hiker reports close calls of the same ilk, and many abandon the pursuit. It's said that officials simply gave up and stopped counting deaths at one point. Risks to life and limb in the region include venomous snake bites, hail big enough to concuss or kill, and something called a white squall — a sudden, vicious thunderstorm that can also prove deadly. 

Are the views worth it? When you make it to the Amphitheatre, a stunning rock wall three times the size of Yosemite's iconic El Capitan, catch your breath and let us know.

The hike begins at the Sentinel Car Park with a short section of actual trail, and a dangerous climb up a pair of chain ladders on Sentinel Peak. The traverse requires you to carry 10 or more days' worth of supplies, and on day one, your pack will be at its heaviest. Climbing any kind of ladder with a heavy pack, let alone a sketchy, precarious one chained to a cliff, can be treacherous, and falls do happen here. It's little wonder why Outside Magazine named it one of the deadliest hikes in the world.

Once you make it through this early test of mettle, you cross a verdant valley, then head up and down to reach mesa viewpoints that resemble the American southwest, but bathed in a coating of spring green, and overlooks toward geological features like the Column and Pyramid that look like something out of Utah's red-rocked Capitol Reef National Park.  Often you'll be above the clouds, feeling like you are indeed riding on the back of a giant dragon looking down at the world. Hikers take between 8 and 15 days to complete the route, depending on ability, finishing at the Bushman's Neck Border Post.

If carrying 10 days' worth of supplies on your back while dodging lightning bolts sounds like more of a suffer-fest than you're ready to sign up for, you can still experience the magic of the Drakensberg Mountains on a less masochistic excursion. From day hikes to multi-day treks, there are lots of ways to clock this magnificent scenery. The hike to Bannerman pass lets you glamp in a cozy stone hut on your way up and down, while still offering sweeping views from the top of a mesa. 

But the highest reward/effort ratio in a shorter, less burdensome hike has to be the trek to the top of the Amphitheatre from Sentinel Car Park. While not easy, it's immanently achievable for anyone who loves hiking enough to seek out this bucket-list destination. You will need to climb those chain ladders, which can make the vertiginous, chain-roped hike to Utah's Angel's Landing look tame, but you can do so without a heavy pack, and if you go with an outfitter, they may even bring safety harnesses and ropes to give you that margin of safety and comfort that make it doable in a few hours. 

From the top of the Amphitheatre, you can gaze down at the tops of clouds to miles upon miles of valleys and mesas vanishing toward the horizon and feel what it must be like to ride a dragon's back, high above the world. Make it a 2-day excursion and you can also visit Tugela Falls (pictured) the second-highest in the world with a total cascade of over 3,000 feet, and a single horsetail jet of 1,350 feet.