The Club organises various meets throughout the year, from day outings, to overnight hikes and long weekends away. These are led by experienced members of the club. When hiking in Cape Nature areas, permits must be obtained.
Paarl Mountain Reserve, managed by Drakenstein Municipality has lovely easy hikes and the impressive Paarl Rocks. Contact them for more information by clicking here
If planning to hike far and/or overnight away from the Krom River hut, a Cape Nature Route Safety Form should be sent in a separate email to Patrick Shone and kromriverhut@pw.mcsa.org.za in CC.
To assist hike leaders with the arrangements of hikes please check the following:
- Guidelines for hike leaders
- Indemnity form should be signed by all members of the group.
- Route Safety Form
Mountain Etiquette
To keep our club harmonious we do ask members to observe some basic etiquette. This just makes things easier and we’re all on the same page.
Club meets & expeditions
- Meet and expedition leaders take on the responsibility to safely lead and bring back a group of members on routes the leaders know well and have personally recce’ed.
- When you sign up for a meet, you sign up to do the whole route. You commit to stay with the group; not to leave early, stay later or do another route back etc. We try to avoid Search and Rescue wherever possible – never ever split a party.
- Arrive before the hike start time – it’s not great standing around and starting late having waited for someone to join. If you can’t make it at the last minute let the leader know ASAP. A quick call will do it!
- Many meets require a permit and numbers are restricted – so don’t bring extra people without checking with the leader.
- When a leader specifies special extra kit it’s not cool to arrive without the kit – think winter trip, kloofing in summer etc.
- We’re not really fans of boomboxes in wilderness areas. Just saying.
Private Hiking
Being MCSA Club members gives us many privileges and some responsibilities too:
- Never hike without a permit or over private property without permission – this could get the Club banned from a hiking area (it’s happened in the past).
- Avoid arriving at farm gates/parking at unreasonable hours – this can jeopardise our agreements with farmers.
- Respect other groups you may encounter.
- Help educate less experienced hikers.
- Always make sure a reliable person back home knows your route and ETA and where you have parked – on many occasions Search and Rescue spend hours searching in the wrong area!
- When filling in mountain registers fill in ALL the required info, with a description of your route. When you get back make sure that you sign out.
Most important of all, have fun, respect the mountain and stay safe!