Kowyns pass

De Kowyns pass is een beklimming van 7.3 kilometer. Dit is een beklimming van categorie 2. Het ligt in Sabie, Mpumalanga, Zuid-Afrika. De gemiddelde helling van deze beklimming is 6.6% met een maximum van 7%. De Kowyns pass stijgt van 966 meter aan het begin tot 1.448 meter aan de top, met een totaal van 483 stijgende meters.

Beschrijving

Kowyn Pass is situated in Mpumalanga province, on the R535 road between Graskop and Bosbokrand. The pass was completed on 3 October 1959. The top has an altitude of 1,448 metres above sea level near Graskop.The pass is believed to have been built along an ancient pedestrian route which connected the lowveld to higher areas towards the west. It is named for the 19th century Bakwena chief Kobêng Moxane, who the voortrekkers referred to as Kowyn. He settled his faction of the Pulana tribe on the Graskop escarpment, after the Swazis scattered them from a former settlement near Pretoriuskop. They were Sotho-speaking people who were initially displaced from the highveld by the disturbances of the Mfecane, and subsequently migrated northwards to escape raids by the Swazis.

The story is told that the original route was created when the tribe sent two donkeys up the escarpment to find the shortest and fastest route. Creating the footpath that was used for many years.

A major rock fall occurred in 1973 at a point where the pass skirts a very steep hill. When rock falls continued despite the area being anchored, the Transvaal Provincial Roads Authority decided in 1977 to construct a reinforced concrete rockfall shelter as a permanent and fail-safe protective measure. The construction of the shelter, some 170 metres long, was completed in August 1980.

Beklimmingen in de buurt