We’d been here before. Same mountain, same July cold, same pre-dawn alarm. But the moment we left the N1 and started climbing toward Ceres, it was obvious this was not the same trip.
In 2021 we arrived to snow. Beautiful, calm, photogenic. People walking around taking pictures, kids throwing snowballs, everyone happy.
In 2024 we arrived to a storm.
The Pass Closes
The roads coming in were already being monitored. Ahead of us — and behind us — drivers with no off-road experience, no snow tyres, no recovery gear had pushed into the mountains chasing the pictures they’d seen on Instagram. The Western Cape mountains do not care about Instagram.
The pass closed. Just like that. The municipality deployed rescue services. Cars were stuck everywhere — not off-road, just on the tarmac, sideways, going nowhere. People who had driven up in passenger sedans with summer tyres were waiting for someone to come and fix a problem they had absolutely caused themselves.
We kept moving. Slow, deliberate, low range.
Ten Vehicles
By the time we reached Matroosberg, the group had been whittled down by the road conditions and the chaos on the pass. Ten vehicles in total made it through. Bakkie and SUV drivers who knew what they were doing, who had clearance and tyres for this, who had been here before or trained for it.
Ten out of however many had set out that morning. The others were still waiting for the tow trucks.
Inside the reserve the snow was unlike anything from three years ago. Not centimetres — deep drifts. The kind of snow that comes up past your wheel arches, that hides what’s underneath, that makes everything white and featureless. The mountain had disappeared into cloud. You couldn’t see where the valley ended and the peaks began.
Two Vehicles, the River, and a Storm
Most of the group stayed in the relative safety of the main reserve area. Sensible. The conditions were genuinely dangerous — not thrilling-dangerous, actually-dangerous.
Two of us decided to try for the base of the mountain.
The snow got deeper as we pushed further in. The river crossing was the problem. We found it — or rather, we found where the river should have been. Under snow and ice and runoff from the storm above, it was hard to tell exactly where the banks were. And then one of us was in it.
Stuck next to the river. Properly stuck. Snow banking up against the doors, another wave of the storm rolling in from above.
Recovery gear out. High-lift jack, traction boards, the works. Working in snowfall, in a wind that had no interest in stopping, in a place where the only other vehicle was also axle-deep and also not going anywhere without a plan.
We got ourselves out. No winch anchor point, no recovery vehicle nearby — just methodical work, moving one vehicle at a time, packing traction boards, reading the ground under the snow as best we could. It took time. It took patience. It took a lot of not panicking.
The second vehicle came out shortly after the first.
What It Taught Us
Three years between the two trips. The first time Matroosberg was a highlight reel — perfect light, easy conditions, everyone had a great time. The second time it was a real day. The kind of day where the equipment earns its place in the bakkie, where the training you’ve done either shows up or it doesn’t, where being calm matters more than anything else.
We drove out the same way we came in. Slow, deliberate, low range. The storm was still going. The rescue crews were still working the pass below.
The full day is on the YouTube channel — everything from the drive in to the recovery. Watch the video above.
First visited Matroosberg in July 2021 — see that trip for the calmer version of the same mountain.