Echo Gatherings : Valley of Spirits

VALLEY OF SPIRITS: LEGEND OF THE SWARTBERG MOUNTAIN RANGE ⛰️ TOWERKOP PEAK ⛰️

The accounts of Gustav Nefdt’s historic ascent of Towerkop are steeped in small discrepancies & differing details.
The full and 100% correct story may never be known. Gustav Nefdt is an interesting character. His climbing feat
can be considered super human. He is a legend in South African climbing circles & he is an Afrikaans folk hero,
but we know almost nothing about him. He deserves serious research.
Toverkop when translated from Dutch means “The Head that Bewitches”, “The
Witching Head” or perhaps “Magic Peak” 9
. In Afrikaans “Tower” means do
magic and “kop” means peak or head. Apparently in the old days there were
plenty of stories of ghosts, witches & other evil beings that resided on
A more realistic origin of the name is probably from the fact that the mountain
seems to change its appearance when seen from different angles 6
. In fact this
is mainly caused by Nel’s Cave Buttress which can easily been seen from the
west, but not from the south when it blends in with the summit in the
background. To the unfamiliar eye this may seem unexplainable, even magical.