In accordance with Manny's comment here are this Navi's observations. However being called a navigator is a bit of a misnomer as I only had to get out of the vehicle once to do some guiding. More like a passenger. I met Pierre (Bugger) through this forum and asked to go along with him and he kindly agreed. We initially met up at a Jeep Day at Gerotek earlier in the year and from this a new friendship started culminating in me joining Pierre for this trip. Thank you!!
I had previously done Baboon's as a Rock Jockey with Paul Carter Brown from the LCCSA in Dec 2011(
https://www.4x4community.co.za/forum/sh ... s-Dec-2011). That was the trip where the late Willie (Sampie) pulled a Venter trailer through the pass with his Range Rover and made it albeit with the trailer somewhat worse for wear. Shortly after that the pass was fixed up till the school and there were fears that this would mark the passing of an iconic offroad track. However it seems that that was a one off and the pass has deteriorated markedly (for the better) since then. There has been severe erosion over time with far more rocks exposed. This was particularly noticeable compared to 2011. Pierre had done the pass in 2017 and he also observed that there had been tremendous deterioration since then.
I am going to try and show the difference on one section where we managed to bend a transfer case mounting. I think it is called Yee Ha hill. The current picture is turned on its side (courtesy of Apple) but I think one can appreciate the amount of erosion that has occurred over the last 7.5 years. Can the mods correct this?
There was one section where I thought the Hummer was going to sukkel. There was a huge rock which narrowed the road considerably. I vaguely remember reading that someone was planning to move the rock but I could not find the thread. Santa also commented on the absence of this rock. Anyhow whoever did this did the big vehicles a favour as this was a tricky bit to traverse.
Where that bush is was a steep drop leaving very little room to manoeuvre. Well that's history now.
Here is what T4A has to say about the pass
In the SA4x4 article they commented on how difficult the road was after the pass. I was surprised by this as in 2011 it was quite easy except for one very narrow section. However the road is terrible and not a simple drive back to the tar
I would like to give my inexpert opinion on the vehicles that did the pass.
I travelled with Pierre in Tiny which I think a lot of you know. This is a Suzuki SJ with a Nissan 1400 engine, Hilux axles, front and back lockers, 35" wheels and a crawler gearbox. Pretty much unstoppable. It was towed on a trailer to Ramabanta by a V10 Touareg. Now this is an impressive vehicle with its 750NM torque.
The two Jeep Wranglers (Rubicon and Sahara) did what one would expect modified Jeeps to do. They just coped with what had to be done.
The Terrano had the hardest time as this was the only vehicle with open diffs and although they sukkeled more they got through everything eventually. I think Jaco packed the most rocks on the day.
The Fortuner (an SUV that everyone loves to hate) also did very well and made all the obstacles. Martin was at a bit of an disadvantage as he had no navi.
There were two stand out vehicles.
The Hummer because this was an unknown quantity. However Alex coped very well. Because of its large size it was trickier getting around the tight spots so this took a little longer but otherwise it coped very well.
Vic's third generation Jimny was the star of the show. It has a 50mm lift and custom coils with larger tyres that i don't remember the size of. The traction control worked overtime and this vehicle just drove over everything. It sustained no major damage. It was like a mountain goat. I'm sure Vic will give his own impressions in time.
I think that everyone was relieved that we did not have to sleep on the pass as it really was cold by the time we finished at the end.
That evening was a jovial time. As mentioned the court sitting was great fun. Only problem is that I am a teetotaller and so Pierre took my shots for me.
This was a wonderful trip with a group of disparate people who didn't all know each other but ended with everyone friends. I hope that this trip will be repeated and would encourage others to join. Although it can be a vehicle breaker the damage was limited and could largely be avoided by skillful guiding
(he also damaged his left rear quarter panel 
)
. Definitely a fudged nylon moment 