essa provides a forum for the conceptual & physical exploration of southern african

Welcome to ESSA

Essa was established in 1988 and runs great trips and expeditions throughout southern Africa, as well as further afield. We hold a regular meeting on the first Tuesday of the month at the Cricket Pavilion Johannesburg Country Club at 7:00pm. We are open to all, and the society encourages ideas on exploring, as well as organising a great variety of trips for like minded people.
If you wish to join ESSA or subscribe to it's mailing list please visit the Join page.

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Upcoming Trips

Sediba Hike
18 July, 2009 (All day) - 19 July, 2009 (All day)
Hiking
Memel

 

For those of us who have a fascination for Arctic expeditions, we have a much less intimidating South African version.

Stargazing
22 August, 2009 (All day) - 23 August, 2009 (All day)
Star Gazing
Magaliesburg

 Join ESSA & ASSA for an evening of star watching, telescope discussing and good food and wine.  This weekend out on the Witwatersberg offers dark skies, and a roaring fire.  Only an hour from Johannesburg or Pretoria you can scuttle back home afterwards or stay over to enjoy the great outdoors.  ASSA members will be bringing their fantastic scopes (many hand made) and will point out some of the fascinating objects in the sky.  Afterwards sit around the fire enjoying the fresh air and interesting discussion.

SA's Largest Cave
29 August, 2009 (All day) - 30 August, 2009 (All day)
Caving
Carltonville

Apocolypse entrance

Apocalypse has 13km of surveyed passage with an additional 3km's added in the last year or so. The entrance to the cave is a 56m abseil to the bottom of a large sinkhole, The plan is to spend the night in the cave and to push passages seldom seen.

Upcoming events

  1. North Korea
    Monthly Meeting
    Dimiter Todorov
    Country Club in Auckland Park
    Free for members, visitors R20

           

    7 July, 2009 - 19:00
  2. Southern Hemisphere Christmas
    ESSA Social
    Zoo lake Bowling club
    A la carte

     Sharron has decided to host Christmas celebrations in light of the cold weather we are now experiencing.  Please join her and the rest of the ESSA crowd in what looks to be the social  gathering of the year.  This is again to appease the snow gods (or know gods).  Gifts are welcome!

    25 July, 2009 - 19:30
  3. Aha Hills Caving expedition
    Monthly Meeting
    Vanja & Dave Ingold
    Cricket Pavilion, Johannesburg Country Club
    Free for members R20 for guests

                 

    4 August, 2009 - 19:15

expeditions

Aconcagua Expedition

Most of the Aconcagua team made it back to SA safely yesterday. Lorna remains in Argentina to climb other mountains and spend some time in Patagonia. The trip in brief: - our route was fantastic - we even had the camps to ourselves for the first 2 nights, and the 'False Polish' route proved to be both tough, scenic, and much less densely populated than the normal route on the way up, while the normal route provided welcome human contact and a different perspective on the way down.

Argentina
Mountaineering
Mountains of the Moon

And then there was the weather. It poured an entire monsoon during the night, and it was clear things were going to be wet on the moon, despite this being the ‘dryest’ season.
In February 2004, 12 intrepid explorers, nicknamed ‘moonies’ for our desire to walk the mountains of the moon, ignored the news of violence in northern Uganda, and departed for a magical journey to walk the mountains of the moon.

Uganda
Hiking
Mountaineering
Mt Mera

Mt Mera 

Nepal
Mountaineering

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