Other Accommodation Options at Cedar Falls

Bookings for the Leopard Trail for hikes in 2026 onward will be made per sleeping hut, not per person.  Each sleeping hut sleeps 4 people, and there are 3 sleeping huts in total.  To secure a start date, a minimum of 2 sleeping huts will need to be booked.  If you only book 2 sleeping huts (instead of all 3), you’ll have a 3-month window to add the 3^rd sleeping hut to your booking.  After that, the unreserved hut will be made available to other hikers.  The single communal cooking hut is for all 12 people, and is shared by people staying in the 3 sleeping huts.

WHY THIS CHANGE?

With the leopard trail fully booked out a year in advance, we aim to make sure we are giving as many people as possible a chance to hike the trail.  In the past we kept each group exclusive – once you booked the minimum number of 8 hikers, we did not open that booking date up to other hikers.  This meant we often had a hike starting with fewer than 12 hikers.

We value giving hikers the opportunity to have an exclusive group of friends and family.   However, if the group cannot fill the 12 spots, we need to be able to open it up to other people.  We have been talking to our hikers to get feedback and ideas on how to solve this problem.  A key piece of feedback is that while hikers are happy to, and often enjoy, sharing the hike and communal hut with people not part of their own hiking group, they would strongly prefer to control who is sharing their sleeping hut of 4 people with them.  In this scenario it makes more sense to treat each sleeping hut as the booking units, rather than per person.

BENEFITS AND CONSIDERATION

The upside of the new policy is that it allows a group to work towards an exclusive group of 12 people, sharing the 3 sleeping huts, while ensuring hiking spaces do not go to waste.

It keeps the minimum for the first group booking to 8, rather than increasing it higher.  The potential challenge is that it requires hikers to book per hut in increments of 4 people –  4, 8 or 12 hikers.

Like every aspect of the Leopard Trail, we are very interested in, and receptive to, feedback.  We’ll trial this system for bookings between January and March 2026 and welcome your feedback to ensure it’s clear, fair, and user-friendly.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

1. A group wants to book a starting date for 12 people. In this scenario the group will book and pay for all 3 sleeping huts.  No other hikers will be able to book for that date.
2. A smaller group of people, less than 12 people, want to have complete exclusivity. In this scenario they will book all 3 huts. Even if there are not 12 people, they will still pay the full price for the 3 huts.  To keep the per person cost to a minimum, they would strive to find additional people to meet the maximum of 12 hikers.
3. A group wants to book a starting date. They have 8 people confirmed and keen.  In this scenario the group will book and pay for 2 sleeping huts.  If they do not increase the booking to include the 3^rd hut after three months,  the 3^rd sleeping hut will be opened for an additional group of hikers to book.
4. A group wants to book a starting date. They have 5 people confirmed and keen.  In this scenario the group will need to book and pay for 2 sleeping huts.  To keep the per person cost of the hike to a minimum, they will try and get to the 8 people that can sleep in those 2 huts.  Even if there are only 5 people, they will still pay the full price for the two sleeping huts.  If they do not take up the option of the 3^rd sleeping hut after 3 months, the 3^rd sleeping hut will be opened for an additional new group of up to four people to book.
5. A group of four or less wants to book a single sleeping hut but do not want to book the minimum of 2 sleeping huts to secure their preferred starting dates when bookings open. In this scenario the group will not be able to book immediately when the booking dates open.  They will need to wait for 3 months to pass from the date the bookings for that time period opens.  After 3 months, those dates that have not had all three sleeping huts booked by a single group will be opened for a group of up to 4 people to book the remaining sleeping hut.  They can choose from the dates that may be available.
6. Two people want to book a hut just for themselves. In this scenario they can either be part of a larger group that books 2 or 3 sleeping huts and pay for a sleeping hut just for themselves. Alternatively, they can wait for extra huts to be released after the 3-month period.  In either case they will pay the full price for the hut, even though there are just 2 people.  The preference is that they opt to have a full hut of four people, as we are trying to create as many spaces for hikers to do the leopard trail as possible.

10 years ago the idea of the Leopard Trail was born around a camp fire by the team at Cedar Falls.  Those sitting there were dwarfed by the night sky and the silhouette of the magnificent mountains of the Baviaans World Heritage Site Reserve – a call to create something special.  The next day we worked through the plan of how it could work, what would be required and how to set it up as a community project.  We had one problem though – we needed some mountains to walk through.

The best routes would take us into the reserve, and for that we would need the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) to agree to the project and give us permission to send hikers into the great Baviaans mountains.  We were confident that given the incredible potential of the project to combine community development, conservation and the promotion of a green economy, we could get the ECPTA onboard.

And indeed, over the next few months the ECPTA became an enthusiastic partner, supporting the idea wholeheartedly.  While they did not have resources to help get the project started, the ECPTA team created the enabling environment and permissions for the project to keep moving, while also committing to see if they could help in the raising of funds for the eventual building of huts that would open the project to a wider audience of hikers.

It took us a good few years to get the hike to a point where we could get the first feet on the trail.  Our community project finally received the Environmental Impact Approval we needed, and was able to borrow money to get a team of locals into the mountains for 8 months to create the trail and buy a 19 year old Land Cruiser to transfer hikers bags from night to night.  During this time we were always hopeful that somehow we would find funds to eventually build huts for hikers, though for the time being the trail started with a tented camp option.

Five or six years into the project we received an unexpected and surprising call from the ECPTA.  Through a partnership with the National Department of Tourism they had been able to secure funds for the building of huts on the trail!   The actual construction of huts would not start for another two years, but for all of us involved we felt massive relief and excitement that huts would be coming.

The huts are now complete and are superb!  The Leopard Trail is consistently included in most bucket lists of must do hikes in SA, and with the addition of the huts it is becoming vital for hikers to book way in advance to secure a spot.  Through the partnership between the Leopard Trail and the ECPTA, the idea that was born 10 years ago has grown into a project that is far more than just a hike.  It is a stunning example of how great partnerships can change lives.

So from the team that sat around that camp fire 10 years ago and all the people on the ground who are involved in the bigger project, we would like to say a heart felt thank you to all of our partners at the ECPTA.  Here’s to a long future of creating a legacy for hikers and locals alike.