250px, Foothills of the Roggeveld escarpment, as seen from the Tankwa Karoo National Park
The Roggeveld Mountains (Rye-Veld Mountains) (
Afrikaans: Roggeveldberge) is a
mountain range situated mainly in the
Northern Cape
The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...
province of
South Africa. The range forms the western escarpment of the eponymous
Roggeveld
The Roggeveld ( Afrikaans for "rye field") is a plateau in the Karoo region of the Northern Cape, South Africa. Its name comes from the wild rye once plentiful in the area. The Roggeveld Mountains, west of the plateau in the Northern Cape
T ...
plateau, and separates it from the lower lying
Tankwa Karoo
Tankwa Karoo National Park is a national park in South Africa. The park lies about 70 km due west of Sutherland near the border of the Northern Cape and Western Cape, in one of the most arid regions of South Africa, with areas receiving ...
to the west. Its highest peak is Sneeukrans (1,739 m), situated northwest of
Sutherland
Sutherland ( gd, Cataibh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire (later ...
.
Unmarked on many regional maps, it occupies an extensive but remote part of the Northern Cape, seldom visited by tourists. It extends from the vicinity of
Calvinia in the northwest, past Sutherland in the south, where it terminates in the Klein-Roggeveld range. Several road passes ascend the plateau from the south and west. From the south they are the Komsberg Pass, Verlatenkloof,
Ouberg Pass at an altitude of 1,404 metres, Gannaga Pass
[Gannaga Pass ] and the
Bloukrans Pass which ascends its northern promontory, the Bloukrans Mountain.
The range receives about 200 mm of rainfall in an average year, its higher elevations are amongst the coldest places in South Africa, as attested by temperature statistics kept for Sutherland, which is perched on the Roggeveld plateau at 1,500 m.
Notes
Mountain ranges of the Northern Cape
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