There is only one operating ski area in sub-Saharan Africa, a small ski resort in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho.If you don’t know where the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho is, don’t worry; I didn’t either before researching skiing in sub-Saharan Africa. When one looks at a map of the world, there’s a small circular country completely surrounded by South Africa. That’s Lesotho. And it is mountainous. Lesotho has the highest average elevation of any country outside of Asia, and has the highest low point of any country in the world. And one of its biggest tourist attractions for the small country is Afriski Mountain Resort – the one and only operating ski area south of the equator in Africa.
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Getting to Afriski isn’t simple – one can fly into Johannesburg (there are direct flights on United from Newark) and drive 5-6 hours south to Afriski. Or one can connect in Johannesburg and fly to the capital of Lesotho, Maseru, and drive3-4 hours east to Afriski. We chose to just fly into Johannesburg, and owing to driving on the other side of the road through busy and not entirely safe Johannesburg, we hired a driver from Tsela Tours to drive us to Afriski. While our driver explained that he drives people to Afriski all the time, we were his first American passengers going there.
The drive involves a border crossing, and the border crossing from South Africa into Lesotho felt like stepping back in time by 50 years. The border agents did not have computers, and we had to handwrite into a large ledger book our destination and information. Most of the entries in the border crossing book were of others also headed to Afriski, most of them <a href="https://absafricatv9491.live-website.com/ajman-chamber-south-african-consulate-discuss-strengthening-economic-cooperation/” title=”Ajman Chamber, South African Consulate discuss strengthening economic cooperation”>South African citizens. T-Mobile sent us an alert that unlike anywhere else we have ever been in the world, T-Mobile does not support cell phones in Lesotho. I suppose a country of 2 million inhabitants is small enough for the major phone carriers to simply ignore.
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The drive in Lesotho was beautiful – tall mountains abounded, but with only small and scattered snowfields. The potholes on the road, however, seemed almost as large and daunting as the mountains. And it was a slow but beautiful drive from the border to Mahlasela Pass, at 10,571 feet (3,222 meters). Just on the other side of the pass was the ski resort and resort village of Afriski.
As there are no towns near Afriski, it has a number of housing units for guests (the one we stayed at was humorously named Vail) as well as housing units for employees. The base village sits at 9,900 feet (3,018 meters), and the snowmaking pond was appropriately named Lake Placid.
While the border crossing and roads in Lesotho were hardly modern, once we arrived, the ski area itself was incredibly modern. Modern snowmaking machines lined the slopes. And while the lifts were all surface lifts, they were made by top-of-the-line manufacturers. The T-Bar was made by Doppelmayr and the platter lifts were made by Sunkid.
The ski area itself is small.It has one main slope with a terrain park on the side and served by a T-Bar, with about 600 feet (183 meters) of vertical. It features several beginner areas served by platter lifts as well as a separate area for sledding. The small size, however, was made up for with an enthusiastic staff coming from Lesotho, South Africa, England, Germany, and Canada. And while the days were warm, the nights were cold, and they turned on the snowmaking machines at night.
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Knowing how small Afriski is, we weren’t sure if there would be any nightlife. Happily, the nightlife in Afriski was great. At Afriski is Africa’s highest restaurant – the Sky Restaurant. The Sky Restaurant has a full-service bar and a full selection of excellent South African wines. The local guitar player and singer – Dee DeWald – did amazing covers of American songs, as the drunk ski crowd sang along.
After two days of skiing in-bounds, I wanted to ski on genuine Lesotho snow, not man-made snow, so I found a small snowfield of remaining snow just above Mahlasela Pass to link a half-dozen turns of skiing on true African snow. It was a fun trip.
While Afriski is no match for the skiing in the Chilean or Argentinian Andes or in New Zealand’s Southern Alps, it was wonderful to be skiing in southern Africa. We enjoyed the hospitality of the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. Being able to say we made turns in sub-Saharan Africa is great.
