The Hex River Mountains ( af, Hexrivierberge) make up the second highest

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

and are located 120 kilometres (75 miles) north-east of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. They form part of a large

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

in the

Cape Fold Belt The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Moun ...

mountain system and form a north-east, south-west trending mountain system forming the core of the Cape

Syntaxis Syntaxis is a style in writing or in rhetoric that favors complex syntax, in contrast to the simple sentence structures of parataxis. For example, 19th-century German academic prose, and John Milton's ''Paradise Lost'' poetry in English ...

between the towns of

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engla ...

and

De Doorns De Doorns is situated in the Breede Valley Local Municipality, Cape Winelands District Municipality in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Location It lies in the Hex River Valley on the N1 National Route, 32 km north-east of Worce ...

. They are mostly composed of

Table Mountain sandstone The Table Mountain Sandstone (TMS) is a group of rock formations within the Cape Supergroup sequence of rocks. Although the term "Table Mountain Sandstone" is still widely used in common parlance, the term TMS is no longer formally recogni ...

and most peaks reach 2,000 metres (6,562 feet) in height or more. The highest mountain is

Matroosberg Matroosberg (Afrikaans for 'Sailor Mountain') is a peak in the South African Hex River Mountains, which belong to the Cape Fold Belt. With a height of above sea level, it is the highest mountain in the Cape Winelands District Municipality. The ...

at 2,249 metres (7,379 feet), making it the second tallest peak in the province after Seweweekspoort Peak in the

Swartberg The Swartberg mountains (''black mountain'' in Afrikaans) are a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is composed of two main mountain chains running roughly east–west along the northern edge of the semi-arid Little ...

Mountain Range. The vegetation is primarily montane fynbos and the mountains fall within the Cape's

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

. The mountains provide some rudimentary snow-skiing opportunities in winter, with the Western Cape's heaviest snowfalls occurring in and around these ranges. The surrounding valleys support intensive

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

cultivation, mostly in the form of cherries and table

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus '' Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years a ...

Block stream Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

s and terraces found in the near the summit of Matroosberg evidences past periglacial activity, which occurred likely during the Last Glacial Maximum.

References

External links

Hex River Valley tourism
{{Authority control Mountain ranges of the Western Cape

See also

References

External links