Theoretically one should train for this great excursion. The best training is of course hiking, and lucky for me, I have a mountain not five minutes drive from my house. Of course having a mountain is far from actually doing anything with it. Somehow my training plan has included all sorts of exercise except hiking, and so this week it is all about the mountain.
On Monday I was on fire. With arms pumping and sweat flying, I climbed the first peak, touched the trig beacon, stopped for three minutes to extract some fruit, and headed back down again. The round trip took me 2 hours and 3 minutes. Not a bad effort at all for a 10km hike with a climb of just over 900m up and down again.
Tuesday found me a little tired after Monday’s effort, but there will be no rest for tired limbs on the big mountain, so I forced myself back. I chose to walk up on the same route that I came down the previous day. It was incredibly tough, and I got to the saddle just below the peak in surprisingly good time. I then changed my plans and decided to climb the Porcupine Buttress, the highest peak in the range. I suspected that it would not be much more difficult that the first peak. I was very wrong!
The path went over the saddle and then started to descend. That was particularly annoying considering I had fought so hard to get that high in the first place. The path took me under some sheer cliffs and above some sheer cliffs and was thoroughly spectacular. Stellenbosch, Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean were spread out in front of me. I even passed a fixed camera, which I deduced had been set up to film a potential leopard’s lair. I waved and made the required silly faces, hopefully creating good entertainment for somebody lulled to sleep by boring images of nothing. After hugging the side of the mountain for some time, the trail ended in a rocky stream that trickled down a small mountain valley. Well actually up, because I was somewhere in the middle of it. What followed was a wet splash up an almost vertical rock strewn path on all fours. The path went on forever and then suddenly it was no longer almost vertical but just incredibly steep. Finally I heaved myself onto the top of the valley to the disturbing view of sheer rock cliffs rearing into the heavens. I quickly deduced that my mental calculations of the effort required to mount this mountain had been thoroughly wrong.
Needless to say the path continued with me upon it. It headed improbably towards the cliffs and then tracked an obscure route that went upwards with me once again on all fours. It was agony. I could see the top but it never came any closer, until all of a sudden it did. And then I realised that it was not the top at all, but one of those endless peaks on route to the top of a never ending mountain. From here on though, it was all about boulder hopping, joy to my screaming muscles. At one point, a jump between two rocky outcrops with a big drop between them was required. So right up my alley!
After prancing between boulders like a love sick gazelle forever, another trig beacon materialised in the distance. I pranced until it was just two small peaks away. At the time, it seemed just far enough to rest my shaking legs and suck in the incredible vistas displayed in front of me. Exploring is tough, but sometimes the benefits are incredible!
I left the touching of this trig beacon for another trip and decided to save my remaining strength for the perilous descent. I came very close to pitching myself head first down the mountain on a number of occasions. The descent would have been quick, the recovery absolute hell! I heard my mother though, loud and clear, ‘be careful!’ I was obviously careful enough as I made it down in a whopping 3 hours and 20 minutes. Again not bad for about 12km of hike with a 1100m climb up and down. I have to say that it was tough, which is probably exactly what Kili will be like when I get to climb on her back!
Perhaps tomorrow will find me back out there again...
1 comment:
wow, now thats a bit of a challenge.
Enjoy and the view from up there will be breath-taking.
Post a Comment