Swartberg mountains
Sat 10 April 2010
I took a break from my swim-run-bike routine this weekend to go hiking in the Swartberg mountains near Ladismith. Hiking is one of my passions, and it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to indulge it given my current training regime. We set out for Ladismith on Friday afternoon at lunchtime, uncertain as to whether we’d be able to hike given the weather conditions. Mountains become very dangerous to traverse in wet or misty conditions.
We woke to a drizzle on Saturday morning, but the sky looked as though it would clear and so we decided that the weather forecast would probably be accurate. It was probably about 12-14 degrees most of the morning – freezing cold!
We started with a steep climb, which became increasingly steeper as we climbed higher and higher. Starting at about 800m, the idea was to climb to the highest point at around 2300m, more than twice the height of Table Mountain!
On Saturday we hiked for 10 hours and spent the night in a cave with amazing views of the night sky. We unfortunately couldn’t find the path to the actual summit and highest point at 2325m, but hiked as far as 2100m. On Sunday we spent 4.5hrs descending. The Swartberg mountains are rugged and demanding. Some sections of our route were nearly vertical and required lots of scrambling, and there are no clear paths, so good navigational skills are required. We didn’t find any water on the mountain and conserved our own supplies by drinking rainwater that had pooled overnight in rock crevices.
It was tough and strenuous – hiking and climbing difficult terrain while carrying fully loaded backpacks (around 15kg) with all our safety and survival gear. But it was fantastic. It’s true that you learn a lot about yourself when you run. But when you hike, you not only learn about yourself and your capabilities; you also find that quiet place within yourself where you can find true peace and happiness, and figure out what’s really important to you. As Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to summit mount Everest said, “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves”.
I took a break from my swim-run-bike routine this weekend to go hiking in the Swartberg mountains near Ladismith. Hiking is one of my passions, and it’s been a while since I’ve had the time to indulge it given my current training regime. We set out for Ladismith on Friday afternoon at lunchtime, uncertain as to whether we’d be able to hike given the weather conditions. Mountains become very dangerous to traverse in wet or misty conditions.
We woke to a drizzle on Saturday morning, but the sky looked as though it would clear and so we decided that the weather forecast would probably be accurate. It was probably about 12-14 degrees most of the morning – freezing cold!
We started with a steep climb, which became increasingly steeper as we climbed higher and higher. Starting at about 800m, the idea was to climb to the highest point at around 2300m, more than twice the height of Table Mountain!
On Saturday we hiked for 10 hours and spent the night in a cave with amazing views of the night sky. We unfortunately couldn’t find the path to the actual summit and highest point at 2325m, but hiked as far as 2100m. On Sunday we spent 4.5hrs descending. The Swartberg mountains are rugged and demanding. Some sections of our route were nearly vertical and required lots of scrambling, and there are no clear paths, so good navigational skills are required. We didn’t find any water on the mountain and conserved our own supplies by drinking rainwater that had pooled overnight in rock crevices.
It was tough and strenuous – hiking and climbing difficult terrain while carrying fully loaded backpacks (around 15kg) with all our safety and survival gear. But it was fantastic. It’s true that you learn a lot about yourself when you run. But when you hike, you not only learn about yourself and your capabilities; you also find that quiet place within yourself where you can find true peace and happiness, and figure out what’s really important to you. As Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to summit mount Everest said, “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves”.
