Epic Day Hikes

I know Mafadi has been done in 20 hours before... starting from the Sentinel Car Park!!! By a certain Mr Andrew Porter. That't right - he covered the 93km to Mafadi along the Grand Traverse record route in 20h before taking his first sleep on his 61h solo traverse.

As for the up and down from Injasuti or Giants - I'm sure there have been a few speedy trips up and down over the years. None documented that I know of. Of course you're welcome to establish a record for the rest of us to have a crack at...

Looking at the Mnweni Marathon record times (4h30ish for the 38km via Mnweni and Rockeries Pass), if you unleash some of the top trail-runners on Mafadi, you're bound to get times of about 6-7 hours.

Thats crazy - although that was wise on his part, kill the easy half of the GT before sleeping. Lets face it, north of Mafadi the only hard ridges are the Yodelers to Botlolong Ridge and maybe the Cleft ridge...

The goal will be 24 hours, but my main aim is to get a full GPS track for 9 summits' Mafadi leg and to test the hybrid route - so any longer is partially acceptable and gives us something to beat on the record attempt. I expect I will come to a conclusion that we should rather drop down Judge Pass than traverse the Popple and Senqebethu ridges, but it will depend on how far we get before sunset...

Funnily enough, I've always seen Champagne Castle as where the GT record route (North to South) gets significantly easier. And many others agree. Remember, the optimal record route bypasses many of those ridges you talk about using shortcuts through Lesotho:

- the first is from the summit of Mafadi. It skips the Popple, Bannerman and Durnford ridges using a Lesotho valley to the SW which rejoins the escarpment using the Jarateng Valley just North of the Long Wall ridge and Giant's Castle.

- the second is the Mokothlong valley which heads inland from Giant's Castle along some great paths, with the next ridge to be climbed being Thabana Ntlenyana, a significant climb of 700m but after close to 20km of flat paths, who's complaining!?

And yes, some of the ridges in the South are big and steep, but they're separated by much longer valley sections than the more regular climbs in the North. For me, the toughest section of the entire traverse is the Elephant to Pampiring section - 4 steep climbs of Elephant (ok that one is quite easy), Cleft, Ndumeni & Pampiring in the space of just 20km. Just no time to recover before the next one hits you. Giant's Castle was also pretty tough for me, especially since you have to head in the wrong direction for 2km to tag it before doubling back and continuing with the route South.

That Durnford ridge is a killer! Memories of day 5 of GT - just before the GT became really awesome as I stood on top of Popple.

Ok - how to do the speed record makes a bit more sense now. I know that you can walk around the Durnford ridge, but its far into Lesotho.

What about the ridges below Thabana Ntlenyana? I know you don't need to do any peaks on those for the speed record, but is there a feasible route around them? Especially No Mans and Hodgesons. That Mashai ridge must be deadly after 60 hours of walking!

Hodgson's is a biggie but we took the tiger line from the Sani flats - so the saddle you go over is a bit lower than the one right at the escarpment edge. No Man's, Verkyker, Mashai (ouch) and Walkers all have to be ticked off - but by then you can smell the finish line! At that stage, I was also on a diet of 2 Myprodol every 4 hours to get my knees to bend without too much pain...

Ouch! I think Mashai ridge is more painful after 200km of walking. Despite feeling sick etc and having an early start (and basically not having breakfast) on day 2 after my not-so-good day 1 on GT this year, not to mention a small snow fall on the way up, I was 3rd up the Mashai ridge (this basically never happened on the entire trip, I was usually last - by far!). I actually really enjoyed that particular ridge and didn't find it too difficult. Maybe that's why I think of the No Man's Ridge as such a monster!

Any way - the quickest I know of so far for Mafadi is Kobus Besler on his 9 summits record with 27 hours and some change. That was via Leslie's and with 3 hours sleep...

Stijn wrote: So the current "Up Corner & Down Leslies in 3 days" thread got me thinking about the time a friend and I were planning to do that route as a brisk day-hike. We didn't set out due to miserable weather but I would love to have another crack at it in good conditions.

A light and fast day-hike which gets you to the escarpment and back can be very satisfying. And you'd be surprised at the kind of ground that can be covered by moving efficiently... extreme fitness is certainly not a requirement. Just the desire to spend the entire day out in the mountains!

From what I've read on this forum as well as a few of my own ideas, here's a list of what are bound to be some very good days out in the berg:

- Up Cathedral Peak, along Bell Traverse & down Mlambonja
- Up Corner Pass, over Mafadi and down Leslies Pass
- Up Bollard Pass and down Wilson's Pass
- Up Mnweni Pass and down Rockeries (the Mnweni Marathon)
- Up Amakehla Pass and down Minaret Pass?

So - for those of you who don't know - despite the bad weather forecast for this weekend, a group of us are shooting for breaking Besler's speed record on Mafadi (27 hours) this weekend. We are scheduled to have moonlight from 10PM to 5AM. We aren't doing the Corner to Leslies route, but rather trying out my old Judge Pass...

Good luck and enjoy! Any other forumites joining you?

Thanks

Splatacat and AndreS are coming, our 4th isn't on the forum.

Did this attempt ever happen?