GT2015/2016: Climb every mountain

GT2015/2016: Climb every mountain (part 1 of 4)

Someone once said “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my to-do list”. The exploration gene is one that I imagine many people share – the desire to see something you haven’t seen before can be a strong one!

I often see these posts on Facebook where someone says “describe your life with the title of a song”. I generally answer with “Climb Every Mountain” from the Sound of Music. Not my favourite film by any means, but I can understand how this film is the second highest grossing film of all time (inflation adjusted).

Climb every mountain,
Search high and low,
Follow every byway,
Every path you know.

Climb every mountain,
Ford every stream,
Follow every rainbow,
'Till you find your dream.

There are hundreds of mountain ranges in the world, and at some point in the future I hope that circumstance will allow me to explore various other ranges, but as it stands – I live close to a rather substantial mountain range, and there is exploration to be done.

I have been obsessed with khulus basically since I first discovered they exist. People are often critical of the use of lists in hiking – but I find it is a good way to make sure you don’t leave areas out. It is also relevant that the same mountain on a different day may be completely different. Seeing as I have already done the cheesy movie song quote thing, here’s a quote from a song from the movie Pocahontas:

What I love most about rivers is:
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing
But people, I guess, can't live like that
We all must pay a price
To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing
What's around the riverbend

So why would I want to do another GT when I had just done 2 in reasonably quick succession? One thing I love about a GT is that there are literally infinite variations on the route. You can start at either end, go up various different passes, take different lines through the different valleys etc. Not every GT is the same.

A while back I set myself the goal of doing 3 GTs, S-N, N-S and one on the speed route. These goals had already been met, but I wanted to hit 2 other goals: a few years back I proposed a record for the most khulus on a GT. At the time Stijn seemed to have the record, something like 30. TonyM also did about 30 on a GT in 2014, so in 2014/15 when AndrewP did 63 on a GT, the record kind of had a starting point. I know Andrew will take this record and make it untouchable to the rest of us, but while it is still beatable, I wanted to break it. 63 is tough, but can be done with a concerted effort.

There is another record that is relevant here, I am not 100% sure that my facts are exactly correct on this one – so please correct me if I’m wrong. Dave Gay keeps record of the youngest GT finishers. To date, 4 people under 20 have completed a GT, 1 of whom has done it twice. The youngest was 15 years and 2 months, Guy Solomon in 1997. This youngest record has stood for a long time, but having hiked with Hobbit since he was 11, I have felt it was likely to be broken sometime soon. Well, let’s put it this way, if Hobbit can’t break it, it probably won’t be falling for another decade or two.

Back in September last year I took Hobbit on a 7 day training hike to see if he was ready for a GT, he was not. Understandable that a 13 year old isn’t ready for an undertaking like this. But now, a year later, I rated it was time to give it a go.

Day 1: no water (Start to Icidi/Kubedu)

We met up with AndrewP in Winterton. Before leaving, I checked Hobbit’s food and got him to buy about 2kg extra food at the local Spar.

Before long we were trying out the next R74, which is actually quite nice, and soon we found ourselves having lunch at Sentinel Car Park. After a lot of procrastination, we left just after 1PM.

The goal was Ifidi Cave, so no pressure – although we both felt the weight of our packs. I had gone through Hobbit’s pack a few days earlier and removed about 2kg of extra weight, so it could have been worse.

We took the high line up to the chain ladders. It is lovely to do such a busy route on a good trail without the crumbly exposed bits or tons of traffic. It also gets you nice and close to the cliffs on Sentinel, which is good.

We hit the Tugela to find the occasional small pool, but no flow. We had expected this. We stopped for a break here, and had a chat with some locals as they walked past.

We tagged the mother of all non-worthy-khulus, Ampitheatre, as we passed it.

On reaching a dry Bilanjil River, we walked inland around the Amphingati Ridge, trying to find water by the Ifidi/Kubedu confluence. This too was dry, so we followed the river till we found some stagnant water a bit further down. We had supper here in the riverbed. After filling our bottles, and putting in iodine pills, we began to walk up towards Icidi. We found flowing water higher up and decided to camp here.

Day 2: still no water (Icid/Kubedu to Rwanqa)

It’s funny for me to take a route that skips the Ifidi Ridge – after all, Ifidi Peak has arguably the best view of the Northern Berg. We made our way up towards the Icidi Valley at good pace, and decided that we should do some khulu bagging to make sure we don’t finish the day too early. For the record, I told Hobbit to avoid bagging khulus with me – I knew it would be tough for me to get more than 63 khulus on a GT, and it could easily be the difference between him finishing or not. As it turns out, he is far too stubborn to listen to this council, and insisted on joining me on every khulu I did.

We left our packs near Icidi Cave. The cave isn’t as bad as I remember it being, but it is pretty bad nonetheless. We bagged Icidi Crown, unfortunately the mist in SA was so high that we could only see the top of a few 3300+m peaks. Not even Monk’s Cowl’s summit was visible. We continued along to Ifidi Buttress before returning to our packs.

The stream down that little SA cutback in the Icidi Valley was barely flowing, but had enough water to fill up the bottles once more.

We proceeded up Icidi Buttress, spending a while arguing about which summit was higher, before we noticed some locals walking towards our packs, subsequently followed by us running back to them.

We dropped to the Icidi/Caboose saddle and made our way up our fourth khulu for the day. At this point in time I had 1 goal – knock off my gaps and keep the record alive. I wasn’t going to jeopardise the GT just because of a record we may or may not get.

We stopped for a break on the river below, but it was dry. We tagged both Stimela khulus on the way up the next ridge, getting some good flowing water higher up the river, before dropping down to the Mbundini Valley.

We knew Andrew had stashed something for us in Rat Hole Cave, so we were rather excited to hit the cave (our planned overnight spot). The river in the valley was dry, and after searching in the cave for 20 minutes, we found the lid of the container outside. Someone had beaten us to it, and this had only been here for 5 days.

We went right out on the spur above Fangs Pass to enjoy some great views, before tagging Fangs Buttress (aka Rat Hole Cave Peak), and heading to the river behind Rwanqa Pass. We had no water near Rat Hole Cave, so that wasn’t an option.

We camped near some stagnant water again. By now I knew I would run out of iodine before the resupply, this was becoming a problem.

Day 3: still no water (Rwanqa to Nguza)

I got up and said to Hobbit that this water situation isn’t ok. I took all 5 of our water bottles and walked right to the confluence of the Mbundini and Rwanqa streams, where it was flowing quite well. This must have been close to 2km downstream, and took quite some time – but we needed the water. The Mnweni Cutback Highway would be dry in summer of the wettest year, so no hope of water up there.

Starting the day late, we took the scenic line up Black and Tan Wall. We passed a group of 8 that started the Northern High Traverse about 30 minutes after we started the GT – a group of Americans lead by a guy named Carlos. We had seen the group at a distance for a while, but this was the first time we actually talked to them.

We stopped for a break at the top of Rwanqa Pass for a morning break. The broken mist below gave us some pretty dramatic views. The pass doesn’t look too bad from the top, and it must be a rather scenic route! From the khulu we proceeded to the edge of the peak, this has one of the best views of the Pins that I have ever seen.

We followed the highway, from here, detouring to pick up Pins Buttress and 12 Apostles Spur along the way. We passed the NHT team a few times, being passed when we turned off to bag something.

We took the massive detour to Cutback Highway, before hitting Mnweni Buttress and having lunch just below it. A panicking Carlos ran past looking for 3 lost members of the group in light mist.

We proceeded from here to “Tony’s Mystery Khulu”, before following the Senqu downstream in the hope of water. We found a bone dry river, and had to walk a long way before we even found stagnant pools. I made some team with some average looking stagnant water before we continued down.

Near the confluence with the river from Nguza Pass we did find some flowing water. We filled up, downed a bottle each and filled up again. An elderly Sotho man came to chat with us, he had the most beautiful dog I have ever seen in Lesotho. He chatted with us for a bit, in broken English he told us how bad the drought has been. He had a badly infected injury on his finger, and asked if we could help. I gave him some anti-septic cream (although the injury was well past that point) and told him he needs to see a doctor. I fear the infection very well might bring an end to this old gentleman’s life if he doesn’t see a doctor soon.

We walked up the river towards Nguza Pass. There was some flowing water, so the goal was to get as high as possible without leaving this.

We found a good camping spot reasonably high up, it had flowing water near it – and that was all we were worried about.

Day 4: water at last (Nguza to Tseketseke)

We started by slogging up the Ntonjelana Ridge – we had spent a lot of time at Mnweni, it was nice to finally reach Didima. We went up one valley too early, which resulting in us taking a much easier line before hitting a great trail well back of the normal saddle. We followed the trail along the top before dropping down to Ntonjelana Gap. The US team was once again around the same area, although this was the last time we saw them.

I had designated 3 rest days into the trip – a means of ensuring that if either of us were struggling, we could take it easy and catch our breathes again. This would be the first use of this allowance.

We skipped the Ntonjelana peaks, but went up Easter Cave Peak. We checked out the cave – which is clearly a depot for sorting “mountain cabbage”. We found a nice shady spot near the summit of the peak, and had a 2 hour long lunch here. It was intensely hot, but we were forced down due to water running out.

The Kwakwatsi River was dry, so we walked up the bed till we found dirty stagnant water. Hobbit jumped into a pool while I continued searching for usable water. I found some barely flowing water a lot higher up, filled up and returned to Hobbit.

The heat was really intense, and there could easily have been 500+ animals in this valley. More than 40 Basothos were attending to these animals, so lots of sweet requests came our way.

As we climbed up behind Leopard, the water was trickling, so we set up the tent here to get out of the sun. A local asked us for sweets, and when we told him we had none, he asked for condoms. Probably the strangest request I have ever heard!

After filling my water bottles up in the river, I watched a herd of cattle walk through the pool. A dog then proceeded to sit in the river for a good 15 minutes. Needless to say, we knew we couldn’t camp here.

The Tseke valley is dry at the best of times, so we ate supper here before packing up around 5PM. We found good water higher up. We used the Elephant Gully, and bagged Elephant Peak, before finding good flowing water behind False Tseke Pass.

This was by far the hottest and least comfortable I have ever been on the escarpment.

We knew Andrew had stashed something for us in Rat Hole Cave, so we were rather excited to hit the cave (our planned overnight spot). The river in the valley was dry, and after searching in the cave for 20 minutes, we found the lid of the container outside. Someone had beaten us to it, and this had only been here for 5 days.

What did Andrew leave in the box, any idea?
Looking forward to the next parts!

GT2015/2016: Climb every mountain (part 2 of 4)

Day 5: I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas (Tseketseke to Upper Ndumeni Cave)

After days of feeling the heat and lack of water, it was a kind of relief to wake up on Christmas Day to mist and rain. Who knew I would ever say that!

We woke up to the sound of rain. I knew we had 2 reserve days to play with, and reaching Tseke put us ahead of plan, so we could actually just sit the day out.

Anyone who knows me will know that I can’t sit still for very long. So by 10AM it had stopped raining and the mist had cleared, so we were off. No long day planned, but to get over Cleft and maybe Ndumeni Dome would be good.

We started up Cleft, and soon found ourselves back in the mist. From Tseketseke Peak, we couldn’t even see the Column or the Pyramid. Hobbit’s luck had been dodgy at times – he had an amazing view from Rwanqa Pass and Black and Tan Wall, yet missed Madonna and her Worshipers, Donkey and now the Column and Pyramid.

We slowly made our way up Cleft Peak, we followed the cairns, which was easy enough. The hill is rather substantial, as one expects from Cleft, but it is helpful when you know you only need to do that ridge on that day. An icy wind near the top, and a brief hail storm, made us question our logic up there. In the mist I walked straight past the summit cairn, but we realised this 65m later, and walked back to it.

On nearing the Castle Buttress/Cleft saddle, we found some good flowing water and decided to chill here. We had our main meal and relaxed for a few hours.

Once again we got bored, and decided to head for Upper Ndumeni Cave. We filled our bottles and began the slog up the hill. Near Thuthumi Pass we heard lightning. I remember reading that Ndumeni Dome means “place of thunderstorms”, so we raced up, reaching the cave with an ominous purple cloud rapidly approaching.

We sat out the thunderstorm right at the back of the cave. I have been informed that lightning usually strikes cliffs on the side that the storm is coming from – that meant we should be in the clear. I know that caves are not safe in thunderstorms, but there is little you can do when you are on a massive high peak with cliffs all around!

We couldn’t hear most of the lightning, we simply felt the entire cave shuddering. There was a nearby strike where less than a second passed between the flash and the noise, but otherwise not much of concern.

The cave is far from water, but has a great view, flat floor and enough space for up to 5 people. Definitely easier to access than Rolands, and with a very similar view (if you take 2 steps out of the cave), I rate I would use it again.

While in the cave I sent an email to AndrewP, just to confirm all was still in order. He asked if we would like to move the resupply forward a day. We discussed it, and after much debate, we decided to do this.

Day 6: So cold (Upper Ndumeni Cave to Nkosasana)

With the pressure now on, half a reserve day has been used and the second one is now after the resupply – we “only” have 2 days to get from Ndumeni Dome to Upper Injisuthi Cave. While not difficult, that does mean we have some pressure.

When we left the cave, we could see the Organ Pipes below, so mist shouldn’t be an issue. Then again, this is the lowest escarpment valley, so mist is rather common above Thlanyako Pass.

We begin the slog down the hill. Upon reaching the river, we fill our bottles and do some washing in the river.

We hit the trail down the river, and we hit the mist as we near the Thlanyako River. This part of the GT route isn’t a part I know that well, and the standard route through the town is not something I plan on doing – partly because it is exceptionally boring, and partly because of all the dogs.

We have run out of water, and the Thlanyako is dry, so we walk upstream till we find some water.

We begin climbing towards the saddle, but everything looks wrong. I pull out my GPS and realise we are heading up the route towards the town, so I alter the line, and soon it begins to look correct again.

As we were through the saddle we had first shot for, it begins to hail. We sit out the storm behind some rocks. A few lightning strikes are close, but after about half an hour we are moving again. As all good storms do, it begins to rain and hail about 20 minutes later, so we just push on.

It is misty and windy, so I am worried about the cold. We both have our fleeces and gloves on – in addition to our raincoats. Hobbit points out that his rain coat is letting a bit of water in. So much for the exceptional quality of Sprayway’s heavy rain jackets. Meanwhile my lightweight Hi-Tec did its job once again.

We soon find ourselves in the saddle between Didima Buttress and Dome – I recognise the Sphynx like rock feature. I had copied 2 GT GPS tracks onto my GPS before the hike – Tony’s 2014 track and my 5 day GT track, curiously neither was working. I always have the VE track, and this was working. This route follows a similar line, but somehow we kept climbing the hill without hitting that steep gully we came down on the 5 day GT. Eventually by 3200m, I realised we were above Didima Dome and could now start to traverse.

Hobbit is never one to complain, but I was worried about him – his speech was slurred and his pace was slow. I decided to detour to Didima Cave. We traversed around 3200m, before hitting the saddle and entering the cave (about 40 minutes from starting to traverse till hitting the cave).

I was aware how serious the situation was. I was a tad cold, but not even shivering. Hobbit didn’t look good at all. On entering the cave, I took his air mattress out of his bag, told him to take off his wet clothes and dry himself. By the time he was done with this, his mattress and sleeping bag were ready and I got him to climb in. I then made him a cup of tea. He bounced back quite quickly. I set up my own sleeping bag – no point in me being cold while Hobbit is nice and warm.

I knew the following day would be tough from Didima Cave, but could be done. Around 4:30 the mist had cleared, and we agreed that we could get going again. Hobbit had been in his sleeping bag for 4 hours, and seemed to be fine. By 5PM we were back in our wet clothes and walking along the Yodeller’s/Champagne in the later afternoon sun.

We somehow did 2h30 from here to the Nkosasana River. The river was mostly dry where we hit it (around 3200m), so we went downstream till we found some flowing water. Even though we only pitched the tent around 7:45, it was light enough to set up via last light aided by moonlight.

Day 7: Khulu Time (Nkosasana to Upper Injisusthi Cave)

Having done the highway the night before, day 7 started off in a rather leisurely manner. We went up Champagne, Ships Prow and Bothlolong before dropping down towards Starboard (we didn’t bag Starboard). We took a massive detour in the valley below, hiking to Molar Spur Peak, giving me a good view of the valley behind the Ape – a valley I had never visited before. After bagging Molar Spur, we stopped for lunch near Leslies Pass.

We took the high line up the ridge from the pass. Apparently there is a movement against cairns in the Berg right now – some argument about how people who don’t know the route shouldn’t be there in the first place, an argument that I rate is elitist and outright dangerous. Many of the cairns up this ridge have been dismantled. We rebuilt some of them.

We were awarded with some incredible views, including a grassy climbing peak (probably Injazacila). Mist came and left as we bagged Sombrero. The overhanging cliffs in the area afford quite a view!

We gradually proceeded, hitting Lithabolong, Mafadi and Injisuthi Dome before dropping down towards Upper Injisuthi Cave. As we dropped down we heard a loud shout. The voice sounded rather familiar.

We couldn’t have timed it much better. As we hit the trail to the cave, there was a familiar face bearing a large pack. We walked into the cave together, and as we had hoped, Andrew had achieved hero-status by bringing along a Christmas cake and some iced tea!

Hobbit guarded the packs while we collected water. When you have spent the majority of the past week with just one other person, a friendly face is most certainly welcome. When they bring goodies, take your litter and bring food for the next 5 days – that is even better!

Our gas canister ran out at the cave, so Andrew even agreed to take that with him. Big thanks to AndrewP for his help with the resupply!

photos for part 2, and part 3 will be delayed slightly due to work commitments - I hope to have them up in the next week though

So halfway in, 26 khulus are done - but the most khulu rich stretch of escarpment is past.
So will we get the record for most khulus on a GT?
Will Hobbit continue to cope with the pressures that most people his age wouldn't be able to handle?
Will the water situation get better?
Will the heat get to the team?

And in part 4 - find out why the one day is titled "Bullets and Thunderbolts".

Coeta wrote:

We knew Andrew had stashed something for us in Rat Hole Cave, so we were rather excited to hit the cave (our planned overnight spot). The river in the valley was dry, and after searching in the cave for 20 minutes, we found the lid of the container outside. Someone had beaten us to it, and this had only been here for 5 days.

What did Andrew leave in the box, any idea?
Looking forward to the next parts!

I left a christmas cake wrapped inside a margarine tub. I was too lazy though to drag up some custard

Great story so far Ghaz. The boards have been quiet without you.

There is another record that is relevant here, I am not 100% sure that my facts are exactly correct on this one – so please correct me if I’m wrong. Dave Gay keeps record of the youngest GT finishers. To date, 4 people under 20 have completed a GT, 1 of whom has done it twice. The youngest was 15 years and 2 months, Guy Solomon in 1997.

Don't know for sure but if the date is correct then it's more likely to be Guy's son Otto.

andrew r wrote: Don't know for sure but if the date is correct then it's more likely to be Guy's son Otto.

The GT roll on the MBC website is down, so I can't check. I know it wasn't Otto as he did his first GT in 2013 (I was on a training hike for the MBC 2013 GT, not that I was planning on doing a GT that year though).

It was definitely a person named Guy Solomon from Hilchrest High School, but I am not sure of the year.

ghaznavid wrote:

I believe that's Hanging Valley Pass in the sun there...