Drakensberg FKTs - Record of Times

This is a little 'old news' now, but in an effort to keep as many of the up-to-date records here as possible...

The FKT for rhino was smashed last year for Men's (overall) and women at the 2016 Rhino Peak Challenge

Overall record: Rory Scheffer and Lucky Miya 2h34
Women's record: Holly Page 2h45

Bump! We have a new time on the DGT list - well done Stefan & Simon!

www.vertical-endeavour.com/forum/14-drakensberg-general/55826-drakensberg-fkts-record-of-times.html?start=20#65856

Good time. Seems to be between the runners and walkers times. What was their strategy?

Don't have any further details, but I'm sure they'll post on here soon once they've recovered

I was also looking at that list earlier and the groupings by approach clearly stand out. You'd be surprised by how few people actually attempt to "run" large sections of the traverse and the groupings are mainly a factor of sleep.

- Times in the 40s - sustained running effort with minimal sleep.
- Times in the 60s - largely hiking with minimal sleep (2h nightly).
- Times in the 80s - all hiking with decent sleep (6h+ nightly).
- Times in the 100s - heavier packs, hiking daylight hours only.

It seems the Cathedral Peak hotel started an FKT competition until 30 Sep, up and down Cathedral Peak. From Meg Mackenzie's Instagram, I see she is the ambassador, with a current leading time of 2h 53m.
Anyone up for a R25 000 cash prize?

www.cathedralpeak.co.za/challenge/

It’s an incredibly tough route on the Drakensberg’s tallest free standing peak.

I guess they are arguably correct - in that Cathedral Peak is only summit that is off the escarpment that made AndrewP's list of 3000ers with 7% prominence on height. It all depends on what a free-stander actually is. Personally I'd argue nothing in the Drakensberg is a free stander.

Page 180 of the revised edition of Barrier of Spears (the wide format) gives a time if 2:20 to Hardy Ballington in 1952 from hotel to summit and back.

Got to run a bit faster to claim an FKT !

@AndrewP: fascinating! That makes a good answer for the question "why does everyone want to just go fast these days"

ghaznavid wrote: I guess they are arguably correct - in that Cathedral Peak is only summit that is off the escarpment that made AndrewP's list of 3000ers with 7% prominence on height. It all depends on what a free-stander actually is. Personally I'd argue nothing in the Drakensberg is a free stander.

Someone might have forgotten about Thaba Ngwangwe and the Knuckles

@Mods: any reason why I can't edit my previous post?

I recently dug out some Berg notes I had written long ago - from an ascent of the Bell in late 1987. Hotel road to Bell summit back to hotel road was 8 hours 15 (which sounds a bit rounded off). For gear we took one rope, a sling and four crabs. We used existing pegs on the route.

We didn't know at the time that it might ever contend for a FKT and we did carry a Lambrecht anemometer with us on the way back down. Given that 2:20 is the record for Cathedral Peak, 8 and a bit hours is definitely up for grabs on the Bell. Assuming no one has done it quicker.