Mountain objectives for 2016

I am embarking on getting the Lotheni goal off the list this weekend as Ghaz has mentioned. It's been a work-induced terrible start to my mountain year, but looking forward to getting into the hills properly!

"At least one overnight per month" - number 3 this weekend.
"Every second one a pine hike" - 1 in January and one coming up this long weekend.
"A top or 2" - 4 day escarpment hike planned for the end of April.
"Appeal for support for the pine hikes" 9 hikers for the pine hike in Vaalribbokkop area on Saturday. Thanks so much

Just one big objective:
A full DGT, in hopefully less than 96 h. Starting 21 or 22 of februar. Praying for water in the streams and not in the air.

Well, as you know: Been there, done that (in 82h) and I still think its probably the best trail trip ever. Extremely beautiful. Unfortunately, I won't be back this year, but I defenitely will be back in the future.

My 2016 goals currently:
Hit 70 km in a day,
Back to back speed GT's,
Giants cup trail in a day,
Four passes in a day.

Those are some reasonably hectic goals there, Hobbit!

Goal #1 has been ticked off on my list - having reduced my biggest pass gap from 28 (East variation fork on Giants Pass to Phinong Pass) down to 12 (Ka-Masihlenga Pass to Mohlesi Pass). I also have a gap of 10 a bit further south (Masubasuba Pass to Sandleni Pass) - all my other gaps in passes being considerably smaller.

Goal #2 and #5 are just a case of heading out and knocking off a few more passes - so that "all non-technical khulus" one will be the next focal point. Most are concentrated around the Chain Ladders (10 out of 26) - which helps

So half the year has come and gone. How is everyone else doing with their goals? Mine are all still on track to be done by the end of the year.

ghaznavid wrote: My 2016 Berg goals are:
1) Bag a pass at: Vergelegen; and Lotheni
2) Complete the last few KZN high berg passes I left south of Rhino (4 left)
3) Finish knocking off the non-technical khulus (26 8 left)
4) Ifidi, Icidi and Pins Pass
5) Sentinel

Viking wrote: Good job. I am curious to know how Hobbit's list is going?

I believe he is still on 0/4, but one of those may change in just over a week - I won't give a clue as to which (well, you can assume it's not back-to-back GTs).

His stats for the last 12 months include his first GT, over 1000km of Berg distance, 94 khulus he hadn't previously bagged and a lot of passes he hadn't done before (including his first at Vergelegen, Lotheni, Monks, Didima and Mnweni), and he has picked up a sponsorship - so it would be hard to fault his efforts!

Anyway - seeing as Hobbit let the cat out of the bag, yes, we are planning a back-to-back GT in December this year. And, yes, we know we are mad. The actual logic, as odd as it may sound, is that doing a 6 day GT is great training for a goal we share - which is to beat Stijn's GT time. So, logistically, it is much easier to start and finish at the same place, so the goal is to do 2 GTs in 14 days. We will have a 4 day recovery period before setting out again (break to vary according to how we feel and weather).

The reason we want to beat Stijn's time: it is probably the fastest fully walking time, it is an impressive time, but not impossible to beat.

It is no secret that I am a slow hiker, but I am working on upping my pace and fitness to give this another go. My strategy will be slightly different this time - trying to go even lighter than last time, change in diet, and even just ensuring I don't pick up second degree sunburn on day 4. Aside from my shoes and backpack, pretty much everything will be done differently this time - I am even reluctantly realising that I might just have to use the Jareteng long-cut to do this.

Sounds like you guys will be pretty well-conditioned for it! And with that solid conditioning, the best way to beat our time would be to spend a few hours hiking at night as well (recovery will be less important). i.e. 16-18 hours a day of efficient forward progress should set you up nicely for a sub-80h time. We spent on average 14h20m moving from camp-to-camp each day although the long days were more like 16h. Good luck!

Thanks Stijn

We are heading to Giants soon to practice hiking in the dark and doing the Jarateng (that part in daylight, though). 16-18 hour days are roughly what we are looking at, but we want to be close to the finish at the end of day 3, and we are even considering trying to be in shape to push through solidly from day 3 to the finish.

Your time is just fast enough that my strategy of 4 days of 52km that I tried last time won't work. My theory now is that, seeing as I lost steam around day 3 last time, rather than training by hard single days, we will train by hard weekends. That is why we did the Injisuthi Buttresses from Giants Castle and set out to do Giants Castle from Vergelegen (although Mohlesi Pass was a poor choice of route for that trip). It is also why we wanted to do 8 passes in 72 hours just over a week ago. We are yet to hit 40km in a day on a multi-day hike, but that should be easier when it starts getting warmer and longer.

I have also taken up a bit of light running as training - I went for a 2.5km jog this morning before work, and will be participating in a 15km run this weekend, shooting for sub 2-hours (any other VE people doing the Capital Climb?)

We have also had a lot of input from AndrewP, which is massively helpful.