General Grand Traverse planning & tips

We (2 of us) are planning a 5 day GT. We will arrive at Sentinal on 2010/12/03 we will wait for a weather window then leave. We will be traveling light and fast. We have until the 17th to finish. If you are interested in joining us please let me know.

GAVIN.

Hey Guys!

Myself and good friend, Richard Long will be attempting a 'quick as we can' GT on the 27th December.

Any advice that is not already on the Grand Traverse section of this website would be much appreciated.

Will be sure to write a report if we manage to finish.

Thanks.

I heard about Rich's last hike... my advice is GPS!

Noooooo! T hat hike should never be spoken of. GPS sorted.

Have either of you done a GT before?

You need to know the ridges in advance, you can get lots of the detail (backwards) here .

Don't underestimate the difficult ridges, and the importance of walking around those that can be avoided (e.g. the Thuthumi/Smugglers route). The real monster ridges are:
- No Mans
- Hodgesons
- Giant's/Lotheni
- Durnford
- Popple

Remember that there are between 28 and 30 ridges (depending on whether or not you count Redi and Litseketseke, Champagne and Yodelers as the same ridges). Be ready!

Feel free to fire any questions, many VE members have done the GT.

Does anyone have contact details for the hikers hut at Sentinel parking lot?

Please.

Aaaah Dont worry I got the numbers.

If anyone else is interested the contact no's are:

Jacob: 073 4464720
John: 071 9490621

Oh - I left out a vital tip. Take at least 1 rehydrate or hammer endurolites (or any other electrolyte supplement) per day. On GT this year I had 1 a day, and 2 for the second to last night. It made a huge difference. Although, since GT I do this on all hikes, it makes such a difference - so this advice may seem obvious to everyone else on the forum...

hye... my wife and i are coming in january 2015. We are two experienced hikers and trailers, i'm mountain leader, kloofing guide...
It's not our first time in your country, but now we hope to do the DGT but in first we need to recognize the way, to do different tracks in your mountain to involve and to improve it

and we're looking for information for overnight, where we can book a cave?
what are the bests tracks to join the range or to escape, wich is the good place to trainning...

in general we would like to have the maximum of informations and advices

So as you can see we 're not so good in english but we try to do our best...
We 're enjoyed a lot of answers for our organisation sound goods

Thanks..

Go to the forum tab above, and select Drakensberg - Grand Traverse for category. There are lots of threads on this topic already.

There are also quite a few GT hike reports on the website. Mine was called "The Upsidedown Dragon". Tony Marshall did a really nice writeup with photos earlier this year. There is also a GPS track under the downloads section.