Who is doing or has done the Grand Traverse

Stijn wrote: Edit: Dog valley it is!

You beat me to the punch!

Day 3

7:20 Giants is in the bag, now for the long and boring Mokhotlong bit. That means they have all the khulus, just one Kgologo to go (Thabana Ntlenyana) before they have all the required summits.

They're looking good for an overall time of 3 days and 5 hours or so. If they manage to push through another 60km day today, it'll set them up nicely to finish off tomorrow morning. But at midnight tonight, with just 25km to go, they may just try push through without sleep.

Looks like they didn't quite make Giant's Cave but bivvied near the Long Wall saddle at midnight.

I guess it depends on morale, energy levels and largely how dry their clothes are. Would be amazing if they pull off a time around 75 hours, but my money is on 82 hours.

Ha! Well 82h would be right in the territory of our time in 2008... 81h53m. Think they may be a few hours faster, mainly earned through sleeping a bit less and moving more at night.

Looking back at our times from 2008, they hit Giant's Castle about 2h faster than we did. We had about a 5-6h stop on the last night just past Thabana Ntlenyana, so there's room to trim some more hours off there. So they can probably aim to slot in just ahead of Team Merrell's 79h time if all goes well:

41h49m - Ryno Griesel & Ryan Sandes (March 2014) - overall record
45h08m - Andrew Porter (May 2015) - solo record
60h29m - Ryno Griesel & Cobus van Zyl (April 2010)
61h14m - Andrew Porter (December 2009)
63h33m - Ryno Griesel & Linda Doke (March 2015) - mixed team record
64h29m - Ryno Griesel & Cobus van Zyl (March 2013)
78h58m - Graham Bird, Hanno Smit, Grant Ross & Robyn Kime (November 2014)
81h53m - Andrew Hagen & Stijn Laenen (December 2008)
105h39m - Gavin Raubenheimer & Lawrie Raubenheimer (February 1999)
107h51m - Jonathan Newman & Andrew Porter (November 2015)
110h57m - Christine Harris & Carlos Gonzales (January 2010)
118h45m - Robyn Kime & Mike Owen (February 2014)
157h11m - Laura Bannatyne & Fiona McIntosh (November 2008)

If you want to be technical - 107h51 was also the south to north group record

Jokes aside, the thought of having another go at a 4 day GT is not one I have entirely eliminated as a possibility. I trained hard last time, I would have to train even harder this time!

They have made good progress so far today. Good that they are largely through the Mokhotlong before the heat of the day. Soon they will be en route up the Tsolo and on their way to Thabana Ntlenyana. On a hot day like today, one of those small pools on the Tsolo might be a required stop for them.

And they've reached Thabana Ntlenyana. That's a BIG climb up from the Mokotlhong behind them now! 9.5h to cover the 29km from Giant's Castle - it's turned into a proper slog by now. Kudos to them that they're putting their heads down and getting it done!

They are now on Sehonghong (actually - why isn't this ridge called KaNtuba or Manguang).

@Stijn: I am starting to wonder if your prediction of them pushing through the night might be spot on. They are doing very well.