DGT 2016, "At Last and Luxurious" instead of "Fast and Furious" 1, the factfull write up, no 1.
The idea; dated from autumm 2014, inspired by some record movie and the fact that my mate Luc is living in SA. The fact that last centutry I worked several years as an expedition guide in 24 african countries surely helped
Who: Luc Steens (1969) Belgian living in Cape town, Gideon Zadoks (1966) Dutch living in France. Both with a decent 10 year trail and mountain running background
Fysical preparation; Nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of Tafelberg for Luc, the normal short training for me (intervals, hill work, core stability)
Materials: The idea was going reasonable fast, prepared for 3 seasons a day, but with hot food/drink.
Meaning: light sleepingbag, light down jacket, full rain gear, plastic/tinfoil bivy bag, esbit stove, lights, 2 gps, maps, minimal first aid kit, phone, camera. Materials althogeter 3,5 kg if i remember it well. The hiking poles we took are quite unusefull in de Berg except for scaring off some over enthusiastic dogs.
Food Setteld for almost 4000Kcal a day. Which was goood for Luc, I ate about 2200 a day so I made some Basoto happy in exchange for some pics. Consited of healty stuff like winegums, M&M's, nuts, biltong, dry meals and coffee. 4 x4000Kcal is about 4KG.
The Plan: A less than 4 days looked like an good compromise between speed, rest, and really enjoying the DGT. The Itinary we took was Ryans and Ryno's (or pretty close). That way by doing a big 55 km a day we could sleep shelterd in caves. 1. Ndumi caves(58km) 2. Giants Caves.(116km) 3.Sandleni cave (174km) On paper, quite easy.
Sleep.My experience in 200 mile races learned me that sleep is the key to decent progress, and to keep a reasonable margin of security consciousness. So 3 hours sleep at night, which proved to be the right choiche and a 10 minute sieste in the afternoon sun. Together with meals before and after that made big 4 hour stops at night.
Navigation Most used a Foretrex 401 wrist gps. and as backup a Garmin handheld. Both without maps. Which made us come down Cleft-Peak the wrong way in the mist, wind and clouds and had to bag it twice and lost almost 3 hours there. As Back up full set of maps and a compass.
Caves . I collected as much info on each of the 3 caves to be used as possible, knowing that if you're not familiair withe the berg its really hard to find them in the dark and the mist. Lower Ndumi caves were found in 5 minutes , We found another cave (or big horizontal cack in the wal) near Giants pass and dicided not to go to Sandleni cave (off track) but bivy instead a few kms off Sani-road behind a big rock sheltered from the wind.
Basoto. Well that was the the fun part. We really liked them and had quite some fun with them. Always good for some laughs, willing to pose fore pics and ready to share some of my surplus-food. We adopted the 'basoto conversation mode' quite early. Meaning oppening the conversation from a long distance with a loud voice as soon as they are sighted, whith goodmornings etc. Their English is as limited as my basoto but there defenitly are exeptions among them.
DogsEspecially at dark if you are approching their kraals and your presence will be announced by the ferocious dogs it helps to make verbal contact by announching your presence from a distance. 9 out of 10 times they get out and call their dogs in. The dogs guard a 50 - 100 m circle around the kraals at night so keep out and make contact and their owners will usually take care of them. The fact tahat youre passing to a area with several kraals in the dark and you're in their discussions at 3 in the morning over long distances is actually quite funny. We only had one scary experience where we passes trough a riverbed next to a kraal on the way up to Giants pass.
Altitude. Well that was really the killer if you're living at sea-level. Had a skull splitting head-ache the first day, even after spending one night at witsies-hoek and one night at the carpark. A 7 kg pack becomes quite heavy and even when eating alll the food it doesn't feel lighter after a few days.Just forget all running. A quick shuffle in the downhills is all I could do.
Luck. Quite important during a first DGT, not knowing the terrain. Full moon, and 3 days of sunshine, need I say more ? No mayoy injuries. No major Navigational errors. Yes we were quite lucky.
What I would do different for a fast DGT. Well that sounds ambitious hey ?
I think (given te weather is reasonable) that with a midnight start (instead of 5 am) its not to hard to reach Reiki cave in one long day, and bivy out after Thabana N the next night. Leave out pot, stove, some food and some spare batteries. Reduce maps and get maps into your GPS aswell. Packweight can be almost 2 kg lighter at the start. I think a less than 70 h is than possible for our team. Don't know if we are back pretty soon for that though.
Thanks To all your answers to my questions on the forum, It really helped. The Berg is different from any alpineregion I've seen and its hard to imagine its difficulties if you don't know it. Nice how you have been following and commenting our progress. Speciall Thanks to Andrew-The Legend-Porter with whom we shared our car to the start. Amazing and impressive his love for and knowledge off the Berg Is. I'll be back with some more pics and an impression of our trip.
