Who is doing or has done the Grand Traverse

Good luck and enjoy Ghaz. Believe you are walking with a few friends, old & new - Jo, Lorinda & Mavis! Wish them an enjoyable GT too. We'll look out for you in the Mweni area next week 29/4-2/5.
Did my first last year and not my last!

Hey There

Our recent DGT hike went brilliantly. Everyone finished without serious injury or major drama and the weather was great, very little rain, few days of mist, no snow and only coldish evenings. We were 8 mates, hiking from 2-15 April. The Vertical Endeavour DGT waypoints were spot on and helped a lot, especially at Rolands Cave. We were standing next to a cliff with only this narrow ledge going forward and the GPS saying 28m to the cave and I thought no way, but it was absolutely spot on and we had a awesome sleep over with a fullish moon landscape and spectacular sunrise there. Surely one of the highlights of the trip. Our final route included 233km with 11km climbing and 13km down, and we finished a day ahead of schedule with killer celebrations at Amphi Backpackers the next day!

Good luck to all the others out there who might attempt it.

O, I fogot to mention about the security issues. We stood guard the first night after some guys came down to the Sentinal car park on the night before, that had their tents slashed and a bag that included his car keys got nabbed. Shame, he had to travel to JHB to fetch his spare keys. After that we just kept every thing in our tents at night and had no problems. Apart from some horses almost running through our camp site one night in the early hours. Seems they got spooked by a predator and were running around like crazy. We also saw a troup of dope smugglers, rushed through the pass area to avoid them (think it was Mlhambonja), to go camp further up the valley. 30mins later two flares were fired off and a chopper came circling where the smugglers were. Either it was the cops busting them or they now use choppers to pick up the dope, hehe.

Cheers!

Hi there

We start our GT on Thursday... only two days to go...
The packs are looking very heavy... It looks like we might have to leave the beer behind

Thanks for all the feedback on our planned overnight stops, I have revised some of the days in the second half and we are now planning for twelve days...

Being a “virgin” GPS user, I found the downloads of GPS data most helpful, you guys get a big thumbs up from me ... No excuses for not finding Fangs Cave this time.

On a more serious note, it looks like we might have to stand guard duty on the first night...

Cheers

We didn't do night watch at all, not even in the Langalibalele Valley, and we where ok - don't take this as advice though

I did have my gloves stolen out the side of my pack by a nasty Basutho man on the way up the ridge behind Giant's, he walked around the back of my pack and I didn't work out why until later when I couldn't find my gloves, but that was in broad day light (moral of the story is never fall behind the group in that area). Otherwise all the Basotho's we met where very friendly.

Anyone interested in joining our attempt to do the GT? We are planning to start the 25th or 26th of September 2012 and end 12 days later.

Please let me know if you are interested, so I can send you our planning document.

Last year we attempted the GT as well, but because of a minor injury in our small group of three persons we decided to stop. We made it to Bannerman's Pass. And actually it wasn't to bad we stopped, because the night after we stopped there was snowfall in the area we were supposed to be in...

I'm sorry for those who were interested, but we called of the hike. Due to circumstances at our company.

Hi Bart

How I look forward to my next GT, probably 2016 or so, some time after doing Killi and EBC

If you have any questions about any aspect of the GT, please fire them at us, at least 5 of the active members on this site have done a GT, Tony Marshall and I both did a GT this year (a full write up under the thread "The Upsidedown Dragon").

Thanks for the reply. I'll go and read about your GT experience!

Hi I would like to join any welcoming groups attempting the gt in september 2012. Our last att attempt was cut short due to a health risk by one of the more experienced members of our group of 4.