Great Eastern Traverse

Let me see if I can answer all of those.

I have a one man Helix 100 tent. I tried very hard to get a footprint for it, intending to modify it slightly to allow me to ditch the tent inner and use only the footprint and outer, but that exercise failed. Next time

The electronics are:
- camera: we all want pics of those remote places
- GPS: the purpose of the trip is to record the heights of peaks and saddles
- tracker: to entertain the masses
- cell phone
Sadly each of those has its own charging cable. For the phone in particular, I had to cut a cable and join a few wires in a different way (suggestion off the web somewhere) to fool the phone into thinking it is being charged from a laptop.
The solar panel and battery are the blue objects within the yellow line. The black box next to it allows me to charge AA and AAA batteries


In red: the 2l pouch is only to use at night if I camp away from water, or along a very long, dry ridge. My gear had changed a bit and the filter + small pouches are replaced by a 500ml bottle. Much lighter than a Nalgene and possible to carry in my hand.

In Blue: I did not consider 2x little cartridges, so thanks for pointing it out. I will run the numbers. (One point to note about the self supported bit is that all litter gets carried to the finish). My dinner and breakfast plans which are the only times I will use my stove are to boil about 1l of water and to then drink tea and eat simultaneously. I could ditch one item, but I do not think it will help much compared to the convenience. Open for debate I suppose

Coeta wrote: I'm sure Andrew will answer you with more authority than me on other points, but allow me to pipe in on your last Q.

- in blue, 2 cartridges 100g, is not it better than a 230g? Almost same weight but when the one of the former is empty you can litter it.

Leave no trace is at the order of the day. Not sure what you mean with "litter it", but if you took it up, you bring it down. No littering.
Correct me if I misunderstand, maybe something got lost in translation, but if you intend to come to our mountain and have a "litter it" hiking philosophy, best you stay where you are.
Happy to be corrected if there is a misunderstanding.

Well worded. Agree with you 100%, and extra well done for saying it in a nice way

Coeta wrote: best you stay where you are

Wow! what a fateful judgment. It is always time to learn lessons... Excuse me if my English is not clear enough and if I misspoke but you know nothing about me

Leave no trace, I have begun a long time ago, before it became fashionable. I live in a house I built myself totally off grid. I produce myself my own energy from wind and sun. I collect my own water from rains in 50.000L tank. I recycle my own grey or dirt waters thru my own facilities (septic tank and spreading network that my own olive trees roots can pump with profit), veggies garden, hens and goats for a part of my food etc.
I really don't know weither many people in Joburg, for instance, can afford that, but surely they'll leave more trace than me. Right ?
By the way, I don't know the itineray of this GET, but may be the track can cross places where it is possible to leave some things.
Yourself, have you ever be in Sani Pass, where you can eat and drink a lot in the blindest good faith, and where there are no garbage areas. Sure, there, this is the cleanest part in your berg.
Excuse me if my English is not clear enough and if I misspoke.

Good to see nobody wants to leave litter about.

I looked carefully at the gas canisters as supplied by MSR, which conveniently have both the net and gross weight printed on the canister itself.
the 100g canister has a gross weight of 211g so 2 of them would be 422g for 200g of gas.
the 230g canister has a gross weight of 367g.

mayake wrote: Excuse me if my English is not clear enough and if I misspoke.

Translation\language issue then.
Apologies for the harsh comment seeing that it does not have relevance on you Mayake, and apologies also for not giving you the benefit of the doubt.

To clarify, the word "litter" was a bad choice:
Litter: waste products that have been disposed improperly, without consent, at an inappropriate location.
BUT, this is not a language training site and I do believe we are on the same page.

Back to Andrew's unhuman venture.

...

Thanks to Gideon and Luc for getting me to the start

Andrew is closing in on his 4th khulu for the day already! He is on his way up The Palisades right now. It looks like he already has:
Metjhantijane
Kgotjwane Spons
Kgotjwane Peak

From there I assume he'll tag Kgotjwane East before dropping down to the south and camping for the night. Not sure why he left the Spons ridge to bag Kgotjwane Peak, and then returned to it - I'm sure we'll hear why later!

[update] looks like he stopped below Palisades. He has covered a lot of ground on day 1, tomorrow the khulu-bagging should properly begin!

I don't have his itinerary, but my guess is that he will hit Giants by Sunday next week, and Knuckles by the following Saturday (13 days).

My 3000th post - so my profile now has khulu status

Day 2

Andrew set off at 5AM, bagged Palisades, Kgotjwane East, and is currently in the saddle between Transit 3 and Transit 4. So almost 24 hours in, he already has 8 khulus.

After the Transits he has the easy Namahadi Corner, before the rather large peaks of Mom, Dad, Kid - and for completeness I guess he will do Boy as well (Boy isn't a khulu). Thereafter, the slog up Namahadi Ridge will commence!

ghaznavid wrote: Andrew is closing in on his 4th khulu for the day already! He is on his way up The Palisades right now. It looks like he already has:
Metjhantijane
Kgotjwane Spons
Kgotjwane Peak

From there I assume he'll tag Kgotjwane East before dropping down to the south and camping for the night. Not sure why he left the Spons ridge to bag Kgotjwane Peak, and then returned to it - I'm sure we'll hear why later!

[update] looks like he stopped below Palisades. He has covered a lot of ground on day 1, tomorrow the khulu-bagging should properly begin!

Based on a rough Google Earth track measurement, looks like he covered close to 40km on his first day, over 14 hours from 4:30am to 18:30pm. Good going with a 17kg pack and all those Khulus!