Epic Day Hikes

Yesterday AndrewP sent me a link and told me to have a look this morning. Just remembered now.

For ages I have suggested that the Mafadi speed record should be done from Giant's Castle. Have a look at the link:
my.yb.tl/grandtraverseandrew/1843/

He set out at 6:15
Reached the contour path 1 hour later
Turned off for Judge Pass at 8:15
On the escarpment 40 minutes later
Summited Mafadi 3h30 after leaving the car park
He is about to start descending.

This record should be absolutely blown out of the water!

JonWells wrote: I see starting time as 6.15am?

Thanks, my mistake. Previous post corrected.

He is back on the contour path (bearing in mind that the contour path is at 2500m at the base of Judge Pass). I would say 2 hours from there to the car park as he may be slowing (assuming). So that would mean a 1PM finish. So that would be a sub-7 hour time. Possibly a full hour faster than his current record via Apes Pass!

Ps. remember that Judge Pass adds 6km to the traditional Leslies Pass route.

1km to go! That big downhill to the Bushman's followed by the big uphill by Bannerman car park is going to be deadly!

Thanks Jonathan for posting the link. I am glad it worked.

Also well done on your hunch. Judges is way faster than Leslies even if you lose the path near the base of the pass.

I actually started at 6:20 so ended up with 6:22 for round trip. The concrete near the the end is hard work especially the bit coming down. I walked the bit going up but did run the road back to reception.

The Mafadi summit is huge. I took 90 seconds to run to summit cairn after cresting summit plateau.

So now that i have done the hard work of setting a target, Jonathan, i will now leave you the relatively easy yask of chasing a target

Congratulations and well done Andrew!

Incredible effort Andrew, that record will probably stand for a while!

I am happy Judge Pass worked out - I take it you followed the trail from the top of Judge to the Mafadi/Injisuthi saddle as well? Probably one of very few non-classic Berg routes in the Berg that includes a trail the entire way.

AndrewP wrote: So now that i have done the hard work of setting a target, Jonathan, i will now leave you the relatively easy task of chasing a target

46km in 6h22 is 7.2km/h average speed. I recently got a PB of 33m03 on a Park Run, so that is 9.1km/h average speed - on our perfectly flat PMB trail. I think that is as close as I will get to this one

Thanks guys

As already mentioned, Jonathan suggested to me a while back that he feels that Mafadi that is fastest via Judges Pass. I was initially sceptical of this because I know that the contour paths tend to be overgrown enough that running on them is hard work. I went up Judges a month ago and realised it was worth trying out.

I started at the rather strange time of 6:20 for the simple reason that I did not want to carry a headlamp and waited until it was light enough to set out. I chose the reception, being the home of the mountain register, as the start and end point because it is fixed. Cars can move or park in different spots so car-to-car is not actually a true comparison. When I started up Apes Pass a month ago, this was to my advantage but now it meant a good solid haul along the tar road at both start and finish.

My mountain register entry is about the 5th entry in a new book, and needs to be seen to be believed. I normally put a lot of N’s into the questions about equipment, but I must be the first person to say No to everything including pack colour for a Mafadi trip. I feel guilt about putting a No underneath that last, rather personal question but do not have a better answer to put in the details block below.

The haul up to the contour path went well and at that stage I was 5 minutes ahead of a random schedule I had in mind. The path to Bannermans is good so I kept up the good pace. After that, the path is noticeably worse, but still easy to follow and mostly runable. Just before Judges Pass, it all but disappears and I had to walk the last 500m. I had lost 5 minutes here and was back to my initial, random schedule.

Judges Pass itself went very well. I collected water from a side stream low down and motored up in 46 minutes. I did a quick repack of my waist belt, moving sunscreen and tape down to bottom and munchies to the top. I also checked the tracker to see if it was transmitting, which it was.

The excellent path then continues and I was able to run all the downs, flats and about a third of the ups before reaching the summit of Mafadi. It was hard work especially on my lungs. It was here though that I encountered the first hiccup. The summit of Mafadi is enormous and with a naked eye (mine at least), I cannot tell which cairn is the true summit. In the past, for the GT, I have normally approached from the other side and have thus “chosen” a higher point on that side of centre. To be consistent, I now had to run a long way along the top to get to this cairn. I reached it at 3:30:57 and was almost a minute behind this arbitrary schedule of mine.

Having bagged it, I turned around to go home. First stop was to quickly tighten my shoelaces a bit for the descent. Then, down I went at a pace somewhere faster than “saving myself” but slower than “reckless”.

The haul up from the river to the top of Judges Pass is not easy, but went fairly quickly all the same. Judges Pass itself vanished into thicker air. I got completely lost in the grassy slopes after turning off the base of the pass before I re-found the contour path. From there it is a long haul through prickly stuff that was attacking my bare legs.

The crux though is those last few meters of descent down the concrete path into the Bushmans River.

Now that I have had a bit more time on my hands, I have pulled out a few basic stats of the route I followed and have compared it to the Mnweni Marathon, which at least a few people are familiar with.

Mnweni marathon
Distance is 38km
Height gain is about 1800m with a maximum altitude of just over 2900m
Average Altitude is 1680m

Mafadi via Judges
Distance is 44km
Height gain is about 2100m and of course a max altitude of 3450+
Average Altitude is 2480

I feel that the real difference is the extra 800m in average altitude.

The paths in each case are similar, although the roads on Mnweni Marathon do help for some speed at start/finish. Judges is quicker up but Rockeries is quicker down (even if it is just a case of me being willing to push harder because all you do is come down – for Judges you have a solid hour of contouring after the pass so need to keep something in your legs)