5 day GT – "a walk in the park" (Ghaz & Andrew's GT)

Ghaznavid and AndrewP started their fast GT this morning at about 3am. From another thread:

ghaznavid wrote: We are doing the GT south to north, we have planned stops for each day (all caves), but can be flexible according to weather and how we are feeling (limited to proximity to caves). The plan is roughly:
Day 1 to Sehonghong Shelter (50km, 3392m up)
Day 2 to Bannerman Cave (53km, 3156m up)
Day 3 to Easter Cave (55km, 3192m up)
Day 4 to Sentinel (46km, 2055m up)

I will be happy with anything faster than 100 hours (we will carry extra food in case it goes into a 5th day), the plan is to do exactly 0km of jogging/running, with a decent amount of sleep each night (hopefully at least 5 hours each night). I will be carrying my cheap small camera, so there will be some photos, but not many and the quality won't be great.

From their tracking page (my.yb.tl/grandtraverseandrew/) you can follow their progress. As at 4pm (13 hours in), they were just cresting the ridge South of the Sani road - more or less the 40km mark. That leaves about another 10-15km to the Sehonghong Shelter so they are looking good to reach it this evening sometime.

I would hazard a guess that their journey so far already represents 17 pages of hike report so I'm sure we will get all the details later!

We should be thankful that we have accountants among us!

These valued members of society are wired for details…
and although one may not read them all, they form important reference works

Looking forward to the details!

Another well-executed day with checkpoints Thabana Ntlenyana and Giant's Castle bagged. They've crested the Durnford Ridge as at the 7pm update so should make their objective of Bannerman Cave by 9pm.

Good going!

I have been following their progress all day.......Looks like they are at Bannermans Cave and enjoying some well deserved rest. Well done guys!

Their goal for day 3 was Easter Cave (which I suspect is at least a few km further than the 55km indicated in Ghaz's post), but it looks like they called it short at Didima Cave at 6pm instead, about 35-40km into the day.

Not sure if it is the weather, fatigue, a possible injury or perhaps just strategy to move faster during the daylight hours instead. Essentially, they have just over 70km to go to the Sentinel Car Park, so the sub-100h target is still a possibility if they get going early and do a good push to the end. It's hard to know without any further info from them though..

They're moving very well today and are currently busy slogging up the Ntonjelana Ridge with just over 40km to go. If they keep this up in one solid push, they should be able to finish in the early hours of tomorrow morning. 100 hours goes by at 7am, so they should "comfortably" make that.

Keep on trucking!

Based on 6pm update, they may just be heading for Ledger's Cave for the night. They certainly aren't on the optimal speed route anymore so have maybe just decided to take it a bit easier for the rest?

They're at the summit of Mont-aux-Sources at 1pm, so should make it down to the finish at 3ish for an overall time of 4.5 days. Good going Ghaz! (Andrew too, but this was probably a picnic for him )

We finished just before 3pm for a time of 107 hr 50 odd minutes. Before I say we are both fine, lets see Ghaz's fingers after the hike report. They may go further than his feet.

Well done!!!