Double Crossing the Dragon

A Cape Town team is currently attempting a Double DGT over 14 days. They started on Saturday from Bushman's Nek around 7AM. They did Thabana Ntlenyana yesterday (day 3) and Giants Castle this morning (day 4).
 

At 1PM on day 4 (Tuesday 4 April) they have started down the Jarateng, so they are almost halfway through the first traverse.

Their tracker:
share.garmin.com/32R63

As far as I understand, their plan is to go fully unsupported on each traverse, only picking up food between the traverses and not going to Witsieshoek for a night and not eating a meal there either. Will be interesting to see how they do - not often that we can watch a double DGT in action!

The FKT (well, OKT really) is 15d07h50m - although if they are able to pull off both traverses unsupported that will be a first irrespective of time due to the 36 hours we spent waiting out a storm at Sani Stones and Sani Top on the N-S traverse.

Thanks for the heads-up Ghaz. 
Remind us when you did your double. I’d guess Jan 2017. I’ve missed the dates if you specified them earlier on this thread. 
The relevance is that I expect April’s weather is a bit more settled than Jan. 

We started the first traverse on 21 December 2016, finished on 26 December. Stayed at Witsieshoek for the nights of 26 to 30 Dec, and started back after breakfast on 31 Dec. Finished on 5 Jan 2017.

Indeed yes and also curious about your take on their progress. I suppose the second halve of the GT going North could go a bit faster but it seems they are a bit off their target for 14 days? Either way I hope they make it but with the weather it's been lately I can imagine they will have some tough challenges ahead physically and contending with elements

It has been interesting watching their progress. They've just crossed the Thlanyako River, so they are on their way up Ndumeni Dome now. Day 6 today - they can still finish the first traverse tomorrow with a big push to hit their 7 day goal, but they will need either today or tomorrow to be their longest day. With the Mnweni Cutback Highway and Kubedu Shunt remaining, it is definitely doable. Both of my times on the speed DGT list (both S-N) include going from the Yodeler's Ridge region to the finish over the last 2 days.

Yes - Also been following this and wish there was more info available. 
If the data is correct they are sleeping over at Elephant. Stopped hiking at 15:30. This is odd unless serious weather stopped them in their tracks. The push tomorrow will be tough and they would need to pick up the tempo a bit and most likely have a late finish? 

GetaPix wrote:

The push tomorrow will be tough and they would need to pick up the tempo a bit and most likely have a late finish? 

The tough day prediction was correct. Looks like they walked all night. Just shy of the Sentinel car park now. 

Looks like they just finished the first traverse. I believe they started at 7AM on 1 April, and it looks like they finished around 17:13 on 7 April, which I is about 154h13.

Looking at their track - it looks like they bagged Starboard instead of Champagne Castle, which is a very odd mistake to make. They did tag the other 5 checkpoints. I'll try and see if I can get clarity from someone in the group when they're done - a summit shot or GPX should clear it up easily enough. Maybe they dropped packs and didn't take the tracker up the summit with them.
 

I don't have any direct communication channel with them, so I don't know how the group is doing. I'm guessing they'll head to Witsieshoek for the night and start the second traverse tomorrow.

Quick turn around. Closing in on Mont-aux-Sources for the second time.