Double Crossing the Dragon

But now heading north again. The party might have split a couple of days ago. Before resuming south. 

On the hill towards the Cutback Highway now. Getting the highway behind them today will be a good start to traverse 2. Bearing in mind that Mike and I spent 5 nights at Witsieshoek, on combined day 8 we weren't doing anything - so technically they are pulling ahead now (for the first time since they started). Notably we were mostly trying to do a sub 100h time on the return traverse and weren't that concerned with out overall time, so baring bad luck with weather, injury etc, they should just have to finish to take 2 or 3 days off our time at this pace.

I managed to find what happened between traverses - Rodney and Caro are continuing on the second traverse. Allan and Andrew have decided not to attempt the second traverse. Here's the GT2 start line shot:
 

They started at 7:45 this morning.

ghaznavid wrote:

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.
 

 

Managed to get confirmation - the group navigator took them up Starboard thinking it was Champagne Castle. They didn't do the correct summit subsequently. Caro joked that they'll do it twice on the way back. On the bright side, because this was pointed out to them, they shouldn't make the same mistake on the way back.

So that unfortunately means their S-N time can't be submitted for the fastest lists. Much like my own one where we stayed at Sani for 2 nights on the N-S traverse waiting out a really bad storm (and still finished 11 minutes faster than our S-N traverse), they will likely also just end up with one of their two times on the list. I wonder who will be the first team to get both times on the list. Seeing as this is only the fourth attempt I'm aware of in the last 7 years (including mine), and is only the second time the idea wasn't dropped after the first traverse (mine being the other) - probably not happening any time soon.

They have just hit the top of the Yodeler's Ridge, so they are making decent progress. I'm hoping they manage a 6 day return time, which would mean finishing on Thursday.

They've just tagged Thabana Ntlenyana now. Their tracker has sent a signal from the summit of all 6 peaks - so assuming they finish unsupported, their N-S time will qualify as a speed traverse time.

They have been moving slowly the last few days, not pushing much past 30km each day, so I don't think they'll push through the night for an early finish - but I'm still kind of hoping they will.

They pushed through the night, which is really cool to see. Looks like they just finished. Somewhere around 7:40, so with a 7:45 start time, that's roughly 5d23h55 for the return traverse, or 143h55. I'll update this post if I get a confirmed time.

So with a 7am start on 1 April and 7:40 finish on 14 April, the maths on that is pretty simple - so their round time was roughly 13d0h40m, which I believe is the fastest time on completing two GTs.

Well done Rodney Long and Caro Jordaan, great to see a team doing this!

Managed to get this photo of them taken on Thamathu Pass near the end, but don't have a finish photo at this stage: