So I haven't blogged in a while. Between moving, work, and exploring Cape Town I've been lank busy.
I have been riding very little, other than a weekend in Eselfontein and a singletrack mission in Tokai things have been rather dormant. On both these rides I sliced open my back tyres, two tyres written off in two rides have been harsh on my cycling budget. So I had to wait a while before I could ride again. I have been using the extra time I have on my hands to reconnect to the Lord. I won't swap the time with him for anything in the world, so I view the cut tyres as blessings. And necessary.
For the last two weeks I have been craving getting back to the mountains. They have been calling me. I am at my happiest when I am in the mountains and it is also here where I feel closest to the Lord.
I decided that it was time for a Tablemountain mission. I popped off a couple of emails that were forwarded and pretty soon we had a lekker group that was raring to go. Weather looked super sketchy, with low clouds and mist covering the mountain the whole of friday and saturday morning it didn't look any better. We decided to take the gamble and hope the mist would clear as we walk up. The hike up Platteklip gorge is nice, with the clouds we couldn't see the views, but the isolation also made for something beautiful. The mission up was quite a slog, with frequent stops and lots of chatting. Part of our group was Alex Liss, a girl who is making a documentary on couch surfing. Check out http://csdoc.tumblr.com/ for her blog. I love the fact that in Cape town and specifically in the outdoors that you can meet such random people you would not have met otherwise. Also in the group is Stella and Danie, two stellar people in my church. Danie is also a wild child and has some cool stories to tell. He has a big rock climbing background and that immediately picked my interest. That and the huge Dakar rally sticker on his bakkie. But I digress...
We slowly wound our way up the mountain in the mist until we suddenly broke through the clouds. The gamble payed off. Big time. It was beautiful. Looking up at the mountain and down at the clouds while seeing the tip of Devils Peak floating in the distance was awesome. Really, words can not describe it. We missioned up the mountain to the top where we met John and Hanri with his parents. Here we had a quick interview with Alex (my shyness got the better of me) with the best backdrop ever. The world was covered in clouds with the tip of Constantia (I think its Constantia, the one with the Mast) and the tips of some of the Apostles sticking out. Everything was covered in this white/silver sea of clouds.
We had a picnic and moved to the restaurant where Marco, Stefan and Werner knocked back a beer while the rest of us had coffee. Decent coffee I must add. And Stefan said it was his best beer in a long time as well.
Alex and the Daltons went down with the cable car, and Danie convinced us to go down on the India Window route. I've heard of some legend stories of this route, as I didn't want to dissuade our team. It sounded like an adventure. Fortunately the signs on the mountain that said " this is not the safe route" and "this is not an easy way down" was ignored by all.
This is not an easy way down. There are some places where you had to scramble a bit to get down and some places where you really shouldn't look down. At this point we learned that Christina and Marco had a fear of heights. We had to help them a bit down the tricky parts but when we rounded the mountain to underneath the cable car things got better. The scrambles were still tricky but at least we didn't have a huge drop below us anymore.
As we rounded the mountain we were still above the clouds. We waited here to watch the Cable car descending and to take some more photos. As the second car ascended something weird happened to me. I don't know whether it was because I was looking through the view finder of my camera or what caused it, but I had a sudden bout of vertigo. I might have my fear of heights sort of under control again but standing on the edge of a mountain is the last pace I want vertigo. Freddie says he also got the same feeling standing next to me, so we got away from the edge immediately.
Descending down the front part of Table Mountain was fun, there were a couple more scramble sections that Christina and Marco braved, that we had to be careful on, but down from there it was plain sailing. As we reached the foot of the mountain the sun burned the last of the mist away and we had a beautiful view of the mountain we just conquered.
In all this excitement I realised that I love the mountain. That I feel so much more alive in the mountains than in an office. I plan to climb a mountain every month, and definitely need to ride more. If I can fit it in my schedule I'd even like to start bouldering again, but most of all I want to start trail running again. And I want to do the Table Mountain Challenge.
Oh, and I entered for the Dirtopia 9-5 MTB race, so will have to put in a couple of hours on the Merida in the next month. Will have to find myself a tutu, and I might just convert the Merida to single speed for this race. I can't wait.
In the meantime I'll slap a crossmark I found in my parents garage onto the back wheel. Wednesday I'm in Somerset West again, and I really want to check out the new Schapenberg trails opened recently.
Ride safe and ride free kids.
Till next time, happy trails.
Philip
Ps: as soon as I figure out how to post pics onto the blog with my blackberry I'll post the pics of the hike yesterday.
Peace
