Trans-Drakensberg Record Attempt Report
In 1999, Gavin Raubenheimer and his brother hiked the entire Drakensberg escarpment from the Sentinel to Bushman's Nek in a record time of 4 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes. In order to establish a standard route which would allow other parties to challenge their record, they created the Drakensberg Trans-Frontier Challenge (See 1999 MCSA Journal).
The rules are simple:
The challenge starts at the Sentinel Car Park and ends at the first perimeter fence of the Bushman's Nek Police Post.
The following classic berg peaks must all be summited en route: Mont-aux-Sources, Cleft Peak, Champagne Castle, Mafadi, Giant's Castle and Thabana Ntlenyana.
The Chain Ladders must be used to access the escarpment at the beginning and Thamathu Pass must be used as a descent route to Bushman's Nek.
The challenge must be on foot, entirely unsupported and no food drops are allowed.
When I first heard about this challenge three years ago, I immediately dismissed it as crazy and something that was way beyond my capabilities. That was before I was introduced to the awesome world of adventure racing. I soon learned that it is indeed possible to push your body through pain all day, with minimal amounts of sleep and still finish with a euphoric smile on your face!
Over the years, I had twice tried to organise a group to have a shot at the record but due to last-minute injuries, amongst other excuses, these never really got off the ground. In 2005, I met Brian Gardner of Team Red Ants and after doing a race together in Lydenburg, I convinced him to join me and finally attempt to break the 7-year record! Our plan was to try cover the 220km in less than 3 days, with short sleeps behind Didima Dome and near Mkhomazi Pass. With about 2000km of Drakensberg hiking under my belt and Brian's impressive AR track record, we were really optimistic about or chances!
This brought us to the locked gate at the Sentinel Car Park at 11pm on 10 January 2006, hooting and shouting for all we were worth. But it seemed that the place was deserted and we had to give up our hopes of a comfortable night in the hut and set up our tent just outside the gate. After some last-minute packing (stuffing 10-12kg into a 30-litre AR pack!), we tried to catch some sleep before our planned start at 3:30am. The alarm woke us at 3am, neither of us having slept more than half-an-hour because of the cold! We left a note under the ranger's door, jumped the fence and set off along the concrete path at exactly 3:45am on Wednesday 11 January 2006. The long-awaited record attempt had finally begun! The weather was clear over a sea of clouds and the millions of stars overhead were beyond words.
I didn't start this challenge in the best of conditions with a muscle strain behind my left knee and several rather large and painful blisters to deal with from the very beginning. I picked up all these annoying "injuries" on a 6-day warmup hike I had done with a friend in the Southern Berg during the week before our attempt. I decided to start the challenge anyway, having postponed it for 3 years already, realising that I'd have to push through a lot of pain on the way! Don't you just love it when blind ambition gets in the way of common sense J.
Back to the fun stuff! We set off at a brisk walking pace, making good progress up the initial zig-zags. Our good buddy, Murphy, decided to take action here and whatever could go wrong on this easy path most certainly did! We spent about 10 minutes wandering around the network of shortcuts and erosion paths on the Northern slopes of the Sentinel before finally finding the coninuation of the path around the Sentinel. Very frustrating at this early state of our attempt! We got to the chain ladders (3km) without any further mishaps at 5am, already light enough to see without our headlamps. Brian started feeling the affects of the altitude on our trudge of the slopes of Mont-aux-Sources and we reached the top (after many false summits) at 5:45 (6km). Our view stretched out in all directions with Cathedral Peak rising out of the cloud in the South.
Our route from here headed slightly inland, along the Khubedu River. The terrain was mostly flat or downhill with the occasional Basotho path to follow so we were able to do a fair bit of jogging on this section. The few crossings of the river that we had to do required some wading and our shoes were wet early on! We then took a steep line up and over a 300m ridge to get to the valley behind Fangs Pass where yet another long, gradual climb took us up to the "highway" path around the Mnweni Cutback (23km). We had been going for about 5 hours at this stage and the distances I had measured on the map were definitely feeling on the conservative side! On this path, we met a border patrol of about 20 policemen on horseback. They stopped us to talk about our plans and left us with a serious warning about the "furious dogs" guarding the Basotho kraals. On this positive note, we continued pacing it around the cutback passing many lone horses on the way. Brian noted that stealing a horse was a very attractive option at this stage! We descended to the Kokoatsoan river, giving the kraals a wide berth and found a path heading back to the escarpment edge behind The Saddle. We reached The Saddle (36km) at 12:25 and our shoulders (from the small, heavy packs) and my feet were taking a lot of strain. Brian recommended a good break here to dip our feet in the stream and top up on food. It was our first real break so far and boy, did it feel great!
We were off 30 minutes later, climbing up and over yet another 300m ridge to get to the valley behind Mlambonja Pass. Every time we got to the top of one of these ridges and we could see all the way down to the valley below, I would inevitably get a "Do we have to go ALL the way down to that valley now, Stijn?" from Brian. He was starting to realise what Drakensberg escarpment traversing is all about and it's certainly NOT FLAT! The clouds that had been building all morning finally consolidated and we hiked into the mist and rain on our way up and over the Elephant (45km). The day's efforts started taking their toll here and our uphill pace slowed quite dramatically with rests becoming longer and more frequent. There was a little misunderstanding between us here and Brian kept thinking that Cleft Peak (our next compulsory summit) was just behind the Elephant. The long valley slog between the two was therefore very difficult for him, psychologically. The heavens opened on our climb up the final slopes of Cleft Peak (51km) and morale was at an all-time low. We were both soaked to the bone and shivering so the photo session at the summit was a very rushed affair! We left the top at about 17:20 and started the rocky, slippery descent to Organ Pipes Pass.
All my cold, miserable mind could think of right now was the relative warmth and shelter of Roland's Cave near the top of Thuthumi Pass. The super-headstrong Brian agreed that we should stop there for a quick drying session and 30-minute power nap but I had a slightly longer break in mind! We slowly slogged up to the cave and negotiated the narrow ledge to its entrance at 18:35. My feet were taking a lot of strain by now and my blisters had reduced me to a hobble. We crawled into our sleeping bags and Brian dutifully (and optimistically) set his alarm for a 1 hour nap as our goal for day 1 was still 12km away at the Pampiring Saddle behind Didima Dome. We had covered the 55km to Roland's Cave in 14 hours and 50 minutes. When he woke me an hour later, however, he realised that my motivation was not getting me out of that sleeping bag so we discussed our options. We eventually decided to get a good rest at Roland's and hopefully push on at a faster pace the next morning. We would then aim for Giant's Castle by the end of day 2 and aim for a record time of 3 days 10 hours instead. If we felt good on day 2 we said we could push on and still go for less than 3 days overall.
After a 9-hour snooze (!), we left Roland's Cave at 4:45am on 12 January. Starting cold was no fun and all my aches, strains and blisters made themselves known in the first 10 minutes or so before I warmed up. Brian was feeling fine - his extensive AR experience was paying off and my lack of it was showing big time! We pushed around the front of Ndumeni Dome as it got light and descended to a strong path heading down towards Yodler's Cascades, passing many kraals (and dogs) on the way. In hindsight, the ultimate goal for day 1 should be to reach this path (60km) before nightfall and then push along it for at least a couple of hours before catching a power nap.
My pace was a lot slower than the previous day and Brian tried to rectify the blister pain using some trusty duct tape just past Yodler's Cascades. It helped a little but on the climb up to the Pampiring Saddle (67km), a new injury reared its head. I was feeling a stabbing pain at the top of my left foot with every step. We suspected either a stress fracture or some form of tendonitis. We reached the top of the climb (our planned goal for day 1) at 8:45am. The next 10km to Champagne Castle were fairly flat and should have been fast but my injuries dictated the pace and saw us hobbling along at less than 4km/h! It was here that I realised we still had 145km to go and after discussing the whole thing with Brian, I eventually called it quits at the top of Champagne Castle (80km) after a total time of 32 hours, 19 minutes. We had summited 3 of the 6 compulsory peaks and amassed 3675m of ascent as well as 2815m of descent along the way. I was obviously disappointed that I had quit but there was no way I was going to see Bushman's Nek at that rate. The Drakensberg will be there next year and for many years after that but my feet and legs may not have been if we had pushed on!
Our man on the ground, Magan Nambiar, was doing a solo hike in the Cobham area until Sunday so we had 3 days to get down to the Monk's Cowl campsite where he would pick us up. We were now chilling in the berg but we were still forced to live like we were on an AR. We were still eating all our AR food, sleeping without roll mats in lightweight sleeping bags and loads of other stuff which made the last 3 days less than ideal. We made the best of it though and still really enjoyed our descent down Gray's Pass and relaxed at the Blind Man's Corner Campsite on Friday night. Yes, we know that it's only 6km to Monk's Cowl from there but we could camp for free at Blind Man's Corner (cheapskate students). Upon reaching Monks Cowl early on Saturday morning, we set up camp and walked over to the Champagne Castle Hotel which has much better facilities for us to enjoy... what a life! The sight of 2 sunburnt, smelly, barefoot students by hotel guests that day must have been something to behold!
Lessons Learnt:
Don't underestimate this challenge - it requires a STRONG MIND as there are no other teams to race against, no marshalls or seconds to encourage you and no change of discipline. It involves hours and hours of mindless slogging through some boring Lesotho highland terrain which never changes J
Take a lightweight tent along - it is definitely worth the extra weight.
Start WELL rested (ie. No 6-day hikes beforehand Stijn!).
Get to the Sentinel Car Park a day or two early to acclimatise.
Rather take a sturdy backpack than a 30 litre AR Pack - once again worth the extra weight for the comfort!
Don't take an AR-X sleeping bag (especially if you're 6'4" tall Brian!)
Don't forget your sunscreen (like we did - ouch!)
Summer is a very good time to do this as most of the days are clear except for the regular afternoon thunderstorms. The very long daylight hours (5am - 7pm) compensate for this.
Be friendly to the many Basothos you will meet along the way. But take a stick to fend off their aggressive dogs!
Rather hike in gumboots and a dog blanket - it seems to make the Basothos STRONG ;-)
This record is certainly breakable as long as you know what to expect and prepare well enough before-hand. I have a list of GPS waypoints (approximately every 5km along the route) which cover what I believe to be the optimal route along the escarpment. If you are planning to give the record a bash, drop me a line at Lnnsti001@mail.uct.ac.za and I'll send you these waypoints.
GO FOR IT!
Stijn Laenen (Team Holy Crap)