Table Mountain

The day came to do the most famous of all the Cape Town excursions, Table Mountain. We started a GroupMe group with a few dozen interested people, but at 8:30 AM when we planned to leave, Katherine, Liam, and I were the only ones at breakfast. So, our trio Ubered up to the base of Platteklip Gorge and began climbing.


The whole hike was basically a stairclimber with the added difficulty of making sure to step carefully and not fall off the side of the mountain, and the added benefit of an absolutely beautiful view of downtown Cape Town, Lion's Head, the waterfront, and the bay beyond.

 

We could see our target from the bottom: a narrow pass between 2 cliffs at the top. It seemed close the whole way up, but it took us a little over an hour to reach the peak, still much faster than the 2.5 hours the sign recommended and the hour and 45 minutes it took another iX group a few days before us. 

We only saw a few other people on the way up, and the top of Table Mountain was completely deserted - just us and a lot of dassies, little rodent things who's closest relative is actually the elephant. 


The top was relatively flat, with brush plants all around, and a 360 degree view of Cape Town. I could see Hout's Bay, Chapman's Peak, and Boulder's Beach in the distance on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on another, and downtown Cape Town, Lion's Head, and Robben Island on the third. It was a sunny, spectacular day, and we did a photoshoot posing on the rocks, making it look like we were dangling over the edge when in reality there was another level of rocks right below us (in most cases).



It was also super windy at the top, enough that the cable car was closed, and we had to hike back down the same path, which I was fine with. It was a little tough on the knees, but we got the beautiful views once more. There were many more people hiking up at this time, and we tried to give as much motivation as we could to each group that asked us how close they were to the top! 

All in all, it was a very cool hike, and I love that I can now say that I climbed Table Mountain. 

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