Knights of the Table

Table Mountain is the backdrop of Cape Town, rising above all of the buildings. It is between two smaller mountains called Lion's Head and Devil's Peak. The mountain is flat on top, like a table, hence its name. You can take a cable car up to the top, where there is cafe and a gift shop. Or you can hike.

We hiked. And got a little bit more than some of us bargained for. (Wow, I used the same hook as I did in the last blog. Sorry).

Me, Taylor, Isaiah, and our new friend Ari got into a taxi, and we knew the driver from a previous night (that blog is coming soon, sorry, South Africa is going to be kind of out of order.) Tim recommended we take the trail that is right next to the cable car, with a sign that says “not for amateurs.” He told us that there were some spots where you had to actually rock climb a little bit, but nothing too difficult.

We arrived at the base of the mountain and already had a breathtaking view of the city. We saw the sign that Tim referred to and didn't really read that it said “Dangerous. Extreme rock climbing route.” Then there were some triangle shapes with exclamation points at certain points of the diagram. We didn't really see that either. We just saw that the trail was called “India Venster.” And thought that was cool.

We began our hike and right away we met four local guys whose climbing backgrounds were much more extensive than ours. They gave us a quick breakdown of what we were to do: follow the yellow footprints. They said to curve under the cable car lines, “scramble”up three ledges, then curve around again by a boulder field, and then curve all the way by cliffs with some steep dropoffs until we reach the top.

Scramble is the word of the day. If not the week.

We broke off from those guys and followed the trail below the cable car lines. After some walking, we reached where there were the three ledges. These were LEDGES. Seriously, like 6 feet high with hardly any places to put our hands. We interpreted that “scrambling”is like a short free-hand climb. I found it quite easy, not met with too difficult of a challenge, but I helped up Isaiah and Ari after I went up.

We made it up the three ledges with Isaiah almost falling off if he hadn't taken off his backpack. There was more climbing up rocky slopes, but not like the ledges. We were constantly looking for the yellow footprints, rejoicing when we found them to let us know we were still on the path.

Up some more slopes, we made it to the boulder field. We saw some people, French, I think. Yay! People! We're going the right way! They were two parent-aged women, a teenaged girl, and a little boy. But they weren't going up. They were coming down. We weren't sure why anyone in there right mind would want to go down the ledges we just climbed.

They said that they were coming down because they couldn't find a way up to the top. This came as a surprise to us. We had found the three ledges and the boulder field that the other guys had told us, and now these people are going back because they couldn't find anything? We traded phone numbers just in case of an emergency, but we trudged on.

I never doubted for a moment that we were going the wrong way. The yellow footprints helped a lot, and after the boulder field there was a sign facing away from where we just came that said “PATH.” I said, “If there was no path leading TO here from the top, there would be no reason to have a sign.”

We kept going.

All the other guys were worried that we were going to get stuck, or have to call a helicopter, or get stranded. I never had a thought like this for a minute, and had no idea why everyone was freaking out. There was a path there. It was clear and easy to see. It felt like Lord of the Rings sometimes! We sang the theme song too.

There was some more scrambling that the hiker guys from the beginning didn't tell us about, and those scrambles were the most difficult, some rocks were around 10 feet. But I was never fearing for my life. If you read Isaiah's eventual blog about this experience, his story will be very, very different. I never worried about falling or getting stranded, I was just careful to put my feet in safe places and not to lose my balance. What was going on in the other guys' heads at this point was “are we going the right way?”“what if we have to go back down, that was impossible to climb up!” What was going through my head was “this is the coolest thing ever!”

But we were around the bottom where the hiker guys told us to be, seeing the cliff with the steep dropoffs.

After the scrambles and some more trudging, we saw some hardcore climbers going up (or down) the completely vertical side of the mountain. A man asked us where we were from, and we told him what we were doing. He told us we were close and that he'd lead us to the top. He had to meet his mother anyway. His name was Keith, and he and his wife (who is currently in the jungle filming a documentary) and young boy had traveled down Africa from the UK and had been in South Africa for a little while.

Keith was a well traveled man, and he even had a Morocco story that Ari related to because he saw the same guy in the same place. Keith took a picture of all of us in front of a sign that said “NOT AND EASY WAY DOWN.” We thanked Keith, but he told us that we really did it already and that he really was just walking up with us as opposed to guiding us. Keith keeps a blog of his travels as well, so we traded blog addresses when we reached the top.

We got hot chocolate and laughed about our 2 ½ hike up the side of a mountain called named after furniture. I bought a really cool beanie at the gift store.

Taylor thanked me, because he was worried about getting stranded or not making it to the top, and that my optimism kept him going. That was nice to hear, and it meant a lot. I really don't know why I wasn't worried about anything. Here we are, climbing a huge mountain in the most difficult trail possible with very little climbing experience, the possibility of death all around, and I'm more worried about when I'm going to buy my South African flag.

Keith told us that in the guidebooks for rock climbers, they say Table Mountain is dangerous and to be really, really careful. This made us feel like pros (even though we didn't do REAL rock climbing) but we got a little more than we expected. Tim said that there were some spots you had to rock climb, and his description threw us off, because we felt like we did more than a little rock climbing. But I would describe it as something similar, “The most difficult trail on table mountain. There were some spots where it was pretty dangerous, having to actually climb up rocks with your bare hands, but altogether not impossible.” Taylor, Ari and Isaiah will all have their own unique descriptions, too.
We took the cable car down.

WARNING: NERD JOKE COMING! SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU WISH TO AVOID IT. It was like at the end of a Myst level where after you solve all the puzzles and have walked around the entire level, you get into some sort of really cool vehicle and take a journey, seeing all the places you just were.

Since our path was mostly underneath where the cables were, we could see what we climbed. It WAS pretty ridiculous what we did, but we were satisfied. The hikers gave us some instructions, the French people confused us, and Keith marched with us to victory. We own that mountain. That mountain in South Africa.

I climbed a mountain in Africa.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to an internet cafe and post some pictures from the last month. We tried to go tonight but there were all closed.