FEEDBACK: Saturday 10 January, Table Mountain North Face

Thirty-one bright-eyed, bushy-tailed runners full of good New Year intentions pitched up at Kloof Nek parking lot. We all slogged up the hundreds of steps to the contour path, with much muttering about this being the worst start to any of our runs (it is, but it is short and brutal and over quickly if you are fittish).  All three groups covered the same route from the Kloof Nek car park, up the steps, and along the contour path on the front face of Table Mountain.

The main group was smallish with about 11 of us, although that number constantly changed and was a bit tricky to keep track of.  Hein took off to the Blockhouse to meet his sister, who had overslept, and so he came back, found us, scooped up Julian and in a cloud of testosterone they were off with Hein managing to cover 20 kms in the time it took us to cover 14! (We did regroup a lot.)  Elite runner, Kevin Hurwitz, mumbling something about having just taken 2 months off, joined us until the Oppelskop path and is probably still out running. We managed to temporarily misplace 2 runners when we turned off to the Oppelskop path (note to run leader, when your last 4 runners are all wearing blue t-shirts don't just see a blue t-shirt and presume they are all together like a flock of birds).  Geoff caused consternation when he suddenly disappeared from view.  One minute he was behind Bels and in front of Elvera and the next minute ‘poof’ he was gone. Convinced he had fallen off the side of the mountain without anyone noticing, I was just about to call mountain rescue when he appeared from behind a bush after performing emergency ablutions.

We all got back safely and agreed this is one of our favourite routes.  The Main group covered 14 kms in 2hrs 30, Recovery group 10 kms in 2hrs 10, Walkers 9 kms in 2hrs 20.  Thanks to Julian and Alex for leading Main group and Geoff for sweeping, Nicole and Peter for leading Recovery and Peter for leading the Walkers.  Thanks to Gae and Adien for the scenic pics.  Another lovely morning out on the mountain!

Some achievements: Allison completed her 60th sortie, Sam [Brinkman] her 30th, Chantal her 25th and Elvera her 10th which promotes her to the quick check-in at the top of the page.