Without the toughness and determination that we developed from O-Fit and Crossfit Old Bay we would have never been able to conquer table mountain head on. This one’s for all of you!

On Friday the 6th of February 2015 we lead an international climbing party who successfully summited Table Mountain. We were joined by Lucy, the Kiwi we met sailing and her friend Rachel who’s an Aussie living in South Africa. Everyone was keen to climb the mountain and Friday was the day.

Kara getting ready to scale one of the serious sections of cliff

The weather on the mountain can change in an instant and we had seen potentially debilitating clouds forming and the usual raging south east breeze in the afternoon can make this mountain fortress impregnable, so we planned for an early morning accent. The weather forecast was looking great. We decided to ascent the India-Venster route. This was a far more technical route than the Platteklip Gorge route that most hikers attempt.

We started at the lower cable car station and up we went. The first bit was tough! It was a bunch of tall stairs, so we lunged our way up the first ~750 vertical feet of the mountain (Oh yea feel the burn!). Then we got to the climbing, which steadily got harder the higher we got. At one portion, there were chains and bars built into the rock wall to make it possible to climb up the steep faces of rock. It was pretty freaking awesome. We took our time getting to the top. We stopped to enjoy the views, which were incredible, take photos, and have snacks. We took the climbing portions slowly and safely as one mishap could have ended in disaster. It took us just under three hours to reach the table top.

The Cutest Little Dassie

At the top there was a family of Dassies, large guinea pig like rodents. We took this opportunity to get some sweet photos and listen to all the girls goggle over the cuteness of the baby ‘beebe’ dassies. We all opted for the cable car down. The hike in total was ~2500 vertical feet.