Saturday, July 17, 2010

Table Mountain


(PICTURE: Me freezing my butt off on the top of Table Mountain.)

When you first arrive in Cape Town, you can't help but notice a bunch of really big mountains. One of the mountains is totally flat on the top, like a table. In fact, it looks so much like a table that it's called Table Mountain.

There are hundreds of different ways to hike Table Mountain. There are "easy" ways and very very very difficult ways. In fact, a couple of days before we hiked the mountain, a teenager died hiking with his parents. Hearing this, the guys and I decided to take one of the easier ways.

We started up the mountain pretty early in the morning and quickly realized that it was freaking freezing. Right before we started to climb, Dave and I met a few people from California who had been planning to hike the mountain but came completely ill equipped -- they were wearing shorts.

Dave, Chris and I made it to the top of the mountain in about an hour and ten minutes. Devin, made it up about ten minutes before us -- the dude was booking it. Some of the interesting things about the climb were:
a) It was really slippery.
b) Did I mention it was cold? It had actually snowed the night before and there were still patches of snow as we climbed.
c) The view was spectacular...until an extremely dense fog came in.

Actually, in regards to "c" above: Table Mountain is notorious for having fog envelop the mountain. They call this fog "The Table Cloth." Check out this picture:

(PICTURE: Moments before you could see the city of Cape Town. Not so much once the fog came in. Also, check out the snow on the ground.)