Table Mountain Hike up Platteklip Gorge

And NOT just like that, We found ourselves at the top of Table Mountain on the last Friday of 2017.

The Platteklip Gorge route up Table Mountain is considered the easiest …. well that is subjective based on your fitness! It is a hike that should take on average 2 hours to do, it took us 2 and a half – a bit longer than average but more about that later! While there are no technical difficulties it is not to be underestimated. It has a distance of 3 Kilometers ( Just under 2 miles ) – it is steep and relentless.

We arrived at 10:00 ( Normally this would be earlier but we had to make a stop in Camps Bay ) and caught the shuttle from the bottom of the mountain as the parking on the mountain was full and the road was subsequently closed. The wait was about 10 minutes with a queue of roughly 80 odd people, so that’s not bad. We then walked from the cable car station to the base of the Platteklip hike – that was 30 minutes in itself, another reason to get there early so not to have to walk this.

And off we went, numerous stops were made – I should re-iterate that.  NUMEROUS! Stops were made not just to take in the beautiful scenery.  But for photo opportunities but to catch my breath from this vertical assault! There were many many hikers on the trail with us.  We slipped into a bit of a rhythm of overtaking a group in front of us.   Then I was overtaken by that group a little later as we all had to take breaks. Italian, German, Dutch, American, English, Local, you name it they were on the trail with us.

The scariest and most disheartening thing that happened was when we were nearing the final ascent. A local was making his way down and told all of us that he was walking down as there was a 5-hour wait to catch the cable car down! Thank goodness this turned out to be false. I stood in the queue and it took just under 2 hours to get onto the cable car. My suggestion to groups going up is to take turns standing and waiting.

A vertical assault of the steepest gradient that will break you initially in the middle or at the end! It did that to me from start to finish if I’m honest! Let me be clear – I slowed the 3 of us down! But we persisted and we welcomed that feeling of accomplishment and pride upon the summit. An experience and a half to do this with an old friend and his son.  I must say it was mindblowing up there! I highly recommend this hike.