Cave Exploration in the Drakensberg mountains of South Africa

Running at 3200m proved to be a different animal...

As always, ambitious plans normally fail.. But failure is not necessary bad. 

The Plan: Go for a run in the Drakensberg mountains of South Africa.

The Execution: Went horribly wrong!! Running at 3200m proved to be a different animal!

The Result: 1 x super stunning weekend! :)

A little perspective

The foot hills of the Drakensberg mountains is at about 1400m above see level (ASL). At that altitude there is approximately 85% of the oxygen available compared to sea level. From the bottom foothills, the mountains ascent to roughly 2 000m ASL over a distance of approximately 5-10km. The Escarpment edge start here with sheer cliff faces of up to 1 000m high in places. At the top the average altitude is 3 200m. with peaks as high as 3 480m high. At this altitude you only have 67% of the oxygen available that you do at see level.

We set off in cold, wet and miserable conditions. It took a full 15min for us to be soaked to the bone. But the target cave was 34km and 4300m of total altitude gain away. So we pressed on. 

By late afternoon we decided to award the mountains its hard earned points for this round and called it quits in our new found home. Cold and Wet just did not matter anymore as soon as the mist lifted. On top of the world the views was spectacular and we were in our happy place! Happiness got even better as the coffee brew was going. With a coffee high we gathered some grass to use as sleeping mats and settled in for a cold night...

Stay tuned for round 2!