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~ I dont blog about things to be liked. I blog about things that I like ~ ... so that one day, on my death bed, I will have said and done what I wanted to do, and die peacefully without regrets.
Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders & says..' Oh shit....She's awake'

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Devils Peak from Google Earth via my Garmin GPS

Alex dragged me up Devils yesterday, and oh boy, am I feeling it today!  When I said Devils Peak The Easy Route... I did not mean its easy, I meant "the easy route" as in there are way more difficult / hard routes that can take you up to 6 hours just going up.

Having hiked this route so many times before, I must say that this time I was very exhausted at the end.  (Burnt 1200 calories - not too bad for 'just a hike') I guess its been a while since we have been hiking good routes again.  


Above is the reading that our Garmin eTrex Legend produced for us on my computer.The above vertical profile shows that we climbed 610m over a distance of 2.76km.

Remember that you can read more about this routes and its details in other posts of ours: Hiking Devils Peak

I dont normally re-write about a route that I have been on (blogging is very hard work - just in case you dont know it yet!), but this one deserved some more attention as I had a reader from Germany who asked me some questions which I thought I would answer via this blog entry.

The first thing that is important is that we have noted that Table Mountain National Park have changed all the signs on the mountain.  Thank you guys!

On the 2 signs that we did come across, some of the information was incorrect and the suggested changes were made with red indicators as you will see when you read on.

To get there take the Tafelberg Road which runs past the Lower Cable Station of Table Mountain Cable Way.  About 3 km from the Cable Station, the path starts to the right (and opposite a car park) as indicated in the image below (or read my other posts of Devils Peak).


Soon you will be climbing steep steps that zigzag their way up the mountain towards the Contour Path.


As you see in the image below, when you cross over the contour path, the sign is easily misleading, so focus on the path going more upwards than the one flattening out (Contour path / Oppelskop).  You should be heading towards the Saddle (but the arrow is wrong), so focus on going upwards.


After the above, crossing the path continues to zig zag its way up.  Again, if you see other paths, continue to follow the one that is going up, until the path flattens out and heads towards the saddle.


A brisk 10 minute walk on a semi flat route, will take you to a T-junction by the Saddle.


Notice a large rock on the left and a small stream flowing on the right. This is where you turn right.


After your right turn at the T-junction by the Saddle and the big rock, follow your nose and the stream for another 10 minutes.


Soon you will reach another sign, showing Devils peak is the way back. That is wrong. This is your mark where you do not go back to where you came from, but rather do you turn left and head up the steep slate and rather loose rocks to slog your way all the way to the top.  They have upgraded this path about a year ago, but the rocks are still fairly loose and slippery.


Once we reached the top of Devils Peak, we headed for a spot away from the wind (the wind is always blowing up here!) and had our well deserved cuppa Nescafe Cuppachino :)


The view from here never seizes to amaze us.  So relaxing and so beautiful!



On our way down, we came upon a group of people who were putting up this flag and banner.

We asked them what they were up to and they explained to us that they are protesting and trying to get the name of Devils peak to be changed to Windberg or Duiweberg as it was originally known to be. 

The Legend has it that the devil disappeared onto this mountain 300 years ago, hence the name Devils Peak.  There are other stories about where its name originated from, but a name change will be great.

The coloured flag was a prayer and the other the symbol of the cross.


More information and pictures about this hike can be found here.

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