Two adventurous and fearless hikers have made history by completing a continuous hike across the entire range of the Helderberg Mountain Rim, from West Peak all across to an unnamed peak 415 m right at the end of the ridge running above Gordon’s Bay, where they emerged on Clarence Drive 25 hours and 10 minutes later.
Corrie van Niekerk (31) of Brackenfell North and 42-year-old Brett Wood of Somerset West shared a feeling of surrealness at the end of their adventure, coupled with a sense of relief as they are still coming to terms with their accomplishment.
Both are experienced mountain hikers. Van Niekerk said hiking had always been a family-based activity growing up and, following an accident in which he sustained a broken heel and torn ligament, he was put in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks.
During this time he realised how much he wanted to be outside climbing mountains.
“What followed was a two-year rehabilitation and strength building period as my quad muscle had almost completely atrophied. My goal is to climb as many peaks in the Western Cape as possible.”
As for Wood, he started out as a swimmer and tri-athlete, and morphed into trail runner who hiked. “I am now a bit of a lot of things with a love for long-endurance suffer fests in remote wild spaces, by foot or by bike. My ultimate goal is to stir the adventurous spirit in others as I live the things I love.”
The duo stayed on the highest possible line and tagged all the named peaks along the way, using as little trail as possible.
Wood has lived in the Helderberg basin for 30 years and often wondered what it would be like to traverse it all. When he saw Steve Chadwick’s book A guide to the Helderberg & Hottentots Holland Mountain Rim and realised the challenge it presented, with a view to taking the idea further, he contacted Van Niekerk to ask if he would be keen (“Guide to local slopes”, District Mail & Helderberg Gazette, 25 January).
“I had been looking for a route that would test us to the limit of our endurance. Last year we did the Ultimate Wemmershoek Traverse and it was time to give something big a go again,” Van Niekerk said.
“We planned for almost three months, pushing our effort out multiple times in lieu of the crazy weather. Numerous video calls, chatting about gear and what we would need followed, specifically if we ran into trouble and had to spend a night on the mountain. We looked at terrain and elevation by drawing our route on FATMAPS, an outdoor adventure platform, community and high-resolution 3D map, but ultimately the scout missions gave us the best insight and we cairned one or two of the technical down climbs we would need to do in the dark. The one from Moordenaarskop concerned us the most, not because it is technical but one can easily make mistakes leading to sketchy terrain in the dark and when fatigued.”
Wood completed the Seven Tops route – all the peaks between West Peak and Driekop – within the Helderberg Nature Reserve and the 415 m peaklet at the opposite end of the horseshoe, which helped the duo at the end as they knew where to descend in the dark down to Clarence Drive.
Some of their highlights include getting to Haelkop and completing it very early.
“We saw that as the first checkpoint; the first big hurdle. Soaking our feet in the stream above Swartboskloof after a section of frustrating navigation from Sosyskloof was the ultimate and swimming on the vlakte after Landroskop was great and refreshing. We both got core cramps when we sat down where the top abdominal muscles just locked out. It’s something neither of us experienced before, but it must be due to the heavy packs and all the stabilising you have to do on off trail terrain.”
They also spotted and were “pursued” for a period by a rock kestrel (bird of prey), saw multiple klipspringers, several blue-headed lizards and a Cape dwarf chameleon.
“The proteas were also out of this world; some of the best fynbos flowers I have seen and a lemon grass smelling buchu were a thrill to the senses,” said Wood. “We packed a lot of food such as banana bread sandwiches, burgers, wraps, biltong gums, baby potatoes, salami and rehydrate. Our goal was to keep eating as often as we could and take salt tablets when we needed. Water was thankfully plentiful and filling up wasn’t a big issue.
“I am not sure about previous attempts, although Steve’s book details one or two partial completions. We happened to be the first to complete it in a continuous push. Maybe we’ve set a challenge that will hopefully inspire other faster athletes to better it. It is wild.”
