Enjoying the snow

I've been cycling through the Drakensberg mountains for the last few days, and my arrival has marked another dramatic change to my surroundings. The slopes are covered with grassland, and the snow capped peaks are even more dramatic. This mountain range is characterised by steep escarpments, the contours on the map are so close that they appear to merge together like a kind of mountain barcode.



The snow seems to have stopped falling, but at this altitude much of it remains, particularly on the South facing slopes. I've spent most of the last few days riding at around the 2000m level - the air is noticealy thinner and the temperature varies greatly with sun and shade. The days start below freezing, but gradually warm up to the low teens.



I wasn't able to go snowboarding last Christmas, which was pretty gutting, so imagine my glee when Kathy pointed out that my next rest day was at the nearest town to South Africa's main ski resort, Tiffindell. With the improvement to my fitness, I've started to become a little complacent about rest days, and besides, I've only been on the road 3 days since my last rest day, so I decided to pay a visit to the resort just to have a look around. I had no intention of snow boarding, you understand, I'm here to cycle. Not snow board. So of course, once I say the 50cm deep snow I couldn't resist and rented a board, just to see if I could remember how.

The resort is tiny. It makes Glen Coe look like the entire three valleys area in the Alps. There is one nursery slope and two grown up slopes, which I shared with a dozen other people. This is South Africa's only serious resort at which one may come and stay, rent equipment etc. As you can imagine, it is a somewhat exclusive haunt. The workers' football pitch just below the snow line is in no condition for a game as it is home to 3 helicopters of current guests. The cost of using the facilities is similar to a day in any of the alpine resorts, so considering purchasing power, (let alone the fact that most alpine resorts have about 200 times more piste), I would say that makes it many times as expensive to the locals. I should probably have felt a pang of guilt as I handed over a few hundred Rand for the day, but to be honest it felt as though I'd been temporarily transported out of the Eastern Cape, and it wasn't until later that I even considered the hypocrisy of raising money in part for educating some of the poorest people in this country, but taking a day out from the challenge to relax with the wealthiest. Ho hum.

It felt so good to be back on snow with the correct equipment (board rather than bike) that i had some fantastic albeit short runs, and started gaining confidence. After about 30 minutes I fell and strained my neck, nothing too serious. Now I've done about 6 weeks of snow boarding in my life and that has somehow generated 2 visits to casualty, resulting in 3 months in plaster the first time and 3 months of physio the second time. As I sat there on the snow massaging my sore neck, I decided to quit whilst I was just about ahead and handed in my rental equipment, save the snow boots. All was not lost, however, as the resort is nestled up against the slopes of Ben Mac Duhi, the highest peak in the Cape. At 3001m it is only a short hike from the resort (2700m). I'm used to going downhill at this altitude, and this was the first time I'd hiked at over 2000m. I started slowly, but actually found it got noticeably easier as I went up. Can any mountaineering nut explain this? This peak is the highest I will ascend on this journey, and I took a moment at the top to consider that I was standing 3 vertical kilometres higher than when I set off from the beach in Cape Town one moth earlier. From the top the views into Lesotho 20km away were stunning. Here's a timed photo of me looking away from the camera and towards Lesotho to protect those viewers sensitive to unruly facial hair.



By 2 o'clock on my rest day I had already been snowboarding and gone for a cold mountain hike, so I decided to spend the rest of the day in my heated bed to compensate. Which reminds me - I still have pins and needles in my finger tips from 'The Day It Snowed', and very little sense of touch. Can anyone tell me how long it takes to grow new nerve endings or whatever? Any doctors out there? May?

And Finally

What's wrong with this building? Answers on a comment please.



I had hoped to be able to update the map on the right with my up to the minute position streaming real-time from my GPS, but that has proved a bit much for my phone to handle, and sadly the map has fallen behind. I haven't been able to view it myself yet, but Andre has kindly put together a map of my route which sounds much more advanced map than my simplistic effort, so please check it out and let me know how it looks. Thanks Andre!

http://maps.google.com/AlexButcher/

I harp on about sponsorship every week, so this week I will stay quiet. Except to say that I am compiling my first ever christmas card list based on the names on the just giving page...