Day 6: Escarpment Traverse Distance 11.5 km Altitude 2,855 m to 3,107 m Ascent / Descent +1,063 m / -947 m Terrain Ridge-valley cycling. No roads. Technical on the steeper ridges. Start Wild camp, southern plateau Finish Wild camp between Verkyker Peak and Linotsing Peak (2,972 m) Water Small stream at camp Exposure High. Rhino Horn Trail emergency exit ~2 km from camp. Bailout Rhino Horn Trail. Steep and demanding, but viable if needed. Another high day. Proper high. The route rolled relentlessly. Long ridge climbs, steep drops into river valleys, then immediately back up. The pattern repeats until your legs start to recognise it and your brain stops expecting it to end. Very little riding. The same load-leapfrogging system, the same shoulder carries on the steepest pitches. On some sections there is no obvious line. You read the terrain as you go. Food was running low. Energy bars and trail snacks were almost finished. I was down to dehydrated meals and oats. Around midday I stopped near a ridgeline and cold-soaked a packet of Forever Fresh while storm clouds gathered over the plateau. Rocky’s feeding strategy had unravelled. In Underberg I had carefully portioned puppy kibble into Ziploc bags and mixed in chopped droëwors and biltong to boost the calories. It was a solid plan. Rocky disagreed. He refused the kibble mix outright. What he did take a liking to, unfortunately, were my natural food bars. He worked through most of them without hesitation, which was impressive but inconvenient. That left me short. So I started picking the rejected biltong pieces out of his ration bags and eating them myself. Not glamorous, but effective. My calorie burn was high and the numbers were not adding up. Up there, waste is not an option. If it contains protein, it gets eaten. I had just got the meal soaking when the wind shifted. The storm had been building quietly for the past hour. Now it arrived properly. I threw down the tent footprint and pitched only the flysheet. No inner. Just enough structure to get out of the weather. Guy lines taught. The wind hit first, then the rain, hard and immediate. Rocky and I crawled underneath while the ridge disappeared into grey. For half an hour we sat there on the escarpment, eating rehydrated food under a flapping flysheet while the squall pushed through. Then, as quickly as it had come, it moved on. We packed the wet sheet, loaded up again and carried on. We camped that night high between Verkyker Peak and Linotsing Peak, near the escarpment edge. A small stream ran in front of camp, clear, cold water straight off the plateau. The Rhino Horn Trail , my emergency exit, was about 2 km away. I knew where it was and what it would cost to use it. Rain came back around 16:00. Stayed until sunrise. Proper mountain rain, not aggressive, just sustained and thorough. Condensation built where the flysheet pressed inward, so anything touching the inner wall got damp. I had prepared for this and all my gear was sealed in dry bags. Rocky sleeps inside my sleeping bag at night. It is the simplest way to keep him warm. Sometimes he overheats and starts panting, and I have to open the zip to let him cool down before closing it again. He also doubles as a hot water bottle, which keeps me a little toastier than I would otherwise be. With colder ground ahead, I was worried about Rocky’s comfort. Keeping Rocky warm was a priority during the traverse. I cut a hole in a microfibre towel and draped it over him as a rough poncho, then pulled his bomber jacket over that. When the temperature dropped properly, both layers stayed on. When I waterproofed my tent before the trip, I treated his bomber jacket as well. It stopped the outer layer from getting saturated in the rain, which helped more than I expected.