Day 7 – Weather Reconnaissance
Distance: 1.58 km (out and back)
Altitude: 2,947 m to 2,988 m
Start / Finish: Wild camp
I woke up to a proper escarpment morning. Low dark cloud. Wind pushing hard enough against the tent to feel it through the fabric.
The forecast the night before had not been encouraging. I was not committing to the next section without checking properly. I packed light and hiked 1.6 kilometres up toward the escarpment ridge to find cell phone signal and confirm the weather. When I had reception, I sent my girlfriend, Tracy Breeze, a WhatsApp location pin. If something went wrong, at least there would be a starting point.
The views from that ridge were immense. The escarpment falls away dramatically toward uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park. It is worth stopping to absorb it, even when conditions are uncertain.
That same ridge held my exit: The Rhino Horn Trail. The only clearly navigable descent I had identified on this section of the traverse. From just under 3,000 metres it drops more than 1,000 vertical metres in roughly six kilometres. An average gradient of around seventeen percent, with steeper pitches beyond that. Loose and eroded. Not rideable under load. It would have been a shoulder-carry descent into the Garden Castle side beneath Rhino Peak. Hours of work. Possibly the end of the bike if things went badly.
It was a legitimate option. Not a comfortable one.
I stood at the high point and watched the system move across the plateau. Heavy cloud banks rolled through, but they were not solid. They broke in places. It did not look as severe as sunrise had suggested.
Standing above the Rhino Horn descent, with a buckled wheel and weather moving in, I turned away from the exit and chose to press on.
By the time Rocky and I walked back to camp, patches of blue were pushing through.