Geology and Trail Names – Ria

The cloud cover lifted for a few hours today, for the first time we could see the magnificent views. The mountains are different to the rugged mountains of SA. Imagine a sea of 3 dimensional normal distributions with low-ish curtosis. Or an endless number of cups of flour poured out on a kitchen counter. Cover it in trees and that’s what we see.

Trevor says these mountains were higher than the Rockies but are of the oldest ranges so have worn down to their current state (he may write a blog correcting my facts). Not that it makes them easy to walk in, but for context: we go over several of them in a day, u can hardly go up and down the Drakensberg in one day.

We had 2 trail magics today, probably helping us to manage 21km, 2 further than planned. The problem is they were 45mins apart, we had coke/hot chocolate, Dunkin Donuts and packets of chips at the first, rocketed up and down a mountain, only to find a second one waiting at the foot of the next mountain – these guys go big, they lay on a feast and expect you to indulge. Trevor didn’t get supper tonight!

We are starting to use our trail names when meeting others. These are names you choose for yourself, or others pick for you if you don’t find one yourself. On the trail you are known only by these names. We met Slider (who always just Slide this into her backpack here or Slide that into her backpack there), Brooklyn (a guy who came from the Ukraine 23 years ago and settled in Brooklyn), Parks (whose is trying to visit all national parks in the states), Go, What-if, Wild Bill and Schweppes. Hikers like Trevor’s name (“Howzit”- he explains it as ‘SA hello: how is it’) mine seem to confuse/bore them: I chose sigma as I make silly sums in my head while I walk – maybe I will need to find another name.

Hope you guys are still reading this? I’m not getting any comments….