page_title: Table Mountain
section_title: Hiking on Table Mountain
hierarchical_section_title: Table Mountain / Activities / Hiking on Table Mountain
caption_attribution_description: Maclear's Beacon
context_page_description: Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. The mountain forms part of the Table Mountain National Park, and part of the lands formerly ranged by Khoe-speaking clans, such as the!Uriǁʼaes. It is home to a large array of mostly endemic fauna and flora.
context_section_description: Hiking on Table Mountain is popular amongst locals and tourists, and a number of trails of varying difficulty are available. Because of the steep cliffs around the summit, direct ascents from the city side are limited. Platteklip Gorge, a prominent gorge up the centre of the main table, is a popular and straightforward direct ascent to the summit. Par for the course is about 2.5 hours but is done between 1–3 hours depending on one's fitness level. This route is very hot in summer, as it is located on the north facing slope of the mountain, with almost no shade along the 600 m climb from Tafelberg Road to the Table Mountain plateau.
  Longer routes to the summit go via the Back Table, a lower area of Table Mountain to the south of the main, northern, plateau (which constitutes "Table Mountain" as seen from the Cape Town City Centre and Table Bay). From the Southern Suburbs side, the Nursery Ravine and Skeleton Gorge routes start at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. The route via Skeleton Gorge to Maclear's Beacon is known as Smuts Track in memory of Jan Smuts, who was a keen hiker. The Bridle Path, or Jeep Track, makes a more gradual ascent from Constantia Nek along the road used to service the dams on Back Table. There are many other paths in popular walking areas on the lower slopes of the mountain accessed from Constantia Nek, Cecilia Park, Kirstenbosch, Newlands Forest and Rhodes Memorial.
  On the Atlantic side, the most popular ascent is Kasteelspoort, a gorge overlooking Camps Bay, but there are a few others, but not as many as on the east side of the mountain.
  There is a popular "Contour Path" that runs from Constantia Nek, and then, in succession, above Cecilia Park, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Newlands Forest, and from there, above Groote Schuur Estate, past the King's Blockhouse, at the north-east corner of Devil's Peak, immediately below the Mowbray Ridge cliffs, to the front of Devil's Peak and the north face of Table Mountain, ending at the bottom of Kloof Corner Ridge at the western end of the Table Mountain cliffs. It starts at Constantia Nek at 250 m, but immediately gradually climbs to around 320 m at Angela's Memorial and the look-out point above Cecilia Park. It then undulates down and up again at about this elevation as far the north-western corner of Kirstenbosch, when the path suddenly climbs quite steeply to 470 m to the scree (or Dassieklip) below the cliffs of Fernwood Buttress. It then descends again to 350 m, only to ascend again to 400 m, 1 km later. It remains at this level, as a true 'contour path', to the King's Blockhouse, and from there, eventually, to Tafelberg Road (at 400 m). From the King's Blockhouse it is possible to choose a footpath that will lead to the "upper contour path" which traverses the front (north face) of Devil's Peak and Table Mountain at 500 m, to just beyond the Lower Cable Station. From there it is possible, from either contour path, to join up with the "Pipe Track" which starts from Kloof Nek, and then runs at an elevation of about 300 m, below the cliffs of the Twelve Apostles, on the Atlantic side of the mountain range as far as the Oudekraal Ravine, where the path goes up the ravine to join the "Apostles Path" on top of the Back Table at an elevation of 685 m. There are innumerable paths which join the contour path from below (at least five from Kirstenbosch alone), and somewhat fewer that join it from above.
  On top of the mountain, and particularly on the Back Table, there is an extensive network of well marked footpaths offering hiking opportunities over a wide variety of terrains, and distances which can be covered in 30 minutes to several hours (or even all day if so desired). Good maps of all the routes are available at bookshops and outdoor recreation stores, which hikers are advised to use, as dense mist and cold weather (or extreme heat) can descend without warning at any time of the year.
  The Hoerikwaggo Trails  were four hiking trails on the Cape Peninsula Mountain Chain ranging from two to six days, operated by South African National Parks (SANP
caption: The plaque at Maclear's beacon at the highest point on Table Mountain (and the Cape Peninsula) at 1084 m. It commemorates Maclear's recalculation of the curvature of the earth in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1750, Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille had measured the curvature of a meridian arc northwards from Cape Town, to determine the figure of the earth, and found that the curvature of the earth was less in southern latitudes than at corresponding northern ones (i.e. that the earth was slightly pear-shaped, with the wider bulge south of the equator). However, when Sir George Everest visited the Cape in 1820 and inspected the site of La Caille's measurements in Cape Town, he suggested to Maclear that the gravitational effect of Table Mountain could have caused a miscalculation of the curvature of the meridian. This was based on Everest's experience in the Himalayas. Taking this factor into account Maclear established the curvature of the Southern Hemisphere was in fact the same as that of the Northern Hemisphere.
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