Hike up Skeleton Gorge
The hike up Skeleton gorge is one of the most popular routes up Table Mountain especially with locals and regular mountain hikers. It is an interesting climb with good shade for most of the way up. It is also sheltered from the howling South Easterly wind for much of the climb so is therefore ideal for those days that the Cape Doctor is at its worst.
So with the wind blowing a bit this week, I climbed this route with a group from Australia on Sunday and a family from Singapore on Monday. The first hour of the climb is up a steep stair way through wonderful indigenous forestry. Almost immediately you escape the sounds of the traffic and forest sounds surround you.
The shady Skeleton gorge
Both days we took about 2 hours from the Cecelia Forest carpark to the top of the gorge. Thats pretty fast going as both groups were fit. Despite the heavy cloud over the main plateau the views of False Bay from the contour path were wonderful and once above the trees we also had wonderful views from the top of the gorge.
The view of False Bay from Skeleton Gorge
On both days rather than following Smuts track up into the clouds we chose to visit the beach at the top of Hely Hutchinson dam and do a circuit of the plateau in the middle of the mountain here. The final descent through Cecilia Forest is one of the gentlest on the knees and offers the chance to cisit the lovely waterfall here.
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