An exciting scramble up Table Mountain
The India Venster hike on Table Mountain is one of the most popular and most fun. It takes around 3 hours to ascend from the lower cable way to the upper cableway and offers the most fantastic views.
As a scramble route, it is for the more adventurous hiker, but you don’t need any experience. Just a love for the outdoors and sense of fun. It starts off with a slog up the steps behind the cable car. After this however, you get onto a smaller path that begins to wind its way up the mountain directly below the cablecar. Looking up the route looks completely impossible, but there is a route there.
After about 20 minutes with a couple of easy scrambles, it is worth taking a short detour to the vester (Afrikaans for window) It makes for a dramatic photo. Don’t be fooled though as the drop behind the rock is very sheer.
On and up, the path takes you around a buttress on upwards to the main scrambles of the route. These are seldom more than a few metres at a go, but if you are not flexible (or your jeans are too tight) you might not find them easy. This is also where a head for heights is a help.
There are chains and metal rungs at the hardest places to help you on your way. Eventually you reach the toop of the scrambles at a buttress almost directly under the cablecar. The path now takes you around the mountain
above Camps Bay. So the view changes totally as you see down the 12 apostles. Just one more short scramble and you head up fountain ravine passing a warning sign for those mistakenly taking this route down the mountain.
Another 20 minutes and you emerge on the plateau about 5 minutes from the cable car.
If you are an adventure seeker. This is truly an adventure not to be missed.
