Race Across South Africa, part eleven

"When this is all done, I'm going to set my alarm for 4:30 just so I can turn it off and not get up," Liehann announced as we downed a cold breakfast of granola and milk in the chilled cabin at Trouthaven. 

"Strange that this is the last morning," I agreed ... although, silently, I wondered to myself if it really was our last morning on the Freedom Trail. Sure, there were only 54 kilometers between here and the finish at the wine farm of Diemersfontein. And sure, only 12 kilometers of that was even supposed to be full portaging, although I had heard rumors that this was a direct-line estimate and the reality was probably closer to 15 or even 20. Coen said the portage alone would take seven hours. "That means it will take me twelve," I lamented. 

 We planned to leave at 5:30 a.m. sharp. Sunrise was just before 7 a.m., and 5:30 was about the earliest we could leave to cover the first "easy" kilometers of riding in the dark before first light would help us locate a footpath at the edge of the reservoir. "You must find this footpath," Coen warned us. "Otherwise what would take seven hours will take fourteen." Which meant at my pace ... I didn't want to think about it.

Icy darkness sank into the river gorge like silt at the bottom of the sea. As we rolled along a steeply undulating road, I stuck in my earphones to calm my nerves and listened to the Stars, singing the song "North" quietly as Liehann surged ahead ...

"It's so cold in this country. Every road home is long.

He had a map that he bought for the price of a song.

He had a reason to go there, and a warm place to stay.

But when it came time to leave, it was never the right day.

Good luck, bad luck, survival. 

Sleep is my friend, and my rival.

Good luck, bad luck, survival." 

Photo by Liehann Loots

We rounded the dam manager's house and looked for the road that led to the dam wall. After several passes of failing to locate a road, we asked a man who just happened to be out walking along this dead-end street at 6:30 a.m. "The road washed away in a flood; it's not there anymore," he told us. "If you want to go to the dam, you will have to leave your bikes here and climb up that way." 

"Leave my bike here," I thought wistfully. Although I was too timid to proudly accept an official disqualification in exchange for symbolic glory, I daydreamed about just leaving my bike in Trouthaven and running the last 54 kilometers, then picking it up later. Part of me relished the cross-country adventures of the Freedom Challenge, but I was frustrated with the ways an odd-shaped anchor turned my undertrained body into something so weak and awkward that it was as useless as the bike. I dreamed of being light and free on my feet, of hacking through the brush unhindered, of running that last rideable 30 kilometers after the valley and proving I could do the whole stage as fast as anyone else, sans bike. "I know they won't give me an official finish, but how awesome would it be to finish the Freedom Challenge without my stupid bike?" I pondered out loud to Liehann the previous evening.

"You're an idiot," he replied. 

 Instead, I found myself shouldering my bike beneath the flickering light of a dam manager's house and picking my way along the disappeared road. It wasn't just washed out, it was obliterated — a rushing creek with table-sized boulders filled the space where the road used to be. By sheer luck, Liehann shined his headlamp through the brush where the old road bed veered away from the valley bottom and climbed up to the dam, giving us an almost-free half-kilometer of pedaling before we had to find the "footpath" that led around the reservoir and into the Valley-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.

The term footpath is generous — it was a trace of something through the brush, easy to wander off of, and difficult to relocate. Some of our wanderings proved this footpath was still faster than the full-bushwhack, so we moved slowly and made an effort to squint out its faint line along the hillsides.

It was along here that I reached into my frame bag for a snack and realized that I failed to restock my food supply in the morning. For each of the past 20 evenings in the Freedom Challenge, my habit was to go through my drop box and extract the items I wanted for the following day, then place them in a ziplock bag to transfer to my frame bag as we packed up in the morning. I knew this last day would be long, so I carefully placed the feed bag where I wouldn't forget it, next to my shoes. Somehow, I forgot it. On the most important day of the whole journey to be fully self-reliant, I had only whatever food was left over after the ride into Trouthaven. That had been a short day, so at least there were leftovers. But how much ... I was afraid to count. I had a general idea based on my daily packing habits and what I remembered consuming. There would be three or four bars, some trail mix, some biltong, half a bag of gummy bears, a sandwich from Trouthaven that I grabbed from the fridge that morning, and my emergency supply of 750 calories of peanut butter ... probably adequate, but I was going to need to ration carefully to avoid bonking in this valley.

 Beyond the reservoir the footpath effectively disappeared. I hooked two spare straps between the bike frame and my backpack, and leaned forward into the carry system I'd devised. I had to put the bike down when we reached the river, where the prospect of teetering on boulders and stumbling through swift current made the anchor attachment unwise. Our cues were quite specific about these river crossings, and despite a complete lack of evidence that any footpath still existed through this remote, burned, flooded, and overgrown valley — we continued to hold out hope that we'd locate something. The river itself was also cause for suspicion, because vertical rock walls seemed to indicate if we did not follow the correct route, we would eventually find ourselves cliffed out with no choice but to turn around. In hindsight, the cues could probably be as simple as "Find your preferred schwacking method and follow the river up the valley until you reach the end, and then climb out." But, in the midst of it, we were convinced there must be one almighty right way.

Coen and Con caught up to us as we bumbled back and forth at the first river crossing, and directed us on a ledgy skitter along the left bank that did get us around the high cliffs on the right. From there, we started hacking our way up and over a seemingly endless progression of spurs. These were steep climbs and sketchy descents laced with thick, almost impenetrable walls of reeds and brush in the drainages. Although my strap system was a good idea in theory, attaching the bike to my backpack made wrestling through the brush even more impossible. Finally, I just accepted that I was going to have to carry my bike with my own weak shoulders and puny arms. "I have to learn this sometime," I thought, and lifted my bike over my head as my shredded triceps quivered before lowering it onto the top of my backpack. Once balanced, it didn't take that much extra strength to keep the bike up there, although my tired quads and calves balked at every step.

Photo by Liehann Loots

Coen and Con quickly outpaced us, but since Coen had successfully climbed out of The-Valley-That-Must-Not-Be-Named before, I wanted to keep them in sight. I traced their line over the ridge of a spur before Liehann and I dropped into the drainage below, were we encountered the twisted wreckage of a plane that crashed in 1963, the Shackelton. Like the other drainages, this one was cut with a small but steep gorge at the bottom, necessitating a six-foot, sheer drop that was difficult to gauge beneath all of the reeds and brush choking the edge of the stream. Since the easiest way to cross this drainage was to climb over the crushed fuselage of the plane wreck, that's exactly what we did. "I hope there aren't still bodies inside," Liehann said.

"They probably removed them a long time ago," I shrugged.

 At the top of spur we located the plaque commemorating those who died in the crash — which, to us, meant we had climbed an unnecessary spur. We were not supposed to see the plaque; we were supposed to go around it at river level.

 Coen and Con were still up there, and the four of us descended the steep face of the spur, toward a horizon line near the bottom that had me convinced we were going to become stranded at the top of a cliff before we reached the river. Coen located a doable scramble down a tiered ledge, and we helped each other lower bikes down to river level. We forged through the current and then we climbed a ramp of rocky scree, still searching for a footpath. Coen seemed to believe one existed. But all we found were walls of reeds. We left the river to climb back up the next spur, hacking through thick brush and meeting walls of reeds that Liehann and Coen both hacked at for several minutes before declaring them impassable. We split up and fanned out in four separate directions, calling out to each other from the maze of nothing that we were inadvertently constructing. Thorny branches grabbed my tights and ripped new holes in the fabric; there were now several dozen long tears, and I was genuinely concerned that the tights would shred apart and fall off my body before we ever made it out of this valley.

"There's no way through here," I lamented. "There's really no way through."

 I almost believed it. But with everything we'd hacked through so far, there was also no way I was going to go back ... so I suppose forward was the only option. With the four of us bumbling around in increasing stages of hopelessness, it was Liehann who finally took charge and did what needed to be done, which is just bulldoze straight up the hill until he found a sneak around some slightly less impenetrable walls of vegetation up high. In hindsight, bulldozing is what needed to be done all along — tights, shirts, dangly bike parts, and tender arm and face skin be damned. We needed to just pick up the bikes and throw them over the brush if necessary. There was no footpath, no free passage through The-Valley-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Destruction was the only way out.

We wasted well over an hour going absolutely nowhere with this first hack, and the subsequent spurs did not get much better. Each plunge into a gully was like battling through a tangle of wires — thrashing in a claustrophobic green net while dragging the bike sideways and sometimes upside down. Then we'd emerge from the stream bed and start another steep climb on loose dirt.

Coen, like me, wanted to take his time to locate the right (and nonexistent) route. We'd trace lines that almost looked like a trail and find occasional rock cairns, probably left behind by other riders reconning the route. Although he'd been through twice before, Coen's recollections of details were far from clear. He stopped at the crest of every spur and looked toward the end of the valley. "Now we must pick the right line out," he cautioned us. "Otherwise we'll spend the night in here."

Liehann seemed to believe the exit was a wall off to the left, well before the end of the valley. We were moving so slowly through the hacks that I let myself believe this as well. But as soon as we passed the point between two nipple-shaped peaks that we'd be approaching for hours, all I saw were more walls. And when I say walls, I mean a canyon slope so steep and rippled with rocky cliff bands that I would never hike out that way on my own, even without a bike. The surface was clearly loose dirt and rocks, and any fall could potentially launch a death tumble. More disconcerting was, from this angle supposedly less than two kilometers away, the walls at the end of the valley looked no less steep.

Photo by Liehann Loots

 Clouds started to close in on us. Droplets of rain fell, followed by steady drizzle. Night was coming. I didn't have the courage to look at my watch, but the darkening skies indicated something more ominous than a passing storm. We bumbled around at a final spur before Liehann finally took charge and bulldozed down through the confusion of prickly brush. While we waded through the river around and over more table-sized boulders, I watched the sky close in and thought, "We really are going to spend a night down in here." Attempting to climb any of these steep walls after dark without a clear view of the cliff bands seemed suicidal, and we didn't have many more minutes of daylight to try.

I thought about finding wind shelter near the rocks and laying out my bivy sack under brush to hold off the rain. I thought about gathering twigs to build a little fire that I'd probably just spend the whole night stoking instead of sleeping. I thought about my meager food supply and how it wouldn't be nearly enough to remain comfortable into the next day, and how I might feel colder overnight with limited calories. I wondered how Liehann would feel about survival camping, and whether he'd insist on forging out of this valley after dark despite not knowing a safe route, and what arguments I'd make to try to talk him out of this. I wondered if he'd listen to me. I did quite a bit of backpacking in my twenties, and while I knew our limited gear would make camping uncomfortable, we wouldn't die. I've also done a fair amount of mountain scrambling near and beyond my comfort limits, and I wasn't so sure about our chances if we attempted to climb out at night. I thought about all of Liehann's family — his parents, sister, girlfriend, and friend who were waiting for us at Diemersfontein. They anticipated we'd be in by 4 or 5 p.m. No one was going to be thrilled if we didn't show up at all.

Coen, Con and I gathered on the other side of the river. Liehann was already on his way up the face of the mountain — he likely had the same thoughts going through his head as I did, and knew there was no time to waste. I looked up-river at a saddle dipping into the edge of the valley — that line must be the friendly way out. It was still another kilometer or so of hacking away from us. Liehann was marching up what was clearly the tiger line — the only line we had enough time to try before darkness took over. I lifted the bike onto my back and looked up in bewilderment at the wall in front of me. "I'm not strong enough," I panicked, and the tried to quiet my fretting with the mantra that lately hasn't worked nearly as well as it used to ... "be brave, be strong."

Coen and Con were stronger, and surged ahead. I hooked my left hand around the seatpost of the bike dangling on my shoulders and used my right hand to aid the scramble. Balancing on my toes with searing pain coursing through my calves, I first tried a direct line just to keep up, but was soon forced to make zig-zags. Loose pebbles dislodged and tumbled under my feet, and I had to rush forward to avoid sliding down with them. I climbed to the bottom of a cliff band, about eight feet tall and vertical. To the left, I could see Con disappearing over the horizon, but my efforts to contour this slope had taken me much too far to the right. There was no time, there just wasn't enough time. I veered to the left where the cliff band dropped into more of a ramp, and leaned into a full scramble. I took one step, and then barely managed to lift my foot for a second. It was trying to walk with two cannonballs chained to my ankles. "This bike's not that heavy," I scolded myself. I grabbed a handhold and tried to pull myself up. Suddenly it felt like the cannonballs had hooked into my shoulder blade and were ripping muscle away from the bone. A strange sort of collapsing sensation rippled down my back, followed by moment of pure terror when I felt the unmistakable pull of gravity behind my head. I was tipping over backward.

I instinctively left go of the bike and threw a leg back to arrest the fall. My right foot touched down, collapsing the knee and tossing my body to the side. I landed hard on my right hip while the bike tumbled several feet back before coming to rest against a tree. Pain coursed through my leg. Was it broken? No, it just felt battered. Was my bike broken? Who cares? I should just leave it here. But instead I slid back down the slope and attempted to pick the bike up again. My shoulder muscles seared in pain with every attempt. Maybe I did tear something? I tried to hook the saddle over my shoulder, but this slope was far too steep to dangle either wheel out front. Pushing was a joke, impossible, but I tried this anyway, shoving the bike ahead while I dug my toes into the loose pebbles. The bike only nudged me backward and I slipped to my knees. It was true, it really was true. I wasn't strong enough for the tiger line. I was never going to make it up this mountain.

"Liehann? Liehann?" I called out. I stopped my struggle and listened for voices, but heard only the dull roar of the wind and the hiss of drizzling rain. "Liehann?!" I called out louder. "I'm stuck. Can you help me? Please?" Again, just silence.

I stood up, threw the bike on its side, and started dragging it up the mountain behind me. "Liehann! Liehann!" I screamed as loud as I could. "Please, help me." The last part came out as more of a whimper. Only the wind answered. Liehann and I been a team since the beginning. Rationally I knew he wouldn't leave me behind, but when I was feeling weak and completely vulnerable and Night Was Coming, survival instinct forced me to consider the possibility that I might be on my own. I looked back at the river. There was water there, and wood for a fire. Should I retreat now while I could still see the way down? Shivering set in. Whether rational or not, I was very frightened.

Photo by Liehann Loots

Meanwhile, Liehann was doing what needed to be done, which is charge up the tiger line with the last remnants of daylight so he could arrive at the saddle and sight the way out along the Elandspad plateau. We needed to make our way down a broad ridge into the next valley and locate a stream bed with a faint jeep track running along the slope to the right. None of this would have been easy to do in the dark, especially finding that track, and failing to locate it would mean compass-aided schwacking for eight more kilometers. Liehann crested the ridge with enough daylight to clearly see the contours of the stream bed. It was a triumphant moment for him, and well deserved, as his speed up the tiger line is a physical feat worth nothing. Afterward, he returned to help me.

He found me still only about halfway up the climb, floundering with attempts to push and drag my bike, and limping from the pain in my bruised leg. Seeing Liehann after about twenty minutes of mentally preparing for a night out alone flipped my survival mode switch off, and I went into meltdown mode. Shoring up that much fear requires releasing an emotional floodgate, and Liehann was gracious about my blubbering as he shouldered my bike and picked his way up the tiger line a second time. Even without the anchor I could barely keep up, still slipping backward on the scree and clutching boulders. I was amazed. Liehann really did well with the Stettynskloof. He deserves accolades for his performance in there.

We walked together down the plateau. Just as the last red strips of sunset were disappearing behind a purple horizon, Liehann spotted the faint white strip that proved to be a short exposed section of the overgrown track out. It was like spotting the beam of a lighthouse after being lost at sea. It was 7 p.m. We had been in the Stettynskloof for more than twelve hours, covering a distance that amounted to, at most, ten miles.

When I finally mounted my bike to ride it again for the first time in a half day, the chain skipped off the cassette and lodged firmly between the cassette and the spokes. Something was bent. It didn't look like the derailleur hanger — it was likely the rear derailleur itself. Probably from me falling backward on top of my bike, or dragging it along the rocks, or any number of the endless schwacks and brush tangles during the day. Either way, it looked like I might have a long night of running ahead of me, with only a handful of gummy bears, half a sandwich, and some biltong as fuel. I didn't care. I had survived the Stettynskloof. I would gleefully run thirty kilometers with a broken bike and no food out of gratitude that I wasn't in that valley any longer, and that, barring any unforeseen lapses in judgement, I would never have to go there again.

Liehann found a cable adjustment that kept the chain on one of the middle cassette rings, although it still clunked loudly, and I had to remember not to shift the rear derailleur. The gear I was in was a stiff one, and there was still a lot of climbing to complete before we reached Diemersfontein. I mashed the pedals but there wasn't much strength left to mash with. I was shattered. Liehann, listening to my labored gasping, was the one who suggested we walk up the track, which was laid with parallel concrete slabs to aid vehicles up the steep slope. We saw our first electric lights of the day, and cheered the return to civilization. We passed through a remote and gated community where the route out wasn't clear. Liehann saw a truck and flagged down the driver to ask for directions. As it turned out, the driver was about to close a gate in front of us. This gate would have been the ultimate barrier of Freedom Challenge gates — sturdy steel, 10 feet high, with loops of barbed wire across the top, and no way around. If we had approached that intersection just five minutes later, we would have been locked in.

After the gatekeeper let us out and locked the gate behind us, we sat down on the road for our first break since early afternoon. I nibbled on biltong and the remains of half of a smashed chicken salad sandwich. Liehann gave me a gel from his emergency food supply. I stuck it in my pocket for insurance against a bonk.

We reached a paved road where we had to climb for seven more kilometers — and 1,200 feet of gain — toward Du Toits Kloof Pass. The main freeway now bypasses this road through a long tunnel, but we still had to cross through a shorter tunnel on a narrow road traveled by drivers who were too cheap to pay the toll. The climb through the tunnel was absolutely terrifying, in the dark with only our headlights and red blinkies, listening to the roar of semis echo with deafening cadence. As trucks approached, we'd jump onto a narrow concrete berm and press our bodies and bikes against the wall of the tunnel. I agreed with Liehann that this road was far more dangerous than anything we encountered in the Stettynskloof.

Finally we reached a pass with only twelve more kilometers of descending between us and the finish — but as the final devilish icing on this cake of a last stage, it was all through a forest road maze that required constant vigilance, and lots of right turns, all the way to the edge of Diemersfontein. Even after Marnitz let us through the farm gate and directed us toward a wide circle around the farm, we still weren't entirely sure where to go. And even as we crossed a dam, and could hear the cheers of Liehann's family at a nearby manor, I was unconvinced. There was still a potential wrong turn to take somewhere, and I really didn't want to make the wrong choice now. Embarrassing.

How did it feel to finish the Freedom Challenge? I can't speak for Liehann, but I was pretty much just shellshocked and numb that night. The sensory overload of lights, sounds, and people was overwhelming, and I failed to call Beat until several hours later, which I felt bad about. Beat and been so supportive of this adventure, and I'd missed him so much during the weeks I'd been away, that it was telling of my mental state that I didn't call him right away. In all honesty, I went into the Freedom Challenge believing that our semi-civilized touring pace would make it feel like more of a vacation than other endurance races I'd completed. But this race laughed at my delusions, then chewed me up and spit me out into a bruised, battered, and grease-smeared pile after 21 days, 16 hours, and 5 minutes on this beautiful and brutal dotted line across South Africa.

As you likely gathered from my reports, I couldn't have done it without Liehann. Although it was difficult and humbling, I am grateful that he talked me into this adventure and stuck with me through it to the bitter end. Also invaluable was the guidance of those we met and rode with along the way — Steve, Di, Richard, Marnitz, Coen and Con. The Freedom Challenge participants form a wonderful and tight-knit family, and I'm grateful to have been a part of it this year. The Race Across South Africa was an incredible adventure, although one I'm not rushing to repeat. There were experiences and memories enough to last a lifetime. 

Race Across South Africa, part ten

As the schwack around the Osseberg slipped farther into the past, our days on the Freedom Challenge route started to become more friendly ... dare I say civilized? After we exited the rough doubletrack leading away from The Ladder, our cues prompted us to "turn left ... and now you start the run into Cape Town. Most of the difficult navigation is behind you. You only have three more portages, you have a fair amount of easy riding, and you have a few glorious downhills and the first one starts now."

Even though we arrived very late for the couple at the farm house of Rouxpos — 10:20 p.m. — they still prepared a fresh pot of tea and heated up a hearty dinner for us. There was a lovingly personalized lunch for the next day — homemade fudge and fruit roll marked with the stamp of Rouxpos. And, as a special surprise, dessert was a hot waffle topped with ice cream. Liehann was especially thrilled about the waffle, and raved about it as one of the highlights to look forward to when he returns next year (which he's planning to.) The support stations are one aspect of the Freedom Challenge that make it a truly unique long-distance event. On one hand, you do travel unsupported throughout the day, and in many ways have to be even more self-reliant than the self-supported bikepacking races in North America, which take place on routes that offer a wider array of outside services. But on the other hand, it's warm and reassuring to have someone leave a light on for you to come in late from the cold, and enjoy a waffle.

I advocated for leaving Rouxpos after sunrise so we could take on the first of the final portages in daylight. It turned out to be a very easy portage, so much so that I repeatedly checked my compass and map just to ensure we were moving in the right direction. The track was sandy and rough, but it was a track, which I wasn't expecting. This day was off to a good start.

Liehann and I rolled through "Grand Canyon" and had a good laugh about it. We had ridden through a number of deep and rugged gorges across South Africa, and although none quite reach the scale of the Colorado River gorge, they were more deserving of the name "Grand." Here ... well ... between this and the lush and scenic valley called "The Hell," I was beginning to see a trend of places being drastically misnamed.

The road into Anysberg started out smooth and fast, but quickly deteriorated into a mire of rocks and sand along a narrow, overgrown doubletrack. We slowed to a 9-kilometer-per-hour pace, chundering along into a stiff headwind. After 18 kilometers of tedium, it took us a half hour to locate the correct building for the lunch stop. Liehann was frustrated and adamant about just grabbing our boxes and leaving. I talked him into staying for reheated chicken stew because I always did a lot better with a lunch stop — regardless of what I ate, the hour-long break in the middle of the day was always good for a big energy boost.

There was another 18 kilometers of chunder track after Anysberg, and Liehann's rear tire continued to deflate even after he stopped multiple times to spin sealant into the puncture and top off the air. I suggested putting more sealant into the tire; since I had two containers and Liehann had one, we had plenty to spare. For reasons I'm not quite sure about — possibly because pouring sealant through the valve stem can be problematic — he decided to open up the tire. Inside, he found an impressive number of thorns, which would have made switching to tubes difficult, as it's tricky if not impossible to find and remove all of the thorns. But when he added sealant and started pumping it back up, he couldn't get the tire bead to seal to the rim. The air pressure from the hand pump wasn't enough.

What followed was twenty minutes of Liehann being the most stressed I had seen him in the entire Freedom Challenge. There wasn't much I could do besides offer him my slightly-larger-volume hand pump, but my arms were much too weak for the amount of pressure needed. He admitted that both of his spare tubes — which were taped to the outside of his frame — had holes in them from the bushwhacks. I had two good tubes and a patch kit stowed away, but the thorn problem made their usefulness questionable. I was not nearly as stressed as Liehann because at least we weren't lost ... and as long as you're not lost, you can pretty much walk anywhere that you need to be, eventually. But he was getting angry, and pumped furiously until suddenly we both heard that joyous "pop." The tire inflated and Liehann held the wheel up in the air triumphantly. "Yes! Yes!"

From there, we finally dropped off the Anysberg road and enjoyed an afternoon of pleasant climbing. We were high on a plateau free of traffic, the air was warm and the evening light rich, and we were both relaxed enough to just ride side by side and chatter away, which we actually hadn't yet done in the seventeen days of the race thus far. We were either too focused on navigation, tired from physically taxing sections, or managing difficult terrain — we could never just ride along like two friends out for a pleasant tour. But this evening ride was well-earned, and it was gratifying to just sit back and enjoy it.

After Ouberg Pass, there was supposedly 25 kilometers of descending, but I refused to believe it. A 25-kilometer downhill? There is no such thing in the Freedom Challenge. But then we launched into a free-wheeling plunge that was nothing short of amazing. Rolling along a river, it was just gradual enough to keep the downhill trend going to entire way. Montagu was the largest town we had seen since Pietermaritzburg, and we arrived at the Montagu Country Hotel at the civilized hour of 7 p.m. This hotel was one of my favorite stops on the tour — sitting in a fancy dining hall in our dirty bike clothes, we enjoyed a gourmet dinner that, while portions were more on the "normal" side, included lots of fresh vegetables. We chatted with people who knew nothing about the bike race and likely didn't care, which I admit was refreshing after spending so many days in an artificial bubble where everything was all about the race, all of the time. I had a delicious chocolate pie for dessert, and had my own quiet room where I could rinse and spread out my clothes, and just lay in bed and read a magazine like a civilized person. Liehann admitted that Montagu was one of his least favorite stops — for many of the same reasons that it was my favorite. I agreed that after a day of hard pedaling through remote country, it can be difficult to flip back to civilization mode.

The following morning, we rode 51 kilometers into McGregor that were just wonderful. Cold, misty air. Quiet roads. Lush valleys surrounded by craggy mountains.

Liehann was feeling rough on this morning, so we kept the pace fairly mellow.

I thought I was having a great morning, so I took my second and final selfie of the tour. Selfies are an interesting way to document long trips like this, and I wish I had taken more. Because although in my mind I was strong and healthy, this photo shows the swollen face, drooping eyelids, and chapped lips that betray the reality of my physical state.

The scenery was starting to look more like the region surrounding Cape Town that we'd left behind weeks earlier. This is one of my favorite aspects of bicycle touring — watching the landscape change over time. Even though you're propelling yourself under your own power, and sometimes moving quite slowly, you can still cover meaningful amounts of distance. It had been a seeming lifetime, and at the same time quite sudden — and now we were nearing "home," the Western Cape.

On our original race plan that we were already one day behind, Liehann had us covering the stretch from Montagu to the final support station in Trouthaven in one day. It was nearly 160 kilometers with two portages and lots of potentially tricky terrain in between, which would almost certainly take sixteen hours or more to traverse. It would then be followed by the final stage, the Stettynskloof, a name I couldn't bring myself to say out loud, like Voldemort. Back in Cambria, I asked Di if Stettynskloof was worse than the Osseberg or the Vuvu Valley, or if it was more like Lehana's Pass or The Ladder. She said, "It's so much worse, it's like everything wrapped into one. We won't talk about it just yet."

There may have been a few weak moments when I advocated just skipping the Valley-That-Must-Not-Be-Named altogether. Liehann could go on, but I would just ride right up until the final support station, and then ride on roads back to Somerset West if needed. It's true, I wouldn't have finished the Race Across South Africa, wouldn't have received the finisher's blanket ... but I wondered if this final portage might just be my complete undoing. "It would be like telling someone like me that everyone had to bench press 150 pounds to finish their race. Many could do it, but me? Well, thanks, it's been fun, but ..."

These were weak moments, and I was mostly joking. I did want to finish the Freedom Challenge. But I was nervous. Extremely nervous. I advocated for breaking this grueling penultimate day into two days, to shore up needed strength for the Stettynskloof, and also to enjoy the last remnants of civilized living.

We arrived at the Good Hope farm in the early afternoon. While Liehann took a nap, I worked on a system to more effectively carry my bike on my back. I didn't necessarily want to take it apart, like they do in during the Grand Canyon crossing of the Arizona Trail Race, because I knew there would be thick bushwhacking that would require more maneuvering than a static position on a backpack would allow. But I wanted to keep my weak little arms free when possible, so I worked up a strap system to hook the frame around the shoulder straps of my backpack. That way, the backpack would support the weight of the bike on my back, but it could also just dangle from the frame when I needed to nudge the bike through thick vegetation. For the better part of an hour I practiced with my system, walking around the yard with the bike hanging off my backpack, attempting to step up onto higher ledges with only the strength in my legs, jumping up and down to test my balance and stability. It seemed like a good system, and I was feeling more optimistic at the end of the day.

The long break also gave me time to perform some much-needed surgeries on my fingers. A number of thorns and other debris had become lodged in my skin and then ignored, and some of my fingers had become badly infected. I had to dig through the red and swollen skin and mostly just extracted puss, but at least they were finally properly disinfected and bandaged. My fingers were in bad shape, and I also had a single — but painful — saddle sore that I was treating. Still, those were my only physical maladies at the time, so I had little to complain about.

We rode 76 kilometers into Trouthaven. There was one steep hike-a-bike first thing in the morning, but the rest of the ride was just fun and relaxing, with the exception of five kilometers on a busy paved road that seemed frenetic and out-of-place on this route. It was a reminder of just how little time we'd spent on pavement in the past three weeks.

Trouthaven was another early afternoon stop. Although our times into both Good Hope and Trouthaven indicated it would have taken us upwards of 18 hours to ride the distance in one day, doing these segments in two felt almost like cheating. These afternoons were far too relaxing, sitting with my feet up next to a fire and reading fishing magazines. I was still extremely stressed out, and nothing Liehann said made me feel better. Later in the evening, Coen and Con arrived at Trouthaven — the men had surged ahead of Steve, Di, and Richard, and would now take on the Stettynskloof on the same day as us. Coen had ridden the route twice before, and did not sugarcoat his previous experiences at all. He talked about taking the "tiger line" out of the valley, with his legs about to buckle underneath him, but it was too steep to slow down.

"No tiger line," I said to Liehann. "I'm not strong enough for the tiger line." Our cues described a route that was farther up the valley, and longer, but less steep.

I didn't really think I was strong enough for any of it, but I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try. 

Race Across South Africa, part nine

Beat warned me that my Freedom Challenge report is delving too far into the negative aspects of my experience. I didn't mean for it to come across that way — to sound as though I spent the entire trip stressed and frightened. There were many relaxing and enjoyable moments that tend to fade in the wash of memory, while the sharp edges of the more intense experiences stick out. Those sharp edges are why I pursue endurance racing. I seek to not only learn more about what lies beneath my perception of the world and myself, but also to gain more control over these perceptions. I'm a fearful person. Maybe more so than others, and maybe not, but fear has always lurked around the edges of joy. I'm not brave, and I'm not strong ... but I'd like to be. So what do I do about it? I face my fears. I push my limits. This process is always hard and sometimes painful, and many, many mistakes are made ... but ultimately, I emerge with a richer perception of the world, which is useful in smothering fear.

 I knew, going into the Freedom Challenge, that I had a deep fear of being lost. I came here to face that fear. I did what I thought would help me in preparation — reading orienteering books, studying the race maps, practicing with trail maps at home. But in practice, facing this fear was much harder than I expected it to be. I was in a foreign, unfamiliar land. Trails weren't laid out in familiar ways; roads were devoid of signs. The phantom night would haunt me. Panics would seep through my determination, shutting out rational thought. This internal difficulty is what I am trying to convey in these writings. Conveying the emotion of an experience is different than conveying its objective reality. In reality, Liehann and I were having a nearly flawless race. Yes, there were some mechanicals, some minor injuries, a wrong turn here and there. But the weather was almost perfect — except for a few days of harsh wind — and we made good time on the move. We worked well as a team. Although luck played a part, there were no major navigational mistakes. Most of our gear was working well for us. There was no rational reason for me to be so upset; when I was, it was because of fear.

Now I'm going to post about three days when I succeeded in banishing my fear, at least most of the time. These were "easy nav" days, it's true. They were also long, physically demanding, occasionally tedious, energy draining days — all things that are much easier for me than facing fear. In many ways, they were the most relaxing days of the journey. They were also some of the most beautiful. I took a lot of photos that were — as photos often are — incredibly disappointing. They didn't begin to convey the stunning colors, the sweeping expanses, the sweet air and strange sounds of the landscape.

We left Cambria at 5 a.m., and I was buzzing with excitement. Some of that energy sparked from relief that we'd survived the Osseberg, and some was anticipation for the day we had planned — 106 miles with 13,000 feet of climbing across the Baviaanskloof Nature Reserve.

I've never been to a place quite like the Baviaanskloof. The closest parallel I can think of is Zion National Park in Utah. There were intriguing new geologic phenomenons around every turn, kudu wading through the streams across the road, baboons peering out from the bushes, a warm breeze (that developed into a more fierce wind later in the day) and climb after wonderfully long climb. My energy felt almost boundless, and riding my bicycle was a gift. "Every day is a gift," I reminded myself. This was becoming my personal mantra for the Freedom Challenge — "Every day is a gift." After 81 kilometers, we stopped for lunch in Damsedrif — and I couldn't wait to get back out there.

The riding was still difficult, and this day extended well into the hours after dark. We climbed another game fence and rolled along tall brush with all manner of unseen animals rustling branches. I was nervous about buffalo. Rabbits darted across the road, and then I saw a small cat with dark, pointy ears. We weren't all that close to town yet. "Is that a regular cat, or a wild cat?" I asked Liehann. He guessed it was an African Wildcat.

We spent the night in Willowmore at a historic hotel. Thirty minutes after we arrived, it started to rain — our timing was impeccable.  We enjoyed a gourmet dinner of lamb curry in an ornate dining room. It was a far, far cry from the Osseberg. Marnitz was sleeping there still, and the race leader, Graham Bird, had arrived as well. Graham was going through the following day's maps, of which there were a lot. It was another 162 kilometers to Prince Albert. I couldn't wait.

This day would take us back into the high desert of the Karoo, wide-open spaces of rolling terrain that look flat on maps and from afar, but on the ground are anything but.

This day, we would greet our old friend, the West Wind. It rushed across the open expanses without mercy, pummeling us in the face with cold air and abrasive sand. By afternoon the wind was easily blowing a steady 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph, and we were lucky if we could hold an 5 mph pace against it. The problem wasn't just the wind, but the road surfaces — swept with soft sand, we'd swerve and stall as we churned forward. Liehann asked if I wanted him to pull, but I was having a difficult time holding my line as it was. "It's not the wind as much as the sand," I said. "I don't think pacing will help much."

The constant roar of the wind started to get to me. I put in my earphones and listened to my favorite mix from the Iditarod, which seemed fitting and made me happy. Liehann would ask if I was okay. "This isn't that bad," I said. "This is just tedious. I'm good at tedious." We churned and churned. The wind sapped the energy right out of our legs. Swerving in the sand threw me off my pedals more than once, and my shins were bleeding. Once I nearly pitched over the handlebars at five kilometers per hour.

Night fell. For the first time in the entire Freedom Challenge, I welcomed it, because I believed darkness had the power to quiet the West Wind. Rolling in a sea of blackness, we caught a glimpse of an island of lights. Prince Albert was still 25 kilometers away, and only about 200 meters lower than our current elevation. Liehann didn't think we could possibly see town from that far away, but I didn't think it could be anything else. We rode toward those lights for what seemed like hours; visually, it looked like a descent, but we always had to pedal. As long as we were riding we never stopped pedaling, all day. We reached the fancy hotel in Price Albert at nearly the exact same time we'd reached Willowmore — 9:15 p.m.

Marnitz was there, sitting on a couch and drinking red wine. His hair was substantially shorter than it had been last we saw him — a little girl at a farm house offered to cut it. He asked how long it took us to ride into town. Liehann thought about it — not counting the lunch stop, 14 hours. "How long did it take you and Graham?

"Fourteen hours."

Later, Di would tell us that Graham said that day across the wind-blasted Karoo was one of his hardest on a bike. Whether or not he actually said this, I'm not sure. I didn't think it was too hard. Just tedious. I'm good at tedious.

Prince Albert was another nice stop, and our reward the next day was another long climb to Swartberg Pass.

The road was narrow, muddy, and empty. If this place were located in California, it would be a National Park as crowded as Yosemite. But instead it's here — isolated, quiet in the winter, sublime.

You're probably detecting a pattern here. I did love the dirt road touring, especially when it was both scenic and physically demanding. 

Here, again, is where I have more pictures than story.

We turned off Swartberg Pass onto the road into Gamkaskloof. Gamkaskloof is a deep, isolated valley protected by cliffs and an impassable gorge. The only way in is a rugged, 37-kilometer dirt road that residents petitioned for in 1962, and that led to the depopulation of the valley. This road is the only way out as well. Well, technically, there is one more way out.

This was a fun ride. Lots of steep rollers lined by these imposing mountains. The weather looked threatening, but we only got a few short rain showers.

Legend has it that Gamkaskloof was discovered when farmers lost their cattle and followed their tracks into the valley. There was no easy way to get their cattle out, so they decided to settle there.

Today Gamkaskloof is a nature preserve and still occupied by a lucky few. Sure, they have a long way to drive to the grocery store — but what a location.

Gamkaskloof is also referred to as "Die Hel" — "The Hell." No one really knows why, although legend has it that an animal inspector went into the valley in the 1940s, before the road was built, using a route known as "Die Leer" — "The Ladder." He described the experience as "Hell." This would be our way out.

Really, what I have here again is more pictures than story.

There are only so many ways you can say "this section was beautiful and fun."

But I couldn't easily pick which photos to cull.

Liehann looking into "The Hell." Yeah, I know. Quite hellish.

We had a quick lunch in the tiny village and set out to find The Ladder. A steep climb brought us to the corner of this isolated valley. In front of us was a wall, and it looked insurmountable. I mean, it really did look like a cliff. "That looks super technical," I said nervously. "I don't know about this." Fear started to creep back in. Liehann assured me all would be fine. We picked out the poplar trees listed in our cues. "As you go behind the trees you will experience a moment of magic. In the metre-wide gap between the poplar trees and the face of the mountain there is a a foot path. You are now on The Ladder."

And indeed, behind the poplar trees, we caught our first glimpse of the zig-zagging path up the face of the cliff. It wasn't quite a moment of magic — but it was reassuring. The Ladder is in fact a well-built trail, although very steep, with stair-like boulders lined by thick brush. My arms still weren't well-recovered, and my muscles balked at even meager efforts. I tried to hoist the bike on my back, but I couldn't quite position it correctly. My method of walking with the saddle hooked over my shoulder didn't work on a trail this steep. I resorted to lifting the bike up and placing it down on a ledge, crawling up myself, repeat. It was extremely slow. My arm muscles started to fail again. I dropped the bike once, and teetered enough to feel unnerved. I made more efforts to hoist the bike on my back. "It really shouldn't be that hard," I thought to myself. "What's the deal?" 

I looked up to see Liehann far ahead. Eventually he came back down to help me. "I'm sorry I'm so slow," I apologized. "I really don't know what's wrong with me." I thanked him repeatedly as he carried my anchor part way up the mountain after hauling his own.

"It's for my benefit as well," Liehann said. 

I agreed. "Yeah, it would probably take me all night to scale this wall alone. And you'd have to wait for me." 

As it was, the sun was setting by the time both bikes reached the top. We still had ten more kilometers on a faint track overgrown with tall brush — and just steep and rocky enough that we could only intermittently ride. At the end of that track, there were still 40 more kilometers of often steep, rolling roads into our destination, for another 130-kilometer day that included this two-hour hike.

Long days. And I admit I was feeling deflated by my inability to conquer The Ladder on my own. Still, the beauty of this place eclipsed the hard efforts, making every hour worth it.