On Saturday morning my alarm went off a little earlier than I would have liked and I pulled myself out of dreamland and into reality. Why was I awake so early on a Saturday? Oh yes, the Silvermine path building day! I hustled my stuff together and hopped in the car, racing towards the BP garage in Lakeside that sells the most delicious samosas. With these vital victuals in hand, I plodded my way up Ou Kaapse Weg behind a truck and turned into Silvermine.
Josh and Victor were already there with the work bakkie and all the essential supplies: new signs for the various paths and crags, gumpoles and stakes for building steps, shovels and other tools for the path building. Our excited volunteers began the trek from the car park to the crag, weighed down with all the supplies we’d need for the day. And so the real work began….
It’s not an easy thing to build steps on a loose hillside and sometimes it isn’t simple either. Taking into account how people will travel through the landscape, where they’ll step and where they’ll try and take a shortcut or two. We had a fantastic team that included people who had already put in some work on the crag paths before. Their experience made a huge difference to the quality of the paths.
Of course we had to do a bit of climbing after toiling away under the surprisingly hot sun (the weather apps did us dirty by predicting nice shady weather for our manual labor). Although, the clouds rolled in right on time for the sending session.
A big thank you goes out to all the various people that showed up. The CityROCK staff, MCSA members, some of the ARFing crew, and members of the community who just wanted to get involved and contribute a bit to the places we love so much. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without the rangers at Silvermine and Table Mountain National Park, who arranged access for us and work hard year round to keep these amazing public spaces going.
Be sure to leave us a comment below to let us know what you think of the new trails!
