The inaugural Amatola trail run took place in rainy, cool, misty conditions. The trail covers slightly over 100km through very undulating terrain (500m - 1750m) with the path being narrow and not overly well defined. It's rocky on the mountains and slippery in the forests making going slow.
Dave Gassner did a great job organising the event. The weather conditions made it very difficult to get vehicles to the overnight stop, but they managed this and had hot food and drinks waiting for wet, weary walkers when they came traipsing in. The first guys took about 9 hours each day with the back markers taking more than 13 hours to complete. Times were almost incidental as a number of participants did not follow the whole trail,
particularly on what is day 6 of the trail where several people decided not to go up and over Hogsback, but took the shortcut along the road. This option saves 2-3 hours and provides a useful exit point for injured or struggling runners.
For the record, about 11 of the 24 starters completed the full trail while about 6 others opted for the road route. 22 finished the first day while 18 started day two. Jean Paul van Belle had promised himself a very easy run, but joined up with Michael John Tawse and together finished joint 2nd behind a local runner, Jurgen Mueller. I finished 4th of the group that ran the whole route while the other Capetonian, Paul Vorwerk stopped at the end of the 5th day (Paul said it made his Hewat 100 miler feel like a stroll in the park).
This is an event that's challenging, but certainly worth the lengthy journey. - Paul Mitchell | 
