How to Climb Table Mountain via Skeleton Gorge

I visited Cape Town for the first time more than 11 years ago, with my mother. During that trip, Mom and I attempted to climb Table Mountain in a hilariously foolish way – I’ll let you read about it yourself in the blog post I wrote back then, called How Not to Climb Table Mountain. We ultimately turned back and took the cable car to the top instead.

I’ve been wanting to climb Table Mountain fully and properly ever since. Last weekend I finally succeeded, together with Thorsten and our friends Dee and Nelius, using the Skeleton Gorge trail. Here’s how we did it.

Platteklip Gorge is the fastest and most popular hiking route up Table Mountain. But Platteklip Gorge, which is on the “front” (north) side of the mountain, is also known to be the hottest route, as it faces the sun and has almost no shade. Dee recommended we take the Skeleton Gorge route, which traverses the forested eastern side of the mountain and is longer and shadier than Platteklip. The first third of the Skeleton Gorge route is completely shaded, and the route also includes a “beach” (more on this later), and a walk through some beautiful Western Cape fynbos.

Hiking Up Table Mountain from Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

As an added bonus, the Skeleton Gorge hike begins in Cape Town’s famous Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, which I also hadn’t visited since my first trip to Cape Town in 2011. I was excited to go back to Kirstenbosch and check out the Boomslang walkway – a snake-like bridge through the tree canopy designed by Thorsten’s architect friend, Mark Thomas, and engineered by Henry Fagan.

A couple of important notes about hiking from Kirstenbosch:

• The park opens at 8 a.m. so that’s the earliest time you can start this hike.
• If you climb Table Mountain from Kirstenbosch, remember you’ll finish the hike in a different location from where you started. So you’ll need to either Uber to Kirstenbosch, or drive to Kirstenbosch and Uber back there from Table Mountain at the end of your hike.
• Don’t forget your South African ID, or passport with a long-term South African visa (if you have one). Otherwise you, like me, will have to pay the R200 ($13) general admission fee rather than the “local” admission fee of R80 ($5.20).
• Kirstenbosch’s “Tea Garden” entrance is about two minutes’ walk to the Skeleton Gorge trail marker. The Boomslang walkway is about five minutes further on.

Skeleton Gorge

The literature we’d read about the Skeleton Gorge trail said it would take about five hours to reach the top of the mountain. We wanted to reach the top late in the afternoon, when the light was best, but we also wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. So we decided to leave in the morning just to be safe.

I think we started up the trail at about 9:30 a.m. But in hindsight, we could have left quite a bit later. We really took our time and still reached the top of Table Mountain at about 1:30. It was fairly hot (by South African standards, at least) by the time we finished – high 20s Celsius, or low 80s Fahrenheit – but the heat wasn’t unmanageable.

Some notes on trail difficulty and terrain:

• Skeleton Gorge is steep. Climbing up the gorge is not easy (this is a kilometer-high mountain, after all), but it’s not rock-climbing, either. If you’re a reasonably fit person who likes to hike, you can do it.
• Thorsten and I do short hikes relatively often and also work out regularly, and although we did get really tired on the hike, we didn’t struggle too badly or feel sore the next day. Dee and Nelius, by their own admission, do not hike or exercise regularly but also finished the hike without a problem, albeit an hour or two behind Thorsten and me.
• You do need to be ready to scramble over rocks and climb a series of relatively steep ladders. I think this climb must be quite a bit more challenging in damp weather, when the rocks are slippery.
• This is pretty obvious, but it’s essential to wear sturdy shoes, a hat, and sunscreen, and to bring lots of water and snacks.

The best thing about Skeleton Gorge, especially during summer, is the forest. The main section of the trail is indigenous Afro-temperate forest – green, mossy, jungle-like, and relatively cool year-round.

We reached the top of the gorge in about 90 minutes, when we crossed above the tree line and enjoyed the first of many amazing views.

The Second Half of the Climb

After the gorge, we climbed a short bit further and then reached the path to the Hely-Hutchinson Dam. The path was surprisingly sandy, and we were even more surprised when we rounded a bend and saw the dam itself with its bright, white, moon-like surroundings.

Hely-Hutchinson is one of a series of dams (reservoirs) built in the early 1900s to supply water to the City of Cape Town. For some reason it is now surrounded by extremely white rocks and sand. The brightness was jarring – almost surreal, like we’d entered another dimension – after our long, shady climb up the gorge.

Reaching the dam is kind of a trick because it feels as if the hike is nearly over. But it’s not, and we learned the hard way that you need to make sure you choose the right route to the top. Apparently the best (flattest/easiest) way is to backtrack slightly from the dam and turn left up the trail toward Maclear’s Beacon. But Thorsten and I, as well as Dee and Nelius, continued past the dam to another web of trails with several routes up the mountain, all of which are apparently shorter but steeper than the Maclear’s Beacon route.

Thorsten and I wound up hiking the Echo Valley route, which had a lot of tiring ups and downs and kept us in full sun for about 90 minutes. But it was also incredibly beautiful and we saw tons of spectacular fynbos, including several huge protea flowers in full bloom.

At last, after many mini-descents and climbs, we reached the Table Mountain plateau. It felt strange to emerge from our relatively solitary hike into this international tourist attraction, which was extremely full of people. (It’s great that international tourists are returning to South Africa though.)

We drank an expensive celebratory beer at the café, walked around and took a few photos, then bought tickets for the cable car down. The cable car costs R210 (about $13.50) one-way – not cheap, but the one-minute ride was a lot more fun than hiking all the way back down again.

We walked about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) total, according to my health app, but that included a lot of extra meandering around. The hike took four hours, including a nearly hour-long break at the dam. We did it! Let me know if you have questions. The end.