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TABLE MOUNTAIN
- For other uses, see Table Mountain (disambiguation).
Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa. It forms part of the Table Mountain National Park and is flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head and Signal Hill to the north.
Table Mountain is a famous landmark and tourist attraction in Cape Town, with many visitors using the cableway to take a ride to the top. The flat top of the mountain is often covered by cloud, forming the "table cloth".
[edit] Features
The main face of Table Mountain forms a level plateau approximately 3 km from side to side. The mountain's highest point is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 m (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 m higher than the cable station.
Most major features of the mountain are named. The cliff immediately below the cable station is called Arrow Buttress and the area at the opposite end of the main cliff is called "Ledges". About a third of the way along from Arrow Buttress is a deep and partially hidden ravine called Platteklip Gorge (lit. "Flat Stone Gorge"), which provides an easy ascent to the summit and was the route taken by Antonio de Saldanha on the first recorded ascent of the mountain.[1] A famous and dangerous feature is Carrell's Ledge, which winds its narrow way across the face of a vast and sheer drop to the south of Devil's Peak. At one point the ledge is less than 200 mm wide.
Table Mountain is the only terrestrial feature to give its name to a constellation — Mensa, meaning The Table. The constellation is seen in the Southern Hemisphere, below Orion, around midnight in mid-July. It was named by the French astronomer Nicolas de Lacaille during his stay at the Cape in the mid eighteenth century.
[edit] Geology
The upper part of the mountain mesa consists of Ordovician quartzitic sandstone, commonly referred to as Table Mountain Sandstone (TMS), which is highly resistant to erosion and forms characteristic steep grey crags. Below the sandstone is a layer of micaceous basal shale, which weathers quite readily and is therefore not readily visible. The basement consists of heavily folded and altered late precambrian Malmesbury shale, which has been intruded by Cape Granite. The basement rocks are not nearly as resistant to weathering as the TMS but significant outcrops of the Cape Granite are visible on the western side of Lion's Head.[2][3]
The main vegetation of the mountain is the unique and rich Cape fynbos. An estimated 1,470 species of plants are found on the mountain and amongst them are many kinds of proteas. Remnant patches of indigenous forest persist in a few of the wetter ravines but not on the more exposed face above the city, where conditions there are too dry and harsh for forests. The mountain has also suffered serious invasions of alien plants for well over a century, with perhaps the worst invader being the cluster pine. Considerable efforts have been made to eliminate these alien plants.
The most common animal on the mountain is the dassie, or rock hyrax. They especially cluster around the upper cable station, near the sources of junk food. There are also porcupines, mongooses, snakes and tortoises. The last lion in the area was shot circa 1802. Leopards persisted on the mountain until perhaps the 1920's but are now extinct locally. Two smaller, secretive, nocturnal carnivores, the rooikat (caracal) and the vaalboskat (also called the vaalkat or African Wild Cat) were once common on the mountain. The rooikat continues to be seen on rare occasions by mountaineers but the status of the vaalboskat is uncertain.
Himalayan tahrs, fugitive descendants of tahrs that escaped from Groote Schuur zoo in 1936, used to be common on the less accessible upper parts of the mountain. As an exotic species, they were eradicated through a culling programme initiated by the South African National Parks to make way for the reintroduction of indigenous klipspringers. Until recently there were also small numbers of fallow deer of European origin and sambar deer from southeast Asia. These were mainly in the Rhodes Memorial area but during the 1960's they could be found as far afield as Signal Hill. The animals may by now have been eliminated or relocated.
[edit] History
In the 1800's five dams, the Woodhead, Hely-Hutchinson, De Villiers, Alexandria and Victoria reservoirs, were built on the Back Table to supply Cape Town's water needs. A ropeway ascending from Camps Bay via Kasteelspoort ravine was used to ferry materials and manpower (the anchor points at the old top station can still be seen). There is a well-preserved steam locomotive from this period housed the Waterworks Museum at the top of the mountain near the Hely-Hutchinson dam. It had been used to haul materials for the dam across the flat top of the mountain. Cape Town's water requirements have since far outpaced the capacity of the dams and they are no longer an important part of the water supply.
The mountain became part of the new Cape Peninsula National Park in the 1990s. The park was renamed to the Table Mountain National Park in 1998.
In 2006, a devastating fire ran through the mountain, destroying large amounts of vegetation and resulting in the death of a tourist. A charge of arson and culpable homicide was laid against a British man who was suspected of starting the blaze.
[edit] Cableway
The Table Mountain Cableway[4] takes passengers from the lower cable station on Tafelberg Road, about 302 m above sea level, to the plateau at the top of the mountain. The upper cable station offers views overlooking Cape Town, Table Bay and Robben Island to the north, and the Atlantic seaboard to the west and south.
Construction of the cableway was first started in 1926, and the cableway was officially opened in 1929. In 1997, the cableway was extensively upgraded, and new cars were introduced carrying 65 instead of 25 passengers. The new cars give a faster journey to the summit, and rotate through 360 degrees during the ascent or descent, giving a panoramic view over the city.
The top cable station offers viewpoints, curio shops, a restaurant and walking trails of various lengths.
[edit] Activities
[edit] Hiking
Hiking on Table Mountain is popular amongst locals and tourists, and a number of trails of varying difficulty are available. Because of the steep cliffs around the summit, direct ascents from the city side are limited. Platteklip Gorge, a prominent gorge up the centre of the main table, is a popular and straightforward direct ascent to the summit.
Longer routes to the summit go via the Back Table, a lower area of Table Mountain to the South of the main plateau. From the Southern Suburbs side, the Nursery Ravine and Skeleton Gorge routes start at Kirstenbosch. The route via Skeleton Gorge to Maclears Beacon is known as Smuts Track in memory of Jan Smuts, who was a keen hiker. The Bridle Path, or Jeep Track, makes a more gradual ascent from Constantia Nek along the road used to service the dams on Back Table. There are many other paths in popular walking ares on the lower slopes of the mountain accessed from Constantia Nek, Cecilia Forest, Kirstenbosch, Newlands Forest and Rhodes Memorial.
On the Atlantic side, the most popular ascent is Kasteelspoort, a gorge overlooking Camps Bay, while the Pipe Track is a level route popular with walkers.
The Hoerikwaggo Trails[5] are four hiking trails on Table Mountain ranging from two to six days, operated by South African National Parks.
[edit] Rock climbing
Rock climbing on Table Mountain is a very popular pastime. There are well-documented climbing routes of varying degrees of difficulty up the many faces of the mountain. Only traditional climbing is allowed on Table Mountain; no bolting can be done. Commercial groups offer abseiling from the upper cable station.
[edit] Caving
Most of the world's important caves occur in limestone but Table Mountain is unusual amongst speleologists for having several large sandstone cave systems. The biggest systems are the Wynberg Caves, located on the Back Table, not far from the Jeep Track in ridges overlook Orange Kloof and Hout Bay.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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