Taken on the 2nd day of a training hike in the Drakensberg mountains standing at the head of the Mnweni pass looking down the valley. Rian Botes and I were training for a long hike known as the Drakensberg Grand Traverse which is approx 210km covered mostly at an average altitude of 3000m above sea level. Most folks take 10-12 days to do the GT but we are training and planning on doing it in a little over 5 days which is pretty fast even though the record was set earlier this year by Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel who did it in a fraction over 40hrs!!
Our plan is to go light and fast and that means leaving behind heavy things like tripods and big DSLR cameras... which we brought on this trip and hardly used due to the snowy weather we had for most of the trip.
Anyway our training hike went well despite the unexpected snow on the first day which also made for a late and slow start on the 2nd day. We covered about 65km in the 2 days with over 2,000m of vertical ascent.
This photo was taken at "lunch" on day 2 as we were about to descend the Mnweni pass which was our route out of the mountains. About 1 hour later, Rian took his shot of me standing on the pinnacle.
6 hours after lunch and we were back at the car, tired and ready for home.
Seems carrying the extra weight paid off nicely as we got some great images despite the weather not playing along most if the time.
Post challenge end:
Thanks to everyone for the great comments and wonderful scores. I love Ansel too and to be compared to him is a great feeling!
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 177 Avg (all users): 7.0696 Avg (commenters): 8.9091 Avg (participants): 6.9438 Avg (non-participants): 7.5000 Views since voting: 2156 Views during voting: 235 Votes: 115 Comments: 34 Favorites: 9 (view)
Congratulations on the ribbon. Beautiful shot. Third place in a free study, amazing light, sharpness, and tones... Nothing to critique here. Well done.
Congrats on the ribbon. Fabulous photo. What a fantastic place! Enjoy your big trek - I hope you at least take a camera of some sort with you (and let Rian do, too.)
Crazy tonal range, even crazier mountain range and downright insane climbers to attempt! Seems only fitting that you and Rian both ribboned in this challenge. Have fun and be careful - and oh yes, congrats on the yellow!
Congrats Steve! My fav for this month. Pretty darn cool to see you and Rian in 2nd and 3rd slots. Look forward to hearing how your upcoming challenge went.
Ja nee. You've done it again :) I'm impressed by the B&W conversion which is very well handled btw. Top 10 and a good chance of Top 3. Perhaps the lack of a raised arm hiker might hurt the score a bit here (DPC) or rather had you included a hiker it may have gotten a few more higher scores. Personally I prefer it pristine and without anything human.
I love this B&W! Seems to have the full scale of shades. I was at first thinking it's a little dark around the edges but it seems like that's mostly due to your vignette. Very well done! 8.
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