The sky was falling

“The weatherman was venting his wrath and Chicken Little had been proved right. The sky was falling. If the end of the world had now begun on the Highveld, how far must it not have progressed at the ar... other end of the world? It was not very long before my worst fears had been confirmed. Hell had frozen over. So, too, had the highlands of the North-eastern Cape. Even the passes had been closed. And there were only four days to go. 

 

With the race starting at seven in the morning - a reasonably civilised hour by normal standards - one would expect some sign of life at the start by six. But no, nothing was stirring, not even a mouse. They had all frozen stiff.

 

The bell that was to be used to signal the start had had its clappers frozen solid (not only the bell suffered in that way) and the start was delayed by some ten minutes, during which time two of the 72 who had registered as starters decided to go back to bed.

 

At that point (the Mavis Farm checkpoint) each of us handed a tag with name, race number, and name and address of next of kin, to the marshal on duty. It only became clear later why he was wearing his collar the wrong way around, and why the few words that he muttered sounded ominously like the last rites. A hand silently pointed us in the direction in which we were expected to proceed.

 

Here and there a flag marked the route; here and there a marshal silently pointed the way. Onward and upward. Sometimes scrambling downward. Sometimes negotiating the dangerously thin ice that protected the waters of the river. From the broken ice and wet footprints, it was obvious where others had come to grief. Upward yet again.

By now the blood was flowing freely down one's legs, staining the virgin snow a bright crimson. One's feet belonged to someone else; the thoughts of frostbite, gangrene, and even amputation no longer horrified, but were considered unemotionally, the last-mentioned almost with a sense of relief.

 

That last kay was straight up. "Nearer, my God, to thee". The words of that well-known hymn kept passing through my mind. The chicken-mesh fence by which we pulled ourselves to the top, step by painful step, cut deep into the palms of the hands. Yet the cuts went unnoticed. At times, the rocks were covered in a thick layer of ice; at times one was left hanging from the fence with feet dangling over into space. The snow got perceptibly thicker the higher we climbed. "Because it's there" will never again make any sense. There must be better excuses for lunacy. 

Until, at long last, the breath rasping from one's lungs, one looks down and around at a fairy-tale wonderland of snow. The conqueror who can triumphantly deliver another name and number sticker into the hands of the waiting official. 

 

"Flat ground from here" announced an official "just follow the road". His arm pointed upward to the surrounding hills. The horizontal plane had shifted. Else the inner ear was no longer what it might have been. The Official had to be believed. 

 

A few steps later and the white earth gave way.  The snow was at least a foot deep. One had to stay within the tracks left by the 4-wheel drive vehicles. But the tracks were wide enough for one foot only. And the compacted snow was more like ice. So; run carefully, one foot at a time, one foot behind the other. (Don't laugh, try it - one runner, who shall remain anonymous, fell flat on his face at least 5 times. And he had left the pub reasonably early.) “

 

Rudi would return and receive Snowflake No 73. Many of those initial survivors, er pioneers also returned and the Rhodes Trail Run was born.

Tent at the top of Mavis Bank - 1989