Distance: 9.5km
Estimated time: 5hrs + stops.
Total Elevation gain: 950m
Type: Out and back
View Platteklip Gorge Walk map
* Fairly long and strenuous, clearly marked
If you want to walk to the table top or the highest point on Table Mountain (Maclear's Beacon), this is the shortest and most clearly marked route. As a result it is popular, particularly with tourists who have limited time and knowledge of the mountain.
- A popular variation of the map provided here is to walk up Platteklip and catch the cable car down.
- If you are content with getting to the table-top and don't feel the need to get to the highest point (which only adds about 70m), you can skip the Maclear's beacon loop, halving the distance (but not the effort!) and reducing the time by about 1.5 hours.
Route description
Use a map of Cape Town to drive to Kloof Nek, the pass between the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard which is the access point to the lower cableway station. At Kloof Nek turn left and wind up Tafelberg road to the lower cableway station. Check your odometer at the cableway station and continue along Tafelberg road for another 1.6km. You will find a parking area olong the left hand side of the road with the start of the walk on the right of the road next to a security/information booth at the far end of the parking area. A large sign marks the start of the Platteklip Gorge trail.
Follow the trail up the left hand side of a small river gorge. After a few hundred metres you cross the stream (can be dry in summer) and shortly afterwards pass under a small grove of trees. At this point there is a contour path bearing right towards the cable station. Turn left and continue up the path which travels horizontally along the side of the mountain for about 80m to a right-hand hairpin bend. At this point the contour path in the other direction leaves the hairpin and continues horizontally; you follow the hairpin left and continue upwards, with Platteklip gorge visible ahead of you. From this point there are no paths of significance which do not take you to the top of the gorge; in places the path splits, but rejoins further up.
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| Platteklip Gorge as seen from Tafelberg rd |
