Oppelskop Hike

Having spent a week in Cape Town when I first arrived in Africa in mid-November and immediately falling completely in love with the city and its incredible mountains, delightful vegan scene, endless beaches and coastline and its absolutely wonderful humans, I planned to spend two more weeks exploring the city after our cross-African roadtrip ended and I'd crossed a few more things off my wishlist in eastern South Africa, such as a trip to Lesotho.

I checked into a hostel and spent most of the weekdays working and enjoying wandering the streets of Cape Town in the early evenings. However, when the weekend rolled around, I was amped to get back out onto the many trails of Cape Town. The city is exceptionally lucky in that there are simply loads of hikes literally right in town, what with Table Mountain and Lion's Head both in the heart of everything; in fact Cape Town wraps itself around these two beautiful mountains offering numerous places to explore.

Of course, the defining feature of Cape Town is Table Mountain, straddling the city, protecting the downtown core from the ocean winds and providing an aesthetically beautiful and rugged backdrop to the city’s coastline. Seemingly flat-topped, resembling in every way a table, a whole host of trails work their way up its sides. At the peak, on the westernmost side, a cable car provides hikers with a safe return down and, for the bulk of Table Mountain’s visitors, to do a return trip sans effort but with all of the views.

A fun hike up part of Table Mountain without needing to make it all the way up to the mountain's summit is to take on the trail to Oppelskop, a small dome-shaped bump on the front of Table Mountain just under Devil's Peak. The trail for Oppelskop starts on the same one as Devil's Peak and then about half-way, turns left flat across the mountain to this outcrop with wonderful views over the city of Cape Town and especially of Lion's Head.

OPPELSKOP HIKE DETAILS

When: year-round

Where: Cape Town, in Table Mountain National Park

Difficulty: intermediate

Length: 6km loop, with a 305m elevation gain, which took just under 2 hours (Strava recording here)

Directions: park at the base of the trail to Devil's Peak on Table Mountain, on the same road past the cable car. Hike the switchbacks up the mountain, then instead of continuing onto Devil's Peak, turn left and walk flat along Table Mountain to Oppelskop. Instead of returning the way you came, continue walking along Table Mountain, returning to the road, and walk back along the paved road to your car.

Bathrooms: no

Public Transit: no