Helderberg Spider Trail Run

Our trail grading: Orange 4A

Distance: 5km

Extremeness: Spiders, off-road and heat... and spiders

Location: Helderberg, Somerset West, South Africa

Joggers: Only me

I might have underestimated the heat on this jog. Even though it cooled down from 41 to 35 degrees, it was still pretty hot! I planned the run beforehand on Google Earth and in retrospect a note to myself: If the trail is not on Google Earth the trail does not exist! The route took me past a beautiful dam and up a jeep track on the western border of Helderberg Nature Reserve. After 2km uphill I turned unto a vague (in retrospect, imaginary) trail towards the Blue hiking route. It soon became nasty off-road with burned Protea bushes, soft sandy ground, weird holes and big spiders everywhere (I assume these spiders are harmless even though they look like flesh eating critters). After jogging through several webs and counting more than 20 of these spiders (see picture 5) I rethought my route and headed for the nearest turn on the Blue route. Running for my life in this heat was really tiresome and I turned unto part of the Yellow hiking route and then followed an awesome single track down to end my exciting 5km run.