Twentieth anniversary edition of Hout Bay Trail Challenge offers unrivalled scenic beauty but challenging mountain terrain this weekend

by Stephen Granger

Hout Bay Trail Challenge is one of the country’s oldest and most challenging tests of mountain running ability and this weekend’s 20^th anniversary edition promises to add another exciting chapter to its already rich history.

Many of South Africa’s leading trail athletes – and some from further afield – have taken on the challenge offered by the course around the high mountain ridges and peaks surrounding Hout Bay.

Cape Town athlete, Kane Reilly, is the only athlete to have run the circuit in under four hours, and many regard his 3 hrs 54 min 35 min win in 2018 on the 40km course with 2500m of vertical ascent as the finest of his career.

Stevie Kremer, from Colorado USA, was the leading marathon-distance trail athlete in the world in 2013 when she race to a 4:34:55 victory (admittedly on a shorter 36km course), a time which remains unsurpassed in the women’s competition.

Fastest teams in the HBTC all set their times on the 36km course. Team Velocity Sports Lab Salomon (Ryan Scott, Ryan Sandes and Michael Bailey) scorched to a 3:39:19 victory in 2010 while Hayley Preen, Kristen Heath and Megan Leslie won in 4:23:18 in 2015. Noel Erntzen teamed up with Christiaan and Landie Greyling to set an impressive 4:00:21 for mixed teams in 2013.

Hout Bay Trail Challenge has been recognised as one of the country’s leading trail races and hosted the South African Ultra-distance Championships in 2016 (an extended 70km version of the route won by AJ Calitz and Nicolette Griffioen) and the South African Marathon-distance Championship in 2019 (won by Kane Reilly and Griffioen). 

The amphitheatre of mountains surrounding Hout Bay valley has long been a target of mountain walkers and trail runners. Early in the century, after a Tuesday kayak-paddle across Hout Bay, Richard Sutton, Mark Preen and a few other outdoor adventurers met over a beer at the Hout Bay Yacht Club. The idea of running around the mountains surrounding Hout Bay was born. 

The initial idea was to summit each peak that surrounded Hout Bay.  Fortunately, for most runners, that idea gave way to the concept of circumnavigating the mountains. The route underwent several iterations before the Hout Bay runners hit on the route for the first race in 2002.  

“The trails were nowhere near as developed as they are now,” recalled Preen, who was nigh-untouchable over the 36km circuit in the early years, due both to his athletic ability and his knowledge of the trails. “For example, there was no trail down Suther Peak. The runners simply had to pick their way down to the dunes.  Of course, now there is a good path the whole way, making the venture considerably easier.

“And then there was the problem of connecting to Suikerbossie from the dunes, until Toby Adams came up with the idea of a route around Klein Leeukoppie which required permission from the landowner, Sol Kerzner, to traverse his property once a year.”

In the early days, the trail was not marked. Trail runners were required to find their own way to a number of checkpoints along the route and navigation was as important a component of the race as the ability to move quickly over mountain tracks. That favoured locals with strong knowledge of the mountains and few could match Preen in his heyday.

“In the early years, the favoured route from the start in the harbour was to head out (north) towards the ‘castle’ – a privately-owned property – and then to double back towards Karbonkelberg,” Preen explained. “I found that the more direct route (west) through Hout Bay Fishing Village was about 15 minutes quicker, so that gave me a significant advantage.  Eventually that became the default route for all runners.”

Preen also explained how weather conditions had impacted on the initial route.  “The route originally included a summit of Grootkop (the highest peak south of Maclears Beacon),” Preen recalled. “Race day in 2002 was very wet, windy and cold.

“I had gained an early lead through knowing the best route to follow and had arrived at the base of Grootkop well clear of the other runners. I started to the climb to the summit but the conditions were atrocious and I felt that many of the runners would struggle to make it. I phoned Richard (Sutton, the race director) and as no other runners had arrived at that stage, we agreed to drop the summit ascent.”

And that modified route, which still includes a significant climb up the lower reaches of Grootkop along the ‘Suikerbossie Track’ became the default, until the COVID-inspired “virtual HBTC” in 2020 brought back the ascent to the summit for that year only.

After significant delays and stoppages in challenging conditions, Preen took line honours in the inaugural race in 2002 in 6 hrs 21 min 44 sec – almost two hours slower than his subsequent fastest time of 4:32:26, which he achieved in winning in 2006. Fellow-Hout Bay runner Sylvie Scherzinger won the first of many titles in 2002 in 7:45:14.

From the early days, the race included a summit of Karbonkelberg and Suther Peak from the start at Hout Bay Harbour, before traversing Klein Leeukoppie to end the first leg at Suikerbossie.  Then followed a climb up Hout Bay Corner and Llandudno Ravine to the Suikerbossie Track.  The route crossed many ravines to the top of Kasteels Poort and the Table Mountain dams before a steep descent to Constantia Nek, the transition to the third leg.

A sharp climb up Vlakkenberg started the final leg before a traverse around Constantiaberg and descent to East Fort led to a final beach crossing to the finish at the harbour – a distance of just over 36km.

For many years the route remained true to the spirit which had inspired the event and was left unmarked, but from 2016 Sutton opted to take navigational uncertainty and local bias out of the equation, ensuring the route was well marked.

2016 brought another change. Sutton was always looking for ways to further challenge trail runners and added a few kilometres and considerable additional climbing, with an additional loop down to and up from Sandy Bay from the high-dunes at the base of Suther Peak.

Favourable conditions following an overnight shower are predicted for Saturday’s race, which will be the third in the Triple Crown following the Old Fisherman’s Trail Challenge (OFTC – won by Kyle Bucklow and Lijan van Niekerk) and the Muizenberg Trail (won by Robbie Rorich and Nadine van Driel). Jarryd Dunn is favoured to move up from his second place at OFTC and third at Muizenberg to finally capture a major title he richly deserves while Kristen Heath’s strength on high mountain trails is likely to translate into a successful defence of her title.

The race, which supports Volunteer Wildfire Services as their beneficiary, gets underway from Hout Bay Harbour at 07h00 or shortly after, dependant on the light, and the winner is expected back at the harbout shortly after 11am.