Could you beleive that this piese of rock is more than 600 million years old. That makes it one of the oldest rocks on the world!
Table mountain is consisted mostly of sandstone and granite. Magma intruded to the shell 600 millions year and formed todays hard inner granite core of the mountain.
Since than the mountain experienced variety of destinies such as sedimentation, flattening by ice sheets (that's what give the mountain the "table" look), shifting of tectonic plates. It was the hard core of the mountain that allowed for the rise of the mountain during the plates shifting 280 milion years ago.
The upper sandstone layer gets worn by winds and water causing extraordinary appearance. The southern cliffs were written by the action of waves. The hard granite base of the mountain reminds unchanged.
This pictures were taken on the way down from our 1 day hike on Table mountain. We started at the university around 9, let our friend from the university show us the way around the hill and then just ascended straight up. It took us all around 4 hours with lot of stops for pictures, the ascend itself around 2 hours.
Once you approach Table mountain you get mesmerized by the flatness of this place. Many years of ice sheets formed a large never ending table where you can walk for hours. The light could not be better on the way back. the play of shadows allowed all that day's visitors to get very cool shots.
