Hiking Lion's Head before sunrise worth it?

When visiting Cape Town there are tons of activities to do, one of them is hiking the famous mountain Lion's Head, also known as 'Leeukop'. 

Lion's Head is a mountain located in Cape Town in the South of Africa. With its 669 meter height you can easily find this famous mountain in the city between two other mountains called Table Mountain and Signal Hill. 

On an early morning we made our way towards the starting point of Lion's head. We decided to go early in the morning since the temperatures can rise up pretty quickly after sunrise. The plan was to be at the top and watch the sun rise up from there. This ment we had to start our hike in complete darkness. Although this wasn't a very comforting idea, me and a friend, we decided to do it anyways and started out hike in the dark.

(Don't worry, we weren't all alone and met up with another traveler (guy) who joined us for the hike)

Starting the hike in complete darkness is something was something I never done before. When reaching the starting point you will get this beautiful view overlooking the city. 

We started the hike at around 5am, Hiking Lion's head will be around a 5km long trail, moderate in difficulty, and will take you up about 2-3 hours round trip depending on your pace.Getting to the top before sunrise does mean you will have to get up early but I promise you it will be totally worth it 😉 

We carried some flashlights since walking on uneven surface can be dangerous when not watching where you are stepping. 

The beginning of the hike is very easy, you will have to walk up continuously but it will be a nice path taking you up the first half of the mountain. After about the first half you reach a point where you will have the option to chose to either go up the second half by climbing with staircases and ropes that are placed permanently on the trail, or take a little bit of a detour and hike up some rocks. We decided to take the climbing way up since this would be shorter and anyways we didn't mind climbing a little bit. 

Don't forget to take a little break when hiking, the views along the way will be incredible as well!

After a bit of climbing and taking some small rests in between we finally reached the top. It took us about an hour and a half of hiking, including some small breaks, before reaching the top. We were nice in time before the sun was coming up. We sat down a little bit, ate our breakfast we prepared, and enjoyed the incredible views from the top.

Don't expect that you will be the only one with this idea. Before sunrise only few people were at the summit but only little after sunrise more people would join. On top you can find several spots to take some stunning pictures having you overlooking the city.

After watching the sun come up and spending about an hour at the top, we decided to head back down again. On the way down we took the small detour route since this felt a little bit on the saver side and other people would come up as well leaving you with little space to move past each other.  Going down took us about the same time as getting up, including the small detour we made.

After all would I recommend hiking Lion's head before sunrise? Definitely!

Down here you can find a before and after picture from the starting point.