Training Log Archive: Tim C

Basse Vallee to Saint Pierre. 700m descent.

"crater view" to Basse Vallee. 30m up, 1700m down.

Gite des Volcan to "crater view" via Piton de la Fournaise. 680m up, 630m down.

Piton Textor to Gite des Volcan. 400m up, 250m down.

"somewhere next to the M3" to Piton textor. 650m up, 110m down.

Piton des Neiges to "somewhere next to the N3". 200m up, 1600m down.

Caverne Dufour to Piton des Neiges. 600m up, 50m down

Ciloas(ish) to Caverne Dufour. 2000m up, 300m down.

Marla(ish) to Cilaos(ish). 860m up, 1300m down.

Ilet des orangers to just before Marla. 1000m up, 650m down

to Ilet des Orangers. 1070m up, 1020m down

Deux Faus to ilet a Malheur

Roche Ecrite to Deux Bras. 2600m descent

Turned into rather a long day. Started with some other hikers waking us up before 5am when they came to the peak for sunrise. Watched sunrise, with our first proper views of the island (no cloud) and then got packed up and started back down towards the Gite, via another really cool viewpoint and a water collection trip.

First couple hours were pretty chilled with fairly gradual downhills, then hit the ridgeline before dos d' anne and had a bunch of really steep short up's and downs which Jodi started struggling a bit with (our bags were rather heavy at this stage still). Got down into town and managed to find a tap which was great (we weren't quite expecting how dry it would be up here), and also a pretty cute dog which then tried to adopt us for the nect hour or so.

From here it was a 3ish km descent with about 1000m elevation drop. the first half was fine, but Jodi's legs struggled a bit after this, with the days descent and heat taking its toll. Finally got down to the river and both of us were super glad to finally cool down in the water. The views through the valley here were pretty magical as well!!

Set up camp in some bush just of the side of the river and had a rather warm and humid night).

St Denis to Roche Ecrite

Start of our hike across Reunion island.

Decided we'd take the bus up as high as we could go and start from there. Didn't really feel like walking 10km and 1000m up tar roads.

Started through some dense green jungle and as we made our way higher it slowly started to thin out a bit with patches of really cool tall trees. Had lunch outside the Gite (hut) and then made our way up to the peak. A drastic change in landscape here, moving into low bush and trees (almost fynbosy, but not so scratchy) interspersed with patches of bare volcanic rock. Arrived at the peak mid afternoon in some misty conditions and set up our camp on a nice grassy patch. As the afternoon wore on, the cloud slowly dropped and by evening we had the most insane views over a sea of clouds with only the higher peaks sticking their heads out. Seriously cool first evening!!