Well, long story short, there has been a change of plan from hiking Le Morne Mountain to hiking Piton de la Petite Riviere Noire.
On the 30th July 2016 at 14:41 we (me and Idriss) started off the track near Black River Gorges Viewpoint towards the summit of the Piton de la Petite Riviere Noire, the highest mountain of the island. And of course, starting at this point already weaved 461m off the 776m peak altitude, so basically we climbed only 215m of a mountain… true story.
The path was rather easy except for loads of mud area especially after having rained lightly a few hours before. After 4 minutes of walk, we came across what appears to be the ‘District Boundary Stone’ since 1878. Point to wonder…
The trip continued solely between small trees without any interesting scenery, just plain mud and trees. After another 45 minutes walk, we arrived at the first viewpoint revealing a magical scenery of the south-west of the island, with Le Morne mountain and part of Chamarel. We rested a while and took some pictures before continuing our path.
The difficulty level of this track from the beginning to our current point of progress was rather non-existant and everything was as smooth as walking leisurely in the woods. Gentle slopes, no climbing, some slippery mud-puddles… that’s it.
Hiking Piton de la Petite Riviere Noire
After another 20 minutes, we met with a tourist family who was on their way back, and what surprised me especially was that the couple had two small children of 3 and 5 years old respectively accompanying them. So basically this track aims at all ages…
30 minutes later we reached some kind of slope where ropes helped to progress further and to our delight, we were already at the top. We rested a while to admire the magnificent view of both the west coast on one side and the Black River Gorges on the other side. Took even more pictures and admired the sun getting down rather quickly too.
At 17:00 we started our way down and at some point, the sun was already down and we had to use torches to complete the track back.
To conclude, it was a much easy trail, much easier compared to ‘Le Pouce’ mountain, of course, starting at this same point. Heard there are other trails that start at the complete bottom of the Black River Gorges… at ground zero to say. Need to try that probably much later. Except for a rather lengthy track (1h35 approx) to reach the summit, this mountain can be attempted by all.
Next target: Le Morne Mountain
All images taken with Gopro Hero 4. Unfortunately due to a possibility of rainfall, left the cameras in the car.
