Distance: 9.3 km. Elevation low/high/total: 6/434/537 m.
Difficulty: 6.5/10. Scenic: 8.5/10
Difficulty: 6.5/10. Scenic: 8.5/10
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| A solo hike up above the village of Plum to visit their wind farm - click pic for album The geotrack is linked here(gpx) and here(kml) |
Once again I found myself without a hiking partner but my feet were so itchy I just had to get up and out. Quite often, on my way down south, I pass the lovely little town of Plum - last village before you head into the mountains. A string of wind turbines can be seen up on the plateau above the village and, turns out, there's a hiking trail to get up there. So, up I went early on a hot Sunday morning.
My friend Paul later told me this trail was known as the "goat scramble" and it was tough going for awhile. The trail is quite vertical in places and you haul yourself up hand over foot across sharp rock and brush. As it's on the lee side of the mountain, the air is rather dead and I lost a lot of water weight (i.e., I sweated like a pig). But the view up there was spectacular. The best of all though was my meeting with an unexpected giraffe. There he stood, proudly surveying the scene beyond the line of wind turbines. I named him Depardieu because, well .... French, big nose, stoic, gerard le giraffe ... seemed a natural name. I placed a geocache at his feet (linked here), and then headed back. There's not really a trail to follow heading back till you're about half way down and can then follow the power lines. The descent was even trickier in places - loose stones, slippery dirt, the usual. It was, all in all, a lovely way to spend a weekend day.
ps - I'm in the market for a hiking buddy, as my usual companion is about to leave New Caledonia and start college at Berkeley in a few weeks.
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