Sunday, January 29, 2017

Hiking (almost) to Camp Bloc

Distance: 18.2 km.  Elevation low/high/total: 18/154/561 m.
Difficulty:7.1/10  Scenic: 7.8/10
A relatively flat but semi-lengthy hike past the Marmites de diable.  Photo album is here and the gpx is here
A somewhat overcast Sunday morning made better by the fact that six other folks joined me for a day hike!  In addition to usual suspect Paul, who brought two grandkids of his - Djamila, age 16 and Donovan, age 12, we also had Robert, Tim and Andy.  In a light drizzle we commenced at the Dumbea river crossing by about 8:30 AM.  The river was high enough that we had to wade, shin deep, to begin the hike and then it was 3 hours of nice hiking.  The trek to the Marmites is mostly broad and flat, interrupted near the end by a path failure and a tricky crossing of the hill side.  That the rocks were wet and slippery and one wrong move would cause a twisted ankle or head first fall made the going a bit slow.  But we reached the crystal clear pools of the Marmites de diable in pretty good time and everyone had a grand swim.  We decided to give it a shot to make the next 5 km or so to get to Camp Bloc - no idea what's there, that's just how it's labeled on the map - but we got maybe halfway there from the Marmites and decided we'd gone far enough.  We were 9 km into the hike and the path was non-existent in many places so very tough, and treacherous clamoring over rocks.  We returned to the Marmites for more swimming and then, of course, 12 year old Donovan wanted to do the BIG JUMP into the biggest Marmite (pool).  A fun day and I think a good introduction to our day hiking.  Total distance hiked was just over 18 km and we were back by 4 in the afternoon.

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