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To an avid and serious hiker/short-term-visitor in Seychelles, the dilemma remains whether to go up this highest mountain at all (I talk of the Morne Seychellois – the 905m highest peak of Mahe) and if to go, go with a guide or just take to the route with the help of the markings, imagining the markings were to exist.

With this in mind and somehow getting to know the starting point of the trek, we took a stand to accomplish this once and for all. But the idea remained that some research and patience should be invested into this venture before we really do it. To assuage our feeling, we did a half way uphill trek to ascertain what is the route like; is it doable within the confines of the daylight without a guide; are there markings; does it involve rock climbing in the end and some more such questions. The assurances on these above points received by us on our exploratory visit were good enough to enroll us for the task; so we set out to do this when the weather presented itself clear.

Since the route (at least till the half way) is confusing in parts and one could end up elongating one’s journey by going various ways, even sometimes coming back a certain length to get on the right path uphill, we decided to go with our own set of yellow ribbons. This is not to say we did not find any markings; we did find many yellow and red paint markings on the rocks/trees, but many were found hidden - probably taken over by vegetation as time passes. But they still were helpful.

We did learn that the route is confusing not only while going uphill, but also while coming back downhill. Well from our side, we have situated approximately 85 yellow ribbons on the route, which would help anyone daring to go up that mountain. Of course, one should take the help of those yellow and red paint markings as well. A common mistake, done by the people marking the paint, has been done only on one side of a tree or the rock; hence these signs are mostly visible while going uphill and only a few visible while coming downhill. On that day of our touching the top, we hoped that the paint marking could have been made as a full circle on the tree trunks so that the mark is seen from all sides. Hopefully, our yellow ribbon shall help do this job for the seekers, at least for some time in the open nature.

The route can broadly be divided into four parts. First is steep uphill confusing path. Second a flat wooded forest (again confusing). Third is also steep uphill through moist thick forest. The last leg is some zig-zag of uphill walking. In the third and fourth legs of the route, fallen trees hamper the walk compelling one to sometimes take a circuitous route which needs to be done carefully. The first, third and fourth leg will also manyatimes require one to use all-fours. If it starts raining, the complexity is increased; well, in our case, it did rain while we were on the third and fourth leg of the route at both times going uphill and coming downhill. It was very cloudy, moist and rainy at the top also on that day. The first and second leg route was completely dry – we were lucky that way. Incidentally, in the third and fourth leg of the journey, there are very few paint markers (if only, they are near the very top); or maybe we could not find them.

I must mention that on our first exploratory visit, we came across snakes four times at different venues; twice going up and twice coming down. It looked the same species on all four counts – a black one, approximately half meter in length and about one inch in diameter. This is the only hike done by us wherein we have encountered snakes and well people say there are no poisonous snakes in Seychelles. I wouldn’t say it led to any cause for panic for us.

Overall, the views while on Morne Seychellois are awesome if it is a clear sunny day. The feeling and partial views are superb even on a moist rainy day; but the terrain becomes dangerous that way. Its approximately 3.5 hours uphill to the top and more or less the same time to come downhill. The starting point is at exactly four kilometer drive away on chemin sans souci (the road which goes to Port Glaud from eastern side), i.e., driving towards Mont Fleuri from Victoria and (after the Citimart round-about) taking the right turn on sans souci road. At exactly four kilometer mark on that road, there is an old road-barrier pillar on the left hand side of the road. The hike starts right in front of the barrier pillar across the road.

Enjoy the Bliss of this Journey while in this island Paradise…

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apoutsiak-

I'm searching the gps track of the summit. If you have it you can send me a mail : [email protected] Thank you