Lagrave Mountain

Lagrave mountain is positioned in central Mauritius, and commands great views over the reservoirs of Midlands Dam and Eau Bleue and over the central landscape of Mauritius.
The climb is relatively short, but made more difficult physically due to the muddy ground as rainfall in this area is quite common.

There are two paths to the summit of Lagrave mountain. One public and the other private. Unfortunately due to time constraints and an overgrown and unclear public path, I was unable to complete this hike using the public path, and decided rather relutantly to pay for access to use the private path. The private path is part of the "activities" offered by Domaine Lagrave and at the time of completing this hike in Feb. 2008, the cost of access was 250 Mauritian rupees (around £5 or US$10) per person. The contents of this article refers to the private path via Domaine Lagrave unless otherwise stated.

About the public path

There is a concreted footpath passing between Lagrave Mountain and Midlands Dam reservoir. This footpath starts from the main road going North from the village of Midlands, around Midlands Dam to the village of Dubreuil. The path to the summit of Lagrave Mountain starts along this concreted footpath, and into the undergrowth at the lower parts of the mountain.
Unfortunately, publicly available satellite imagery for the area has high cloud cover and trying to trace the path is not feasible.
So if you are feeling really adventurous, then the public path may be something you might want to attempt.
The short part of the public footpath I attempted is included in the GPS track log.

Location

The Osterlog valley

The Osterlog valley is the valley starting from Eau Bleue reservoir down to Le Val in the South East. You can drive down this valley, after passing Eau Bleue reservoir there is a road on the left signposted Le Val Nature reserve - Private Road.
The Mauritius government is making plans to turn this whole area into a nature reserve with hiking routes, so it seems there is a promising future for hikers in this area.

News articles about the Osterlog valley

• http://www.apanews.net/apa.php?page=show_article_eng&id_article=65201
• http://www.gov.mu/portal/site/moa?content_id=00f1650782824110VgnVCM1000000a04a8c0RCRD
• http://www.lexpress.mu/display_article.php?news_id=108754

Route Description

The track log start from the main road passing through Bananes village. Make your way to this point and look for a sign marked Domaine Lagrave pointing to a narrow road leading from the main road. This will take you to the entrance of Domaine Lagrave through cane fields on an untarred road.

• Starting from the office, follow the path, which will take you over Eau Bleue river and around to the base of the mountain.
• Continuing into the undergrowth, follow the quite muddy path which is steep in places.
• The path is quite clear, and after around 1.5km, you should emerge at some bare rock which when you climb will lead you to the summit of Lagrave mountain.
• Once you are on the summit, you can walk west over the other peaks to get some alternative views.
• If you are feeling adventurous, you can follow the route down to the north of the mountain, along the public path, towards Midlands reservoir.

Satellite Imagery

• View this track in Google Maps

Images

• Images tagged with Lagrave Mountain

Attachments:

Mount_Lagrave.gpx	[GPX Track log for Lagrave Mountain]	51 Kb
Mount_Lagrave.kml	[Google Earth KML file]	13 Kb