Mount Plauris

I’ve been thinking about this mountain for more than a decade at this point, for reasons I’m gonna explain later. I wanted to hike it a few weeks ago, but there was a raging wildfire not too far from it on a nearby mountain, so I had to wait. Wait for better air conditions, because hiking with ash and dust in the air is not a smart thing to do, but also wait for a colder day.

Yesterday wasn’t exactly a cold day, it still got up in the 33° to 35°C range, but we—me and a friend—decided we were going for a hike anyway. We were out of the car at around 8:30 am and thankfully we got blessed with an overcast day which made the hike A LOT more enjoyable.

This is one of those quintessential mountain hikes; if you look at the elevation profile, you start walking, you go up, and you keep going up till you basically reach the summit. There were pretty much no flat spots longer than maybe 10 meters, and there was only a brief downhill part because we had to go through a mountain pass before going up again to the summit.

We had to gain almost 1500 meters of elevation in roughly 5.5kms and the climb averages at about 26% incline with stretches in the 75-80% range. From a purely physical perspective, this is not an enjoyable walk.

The trail starts on a stretch of concrete road, since there is technically a service road that goes up to the nearest mountain hut, but then turns into a lovely trail into the woods and I love walking into the woods. This area would also be a perfect spot to hang a hammock and just chill.

Roughly an hour and 500 meters of elevation gained we reached the Elio Franz Hut, a lovely, lovely mountain hut that is incredibly well maintained and clearly well loved by the people here.

It’s free to use and very well equipped, and I felt compelled to leave a small donation since there was a donation box inside it, even though we didn’t even stop here. But people who do this type of work deserve to receive some love. This is where the service road ends but the trail keeps going, first through the woods and then it hugs the side of the mountain with a trail that is everything but easy, with slippery rocks, loose rocks, rocks that are falling down, rocks that are falling away below you, sections with steps so high that I found myself with knees in my mouth (and I don’t have short legs).

About 2 and a half hours in, we’re at the mountain pass, we have gained about 1100 meters and the summit is in front of us. Thank god is overcast because climbing up this trail with the sun hitting on us would have been absolutely miserable.

Down we go through the only tiny downhill stretch of the whole ascent and this is where I stopped taking pictures before getting up to the summit. And that’s because the final stretch is bad.

It’s a scree, but not one of those where you have a clear trail marked or those where everything is soft enough where you can just sink your feet in firmly. No, this is probably just the result of rocks that must have recently fallen down. You can’t stick your feet in it, there’s not enough material and the rocks are too big. You can’t properly walk on top of it, because everything is incredibly loose, and you can’t even properly scramble your way across it, because there are stretches where there aren’t even big rocks to use as an anchor. And it’s steep, 50 to 60% grade. So if for some reason you slip, you’re going to slide down quite far and there’s nothing stopping you.

So we had to slowly and carefully find our way through this final stretch, trying to figure out the best way to go up this mess, and we eventually did. Boy was this not a fun thing to do.

The final bit to the top is a short, fairly exposed trail but that’s easy compared to what we just passed. On the summit, 3 people were enjoying the view. We learned that they came up from the other side, where there’s a much easier and shorter trail. Maybe I’ll do it one day.

The view from the top is very enjoyable, the sky full of clouds that are moving at a significant pace. A lovely spot to take a break before starting our descent. From up here, I can clearly see a place that’s stuck in my memory.

You see that green-ish dot, down at the bottom of the picture? That’s the roof of another hut I slept in 10 years ago, in August 2016 when with another friend of mine I first attempted hiking this mountain. Back then the plan was to do the first part of the hike, sleep, and the following morning summit the mountain. But I arrived at the hut that I was so tired, so exhausted, that we didn’t go up and for 10 years I kept thinking at this damn mountain.

And here I am, 10 years later, at the top, looking at that place from above. And I’m not even tired so take that 27 years old me. We’re getting better with age!

After spending almost an hour enjoying our time on the summit, it was time to go down. And again, not many pictures. The trail was so bad that we took almost as much time going down as going up, and that’s not usually the case. But we survived the long, long descent unscathed.

I am glad I finally hiked this mountain. I’m glad my adventure of 10 years ago can finally have a proper closure. But I don’t think I’ll ever do this trail again. This was not exactly enjoyable walking. It’s doable, clearly, but definitely not fun.