Cirque de Mafate

PeaksRéunion

An amphitheatre of walls on Réunion holding ten hamlets no road reaches, where every sack of cement arrives on a back or under a helicopter.

September·Peaking now

Jun–Oct

The austral winter dry season: skies clear, trails firm and every îlet reachable on foot.

Year-round No road reaches the ten îlets: their residents, gîtes and remparts stand every day, supplied by helicopter and the postman's back. The cloud sea, river levels and which trails are open shift with the season.

The Cirque de Mafate is an amphitheatre of walls a thousand metres high on Réunion, holding ten hamlets that no road reaches. It was chosen for exactly that. The cirque carries the name of a maroon leader who hid in it, and behind his name sits the Malagasy word mahafaty, which means that which kills. The cliffs that made it dangerous to enter at all are why the runaways climbed in, and why their descendants still have no road. Fewer than a thousand people live in the îlets, on green shelves under the remparts. Everything they cannot grow arrives on a back or under a helicopter: gas bottles, cement, groceries, every plank of every house. The gentle door in is the Col des Bœufs. The path drops into the Plaine des Tamarins, a high forest of gnarled tamarin trees trailing pale lichen, and reaches La Nouvelle in about two hours. Past it the waymarked trails carry you îlet to îlet for days, each col opening on a valley deeper than the last. The rim road ends 2,200 metres up at the Maïdo belvedere, straight above the floor. Through the austral winter the cloud off the west coast lies low at dawn, so the roofs and green shelves break through a white lid a kilometre below you. Every drop of water in Mafate leaves through one riverbed, the Rivière des Galets, and so can you, up boulders and braided channels from Deux Bras. Upstream at Trois Roches the river drops into a black fissure in the rock and disappears. In La Nouvelle or Marla your day ends when the light does: dinner at one hour in the gîte, lamps off a solar panel, the wind in the ravine after dark. For forty years the cirque's mail was walked in by one man. Ivrin Pausé left Grand Place on a Monday with fifteen to eighteen kilos on his back and worked the îlets through the week, from 1951 to 1991.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Be on the rim before eight in the morning — cloud rises off the coast and usually shuts the Maïdo and Cap Noir views between nine and ten, however clear the dawn looked.
Col des Bœufs is the gentle door in — roughly two hours down to La Nouvelle, where every other route means a long, steep day on the ramparts.
Book a gîte weeks ahead — the îlets share only a few dozen beds, half board is the norm, and weekends fill first; there is no arriving and hoping.
Stay out of the riverbeds when it rains — the Rivière des Galets and its ravines rise within minutes, and it is the crossings, not the cliffs, that strand hikers.

Things to do

1
Take in the whole cirque from the Maïdo balcony
The rim road ends at a belvedere 2,200 metres up, straight above the cirque floor. Come at first light, before the cloud climbs the wall: ridges, roofs and green shelves break through a white lid a kilometre below you. Cap Noir, further round the rim, looks down the cirque's one breach instead.
2
Walk in over Col des Bœufs, through the tamarin forest
From the Col des Bœufs car park the path drops into the Plaine des Tamarins, a high forest of gnarled tamarin trees trailing pale lichen, and on down to La Nouvelle. It takes about two hours and is the easiest door into the cirque. Keep walking and the waymarked GR trails carry you îlet to îlet for days, each col opening on a valley deeper than the last.
3
Follow the Rivière des Galets, the cirque's only way out
Every drop of water in Mafate leaves through this one riverbed, and so can you: from Deux Bras the route works up the boulders and braided channels of the gorge with the remparts closing overhead. Upstream at Trois Roches the river drops into a black fissure in the rock and disappears out of sight. Check the forecast first — a filling ravine is the last place you want to be.
4
Cross the remparts by helicopter
There are two ways into Mafate, and this is the other one. A scenic flight lifts you over the rim and runs the walls, the hamlets appearing as a scatter of tin roofs on ledges with no road leading to them. The same aircraft keep those roofs supplied, ferrying in gas bottles, cement and groceries.
5
Sleep in a village no road reaches
In La Nouvelle or Marla the day ends when the light does. Dinner comes at one hour in the gîte, the lamps run off a solar panel, and after dark the loudest thing is the wind in the ravine. You wake up in a place where every plank of every house was flown in or carried in on a back.

Watch

Nearby

35 km