It is cold, my hands are starting to shake, but it must be because of the excitement unfolding before my eyes, I am on the grand raid 2010 – diagonal of fools. It is 4am and everybody stops on the rim of the caldera at 2250m, we hear the volcano rumble and magma coming through the pipes, we peep over the edge and see a big lava fountain squirting lava, with chunks of plasma falling far over the edge, hitting the ground and then forming lava rivers. People shout out manjefique in french, and we are all stunned for a moment. Did i see hypothermia starting to set in? the answer is no, i was distracted, ok!! ....
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The Diagonal of Fools is a highly technical non-stop run/hike of about 163km over Mountains with 9643m meters of elevation gain approximately diagonally across the island of Reunion from south to north through the foothills of the Piton de la Fournaise (active volcano) and calderas Cilaos, Mafate and Salazie, primarily via the hiking trails of the GR. The maximum time of test, to be filed, is set at 66 hours (sixty six hours), including all breaks, subject to passing the various checkpoints before closing time. See http://traileruption.blogspot.com/
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We started the race 21 October 10pm from the south of reunion island at sea level at cape mechant. It was a mild tropical 22 degC outside. 2634 crazy people entered the race mostly from mainland france and reunion, i were the only south african. We were driven by busses to the sport stadium , where kit check was done, snacks were served and the fools given a last show of local island dancers with a guy blowing flames out of his mouth in true french glamour. Did I mention nobody speaks english on this island, Nobody. You need to improvise, use body language or learn french to survive. It was a huge mission for me to just get to the start of this race... The moon was full and we were at the foot of the volcano, the vibe in the stadium was starting to get electric with a slight kink of crazyness, it is what I live for.
The gun went off and off we were, everybody starting to squash each other trying to get ahead, it looked like the start of comrades combined with a bull stampede, completely crazy. We climbed mildly for the first 15km to 700m, and the next 7km through dense muddy forest to 2250m. Every few hundred meters you would find a guy throwing up, that wern't eating or going up to quickly, I took it easy and felt good. You expand so much heat going up, so I didn't wear anything warm.
I reached Foc-Foc, the CP just before the rim of the volcano, here even at night you can see the landscape changing to something simular to mars. Volcanic formations out of this world. It was slighly cooler here but with me still hot from the climb I carried on. I was running feeling good, and then we started hearing the volcano. This was so amazing, a noise I never heard before. Reaching the edge we saw the amazing specticle and I stopped to make a movie, eventualy I got a good shot using my gorilla pod (mini tripod) and putting my camera in night mode. What I didn't realise was that it was 3 degC outside, and my hands was starting to lose feeling. When I wanted to stop my movie and unclip my tripod I couldn't, I got a big scare. I couldn't open a energy bar with my hands and had to use my mouth, I couldn't put on my rain jacket. I had to get moving very quickly.
I reached the volcano observatory and refreshment point where I manged to get some lukewarm soup out of them but I couldn't open my bladder to refill, and had to beg the french guy that didn't understand me but eventualy saw my hands were freezing. I kept on going, the sun came up and my core temprature restored.
We were high above the clouds with very unique landscapes unfolding constantly, volunteers waiting en-route were encouraging you with ale-ale, this was great, and after another climb with magnificent scenery I reached a downhill I could run fast and passed a lot of people, this was great.
It is impossible for me to describe a race like this in every detail, but what I can tell you this island is out of this world diverse dramatic and like nothing you have seen before, and the trail condition differ constantly as does the landscape. The people racing can be described as lemmings as in the highly addictive computer game where thousands of little fools get send over an extreme obstacle course and only a few surviving to the end.
The main volcano on the island is 3000m high and extrinct, around the volcano lies 3 calderas, basically sucken in land masses around the volcano dropping from the edges from +-2300m sleeply down to 1000m, each caldera has a community of people living inside it completely surronded by mountains.
We aproached the first caldera Salazie though dense forests of rolling hills, and I followed a group of french people. My mind started playing tricks on me here and I though the french people were conspiring against me, remember I was just hearing french since my arrival on the island and I didn't understand a word. We dropped steeply into Salazie the caldera with the most water, waterfalls everywhere hundreds of them. This is rivendale, but better and home to the iron hole (Trou de Fer) http://www.crystalcanyons.net/Pages/TripReports/TroudeFer.htm, one of the canyons I will have to come back for canyoneering. I reached the town of Hell-Bourg and the 70km mark 16h7m into the race having done 3600m of climbing. Then we had to get out of the caldera climbing from 1000m to 2480m via cap anglais, this climb plays mental games on everybody, it is steep short switchbacks through dense forests that never seems to end, and you can't see the top. I reached the top just before nightfall and opted to move on and get down into the next caldera where i would take my first sleep break.
The next caldera Cilaos drops down via technical switchbacks over 5km to 1400m, i joined a group running a nice pace, and enjoyed this technical downhill at night. Your mind in deep concentration as your body negotiates the rocks at speed. This was an awesome mind blowing downhill, made for technical trail running. I reached the Stadium in Cilaos the 90km mark 22h31m into the race, and slept for 2 hours. I rested well ate something and headed out just before midnight. Each caldera is so unique. We skirted canyon walls and climbed out of the caldera using switchbacks, it was another challenging climb and i reached the top just before sunrise, before dropping down into Mafate.
Salazie and Cilaos are barely accessible via roads from the coastline, but these roads are exgeneering feats and very sheer mountain roads. Mafate is totally inaccessible via roads and the community relies on a chopper flying in food and solar power.
Dropping into Mafate as the sun came up was amazing, this is an amazing caldera, very remote and very beautiful. I reached the bottom feeling extremely good and started running fast deep into the caldera, i enjoyed the technical running and special feeling of complete isolation. It was a long day, seeing out of this world beauty, but somewhere along the way in mafate i picked up a knee injury running a downhill that would make downhills not runnable anymore but uphills ok. I reached Deux Bras the 126km mark slowly after i got hold of a wooden stick to support me. It was 41h41m into the race having slept 2 hours, and i was doing reality checks in my mind if i can survive another 40km on a swollen painful knee. I got a medic to massage my legs strap my knee, ate something, and slept for 2 hours. I refused to give up even though the pain was excruciating, and i knew the inflammation was just gonna get worse. I left just before nightfall.
It was amazing here, some very steep scrambling holding onto cables at places we used steep switch backs and traversed up a cliff, i loved this and uphills wasn't that painful for my knee as the downhills. When we got to the top we reached a remote town on the escarpment with locals cheering us on. Then we had to go down again and it was a single track going steep down. There were hundreds of people before and after me, and it was gonna take me all night with my knee and i wouldn't have made progress as i would have to let everybody pass the whole time. So i just had to block out the pain and run the downhill without passing out. Here i found that your body can actually handle allot more pain than you think before you pass out. It was a long night, but i reached Possession 142km just before 2am, 51h 54m into the race, where i slept another 2 hours to normalize the pain.
The rest of the route i would do uphills as fast as i can, and go slow on downhills trying not to pass out. I eventually reached Colorado high in the mountains above St Dennis, where people indicated to me i am starting to drift (swing like a drunk person) across the paths. Colorado is 5km before the finish and i reached it 60h43m into the race, where i got some pain pills to get me to the finish. The view here is out of the world, and the vibe of the locals cheered me up tremendously. High above the clouds a very special place, so close but yet so far.
The pain pills helped allot, i got moving going down the very steep switchbacks and reached the finish in 62h49m37s. I made it!! and got my photos taken and received the medal of my dreams. It was all worth it, and an experience i will never ever forget in my live.
Victories often occur after you see no way to succeed but refuse to give up anyway...
1189 lemmings (fools) (people) almost 50% abandoned the race, and I made it, despite a terrible knee injury that made downhills outpassable painful, I could have had a better time if I didn't injure myself.
Spaniard Kilian Jornet won the race in an astonishing 23h 17m 26.
No report can do this race justice, It is also more than a race, It is also a celebration of French-Reunion culture.
Though I'd share some of it with you adventure minded people.
See ya
Jacques Booysen
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"Dream big and live those dreams. Why ration passion. Pursue Passion. Death and/or old age is coming, we must live sweet. The time is now. It is not only life, but the quality of this life." - Mike Libecki
