Le Pouce trail map and GPX files

The two routes on one map

The map shows the mapped geometry of both routes from OpenStreetMap, with the elevation profile drawn from a terrain model. The Petit Verger route starts at the car park at 381 m and reaches the summit in 2.05 km with about 390 m of ascent. The Port Louis route starts at about 88 m where Chateau d’Eau Street ends in Tranquebar and reaches the same point in 3.6 km with about 690 m of ascent. They join on the grassy shoulder below the thumb and share the final climb.

Use the map to understand the shape of the day rather than to navigate metre by metre. The real path is marked on the ground in blue and white, and the places where the map matters most are the two junctions, at the kiosk on the Petit Verger side and on the shoulder, where a wrong turn on the descent sends you down the other side of the mountain and a long way from your car.

The Petit Verger route in numbers

The southern route is short and its profile is simple. A gentle half kilometre of farm track leads to the kiosk, the forest switchbacks climb hard for about 700 m of path, the shoulder gives a flat breather and the thumb finishes steeply. The Hiking Project recording puts the average grade at 16 percent and the steepest at 35 percent. The waypoints below come from a Visorando recording of the same route, which matches the mapped track closely.

The Port Louis route in numbers

The northern route gains nearly twice the height over nearly twice the distance, and its profile is lopsided. The first part through Le Dauguet and the woods climbs gently, then a signboard marks the turn where the path steepens, and most of the ascent is packed into the final 2 km. The waypoints below are from a Visorando loop that starts at the Champ de Mars racecourse, about a kilometre before Le Dauguet, so the distances are longer than those on the direct mapped path from the street end.

The recording covers about 6 km between Le Dauguet and the summit against 3.6 km on the direct mapped path, so it clearly follows a longer line through the nature trail and the woods. The Explore Mauritius description, at 6.3 km one way, does the same. Both are real ways up. The painted stones follow the main path, and the altitudes are the figures to trust.

The GPX files and what they are made of

Two GPX files are available, one per route. Both are built from OpenStreetMap path geometry, which is drawn by volunteers from GPS traces and aerial imagery and is accurate to a few metres on open ground and less under trees. The elevation in each file comes from a terrain model with a 30 m grid, not from a barometric recording on the mountain. That matters on Le Pouce, because a 30 m grid cannot resolve a thumb of rock a few metres across. The model smooths the summit to about 756 m, while the mapped peak and every survey give 812 m.

The practical consequence is that the elevation profile understates the final climb by roughly 50 m and makes the thumb look gentler than it is. The distance and the shape of the route are reliable. The last hundred metres are steeper than the profile suggests, which is why this site describes them in words as well as in a line on a chart.

• Petit Verger route, 2.05 km, about 390 m of ascent, download at /downloads/le-pouce-petit-verger.gpx.
• Port Louis route, 3.6 km, about 690 m of ascent, download at /downloads/le-pouce-port-louis.gpx.
• Both files end at the mapped summit point, 812 m on OpenStreetMap, even though their profiles top out at 756 m.

Loading a GPX file on your phone

A GPX file is a plain list of coordinates that most walking and mapping apps can open and draw over a base map. Download the file at home or at your hotel over wifi, open it in your chosen app and, crucially, download the map tiles for the Moka area for offline use. Coverage is described as decent on the ridges, but you cannot rely on it under the trees of the Port Louis side, and a phone that has to stream its map is a phone that runs out of battery at the wrong moment.

Start the day with a full charge, keep the screen off between junctions and treat the phone as a way to settle doubts rather than as a guide to follow step by step. On the thumb put it away completely. You need both hands, and the trench is no place to be looking at a screen.

What the waymarks look like on the ground

From Petit Verger the route is marked with blue and white paint on posts and tree trunks, and one local walking guide counts about fifteen signposts between the car park and the summit. OpenStreetMap rates the track’s visibility as excellent. From Tranquebar the marks are blue and white painted stones every few hundred metres, with a signboard at the point where the trail turns left and steepens. Both sets of marks are maintained informally, and a fallen post or a faded stone is normal rather than a sign that you are lost.

Two rules cover most of the doubt. In the forest below the shoulder, keep the summit on your left at any fork. On the shoulder, remember which side you came up, because the two routes leave it in opposite directions and both are well trodden. The health track at the Petit Verger entrance is watched by Safe City cameras, which has nothing to do with navigation but reassures some walkers about the car.

Other maps and recordings

Several community recordings of the mountain exist, and comparing them is instructive. The Komoot highlight for the Petit Verger loop has been walked by more than 900 users and measures 4.18 km. Visorando has recordings from both sides. The Hiking Project describes the southern route as a 4.6 km out and back and gives the gradients. Atlas & Boots measured 4.3 km. None of them agree exactly, because each starts and stops in a slightly different place and consumer GPS wanders under trees and on a sharp summit. The spread is normal. The mountain is the same.

Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap both give 812 m for the summit, and this site uses that figure throughout. You may see 811 m in tour listings and 820 m in older references. None of that changes the route, and none of it changes the fact that the last hundred metres are the ones to respect.