High Sierra Topix

We spent our June in French Polynesia and part of me need some mountain fix. So our family took a very challenging route climbing the second highest peak, Mount Rotui on Moorea. It's short but probably the most difficult trail we have ever done with kids. The humid weather, steep climb, route finding, tropical bushes and slippery terrain make it super tough for the little ones, but the view is superb! Here are some pictures along the route/trail. It's really off maintenance so one has to be very careful on the ridge.

We spent almost 9 hours over this less-than-5-mile round trip and ran out of 2.5 gallons of water in my backpack. We also went through two thunder weather patterns during the descent and got soaking wet in the first one. Total elevation gain is around 3100ft! I think even without little kids it would still take me more than 6 hours to finish it in the same condition. We were the only group on that day doing this hike.

The hike started with dense tropical forests and bushes. Even at higher elevation, the bushes are still very bad, like much worse than my last trip to Edith lake in Yosemite

Once going up to the ridge line, the trees are gone but the bushes are still there. We started really early so the heat was not that bad. It's very steep and slippery so some ropes are put on by locals without much maintenance. The roots of the bush helped a lot.


The view is awesome once up on the ridge line.
The exposure actually is more that what I planned for a tropical hike

Above 2500ft, we can see the whole island in all directions.

Some more pictures during the descent:
We all got some minor scratches due to lack of protection from the shorts. I didn't expect we would do a tough hike like this and need pants. But kids were very excited they made it. This is definitely not an average hike they have done in Sierra.

Looks horrible getting to the top, but an amazing payoff

thanks for sharing

Such great views!!