For our first trip on Corsica, we planned a hike to Monte Stello, 1307 meters high mountain located on Cap Corse. I found the tip for this track in a great guidebook Corsica: The 70 finest coastal and mountain walks by Klaus Wolfsperger. However, we had a a little different version – Czech one from 2001, containing just 50 tracks, not 70. We’ve used this guide a lot during our holiday, even though we went to 2 or 3 other hikes, not contained in this guide (as I learnt few minutes ago, they are all contained in the extended guide with 70 tracks).
Start/finish |
Main POI |
Distance |
Max. elevation |
Min. elevation |
Track record |
Olmeta-di-Capocorso |
Monte Stello |
17.2 km |
1307 m |
265 m |
GPX file |
The common hikes to Monte Stello begin on eastern coast, in villages of Silgaggio and Pozzo (the track described in guide), but since the sky over eastern coast was overcast, we decided for the track from western coast, from the village of Olmeta-di-Capocorso. Only problem was, we didn’t have a good map – I did have a GPS (Garmin Oregon 450) with OpenStreetMap topographic map of Corsica, but unfortunately this track wasn’t there.
Monte Stello, 1307 m ASL
At first I thought this wouldn’t be a problem, since I expected there would be marked trail leading there. However, at the crossroad near Olmeta church, there were three tracks marked – the first one to Nonza (1 h 30 min), another one to Marine de Negru (1 h 15 min) and the third one to Bocca San Lunardu (3 h) / Bastia (6 h). We decided for the last trail, since it (at least roughly) led in our direction). Read More (+ elevation diagram, waypoints, photos) »
Corsica 2011 – Viru valley (20th July)
Well, after a short cycling break I’ll return back to writing about Corsica. Weather wasn’t very good on our first day in Niolo. It was quite cold (approximately 13°C), very windy and it was raining. Despite that, we set out to a trip to Viru valley – a track from Klaus Wolfsperger’s guidebook.
The hike starts near Calasima – which is, according to the aforementioned guidebook, highest-located Corsican village. We left our car at ten to eleven on a small parking space on the road to Viru valley – it is very easy to found: the tarmac road from Calasima changes here to the unpaved, gravel one.
Viru valley
Main target of our trip were "Bergeries de Ballone", that are located on famous GR20 route near Viru brook. At first we went to the west along the gravel road. After about 1.5 kilometers, it changed into a narrow forest path and gradually turned to the north-north-west. Even though the track was quite well marked, we still had some problems with orientation and I was quite happy to have my GPS with me. Read More (+ elevation diagram, waypoints, photos) »