Alpwalk

How to walk across the alps

2008-12-01T09:43:00.001-08:00

Eastside Road, Healdsburg, December 1, 2008

BACK FROM A MONTH in Italy, and revisiting this blog, I realize it'll be a little confusing to anyone seeing it for the first time.

This is an account of a walk from Evian-les-Bains to Nice, about 450 miles, done from June 20 to July 28, 2008, with my grandson Henry and my friend Mac. I've posted a day-by-day account, with photos.

Since this is a blog, though, the account shows up on the Internet in reverse order. If you want to read through the walk in the correct order, you'll have to click on August, above; then on Introduction.

One day perhaps I'll write this trip up in a more coherent manner. In the meantime, I hope this won't be too confusing, or too complicated.

One other thing: I've been trying to put more photos from the walk online, but it's a slow process. The week of July 13 is all I've managed to get on; you can find them here.

35: Levens to Nice: end of the walk

2008-10-23T13:43:00.001-07:00

Day 38: July 28, 2008 (walkday 34)

SUNDAY, JULY 27, we rested — our first rest day since the 12th, two weeks ago. I’d grown so used to the pace I hadn’t noticed. Books had warned a day a week’s a good idea, and so had our Austrian friend Sabine Schroll, when we talked to her in Switzerland, a month and a day ago — it seems both just last week, and years ago. The sense of time has been completely changed by this walk.
But today, Monday the 28th, was to be the last day of the walk. We would be lazy: we left our backpacks in the apartment. We had a leisurely breakfast, then walked down to the station to catch the bus back to Levens, riding a route we’d taken Saturday in the opposite direction. An interesting ride, I thought, quickly through Nice and its outlying sections, then on D19, the Route de Levens, through Les Moulins and Tourrette-Levens, past quarries and car-lots. I kept looking out the window, trying to guess where the afternoon walk would take us: hard to tell. Five weeks on trails, and I’m no better a reader of maps than when I began.
We had an early lunch in Levens, same café, same salad, same waiter who knew us, of course, and recommended his family’s hotel in the Tende if we should get over that way; and then we set out on the trail, leaving town a little before one o’clock.

Quickly we were in the countryside, a dry, warm, teeming countryside: it’s dry, but there’s been plenty of water to push all this underbrush. We walked alongside walls containing suburban gardens, I suppose; and then through mixed forest;

photo: Mac Marshall

up rocky trails through maquis; and along a dirt road on a ridge finally bringing us to the town of Aspremont, where we’d imagined there’d be a pot of tea for us, or maybe some eau minerale gazeuse for me to pour a bit of Fernet Branca into. It was not to be: the hill town itself lies off the GR5, and no one seemed enthusiastic about walking off-route. One café was on the main road our path had joined to circumvent Aspremont, but it was closed.

We walked on, past a big construction site, then up into the maquis, dry chapparal. We’d been hearing cicadas for some time; now the sound was constant. We were walking a ridgeline, the Crête de Greus I think it is, south into the sun and toward Nice and the Mediterranean,

down past stone walls, under pines, and out

onto a surprising flat perched above the city of Nice, a broad prairie that must have been farmed up to a few decades ago — ruined restanques and a few ancient olive trees stood mute testimony.

The GR5 does not actually end at the sea, though: it disappears — or at least its reassuring red-and-white balisage does — at the Carrefour de l’Aire-Saint-Michel, still 314 meters above sea level. Here there were still surprises: 5:49 pm, a parklike area, rather abandoned-looking, with trails, old walkways, sycamores.

Six o’clock: paved road, cyclone fence, the outskirts of town. No cafés in these residential quarters: we continued walking

photo: Mac Marshall

past walls and hedges, always downhill, always toward the sea.
We walked, as usual, mostly in silence, saving conversation for the rest stops, the occasional viewpoint or photo opportunity. About seven o’clock we came to the busy Place Alex-Médecin, and here on a street-corner was a pleasant-looking bar-café: time for a celebratory vin blanc next to a table of geezers who eyed us curiously. One struck up a bit of conversation: Are you Canadian? No? Not English, are you? What? Californians! Welcome to Nice; congratulations on your walk!

At 7:45 I watched Mac enthusiastically approach the sea, Henry on his heels. We didn’t strip and run in; it was late; we were a little tired; I was a little self-conscious. There weren’t many people on the beach, but that wasn’t it; I just felt a bit let down. No question of walking further: nothing but salt water between us and Corsica, I guess.

photo: Mac Marshall

Mac took a picture of Henry looking on as I looked down at my boots on the pebbles, foamy sea-water licking lazily at my toes. What a wonderful pair of shoes you’ve been; what a long way you’ve come; how kind you’ve been to me.

Then Mac joined me at the edge of the sea where we posed for a final photo. No tripod; no self-timed possibility. Two old men, backs to the sea, captured by a fifteen-year-old boy who was finally seeing the Mediterranean up close.

photo: Henry Shere

Distance walked, day 38: ca. 26 kilometers (18 miles) • Time: 6:30 • dénivelement: ca. 950 meters (3100 feet)

34: Utelle to Levens

2008-10-20T15:05:00.001-07:00

Day 37: July 26, 2008 (walkday 33)

OUR GUIDEBOOK TOLD US today’s route would require improvisation. We were a four-hour walk from the town of Levens, where we might stay the night. Three hours further was Aspremont, another overnight possibility. Three hours beyond Aspremont would find us in Nice, the goal. (The original goal had been Menton, but that would have required 24 additional hours walking, and the choice between the two alternatives had been made yesterday, in St.-Dalmas-Valdeblore.)

View from the balcony, Utelle (photo: Mac Marshall)

All this walking would be relatively flat, never reaching above 800 meters — Utelle, where we’d spent the night, was the highest point; and while there was a climb into Levens it didn’t look serious. So we took it easy this morning, taking photos from our balcony and lazing over breakfast on the terrace.

We didn’t leave our apartment until 9:30; and even then we lazed through Utelle, a town that might have detained us more if it had been a little busier. We went to the tourist office, where we heard about the Roman inscription on someone’s doorstep — a doorstep well guarded by an attentive dog — and we bought provisions for lunch, knowing the day would be hot and dry.

Then we turned west, dropping to the Rio valley, crossing it on a footpath, and climbed sharply up before dropping again to the Cros valley. In a little over an hour we reached Chapelle St.-Antoine.

Much of the walk down was through terrain apparently abandoned from agricultural use scores of years ago. The path often ran alongside ancient moss-covered stone walls, within forest perhaps surviving ancient nut groves. It then continued to drop, crossing highway D67 by hairpins on the footpath, arriving finally at the day’s lowest point, to cross both the Vesubie river and highway D2565 at Cos dUtelle: we were only 195 meters (640 feet) above sea level!

We took only fifteen minutes to eat our lunch in a miserable spot, a bus-stop kiosk that gave a little shade: there was no café, no bar. It was so hot and oppressive that we didn’t even think to take any photographs. The constant sound of cicadas and the hot close air were fatiguing.

An hour later, though, we climbed along the paved road, past a dump site, into the town of Levens, where we planned to spend the night. It was quarter to two and the tourist office was closed, so we decided on lunch in the center of town, reached by climbing up a long flight of steps, past one closed restaurant after another. (In truth I was self-conscious of our appearance, too: Levens seemed an upscale town, and we were hot, dirty, and sweaty.)

(photo: Mac Marshall)

Lunch was a delicious salad and a glass of rosé on the terrace of a café on the main intersection, with a marriage procession to entertain us. We had plenty of time to kill: the tourist office didn’t open until past three. And then and there we discovered it was true, there wasn’t a bed to be had in Levens, or in the next town, Apremont, or anywhere else in the vicinity. There was a huge horse show going on, for one thing; it was summer, for another.
There was nothing to be done but wait another hour or so and then take the bus to Nice, where we knew an apartment was waiting for our use. We arrived about seven, were met at the bus station, and whisked to our flat, airy and newly painted and very convienently located, a couple of blocks from that elusive Mediterranean.

Distance walked, day 37: ca. 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) • Time: 4 hours• dénivelement: ca. 1400 meters (4600 feet)

33: St.-Dalmas-Valdeblore to Utelle

2008-10-17T23:27:00.001-07:00

Day 37: July 26, 2008 (walkday 33)

I LOOKED AT THE GUIDEBOOK at breakfast, as usual: another really long day, one of the longest of the trip. The profile shows a steady climb in the morning, to our last high col at nearly 2000 meters (6500 feet); then a steady descent in the afternoon to Utelle at 821 meters, with only a teeny bump up for variety. It’s a long day because there’s no place to stay before Utelle: and even that was problematic, but I found one hotel with a vacancy. A long day, but no problem for me; altitude won’t be a problem. Heat may be. But my feet haven’t given me any trouble and my back and legs are strong.
We left about 8:45, after buying provisions at the local grocery — dried apricots, a can of juice, bread, salami. There won’t be any place to provision on the trail. We began with a steady climb up 400 meters or so to our first col, the Col du Varaire,

arriving only fifteen minutes behind the time allotted in our guidebook: very encouraging. Even better, we reached the Col du Caire Gros, two hundred meters higher, ten minutes ahead of schedule.

Mac pursued by trail bikes

A short rest before tackling the easy traverse to our next goals, both reached on schedule. Twelve noon; the Baisse de la Combe; and then forty minutes later we were on the Collet des Trous, the day’s highest point, the last height of our walk at 1982 meters, 6500 feet.

Ruined church, Granges de la Brasque

On from there to the Granges de la Brasque, stopping just before reaching it for a half hour for our picnic lunch. Formerly it was a military camp, du Tournairet; and there were some interesting things there to see.

20th c. pillbox glued to corner of older stone barracks
(note relief of caisson on granite stone)

Less than an hour later we were at the Col d’Andrion, and beginning to wonder just why so many cols were needed on this stage of our walk. A “col,” to answers.com, is a “pass between two mountain peaks or a gap in a ridge. [French, from Old French, neck, from Latin collum.]” Problem today is, we’re walking on pretty even terrain for a number of kilometers, along a ridge; cols and collets come thick and fast.

From the military camp we walked along a paved road for D332 again, for quite a while; then turned into forest again to drop to yet another gap, theCol des Fournès, and then an hour lager the Col de Grateloup — “scratch-the wolf”: where do the French get these names, anyway?

We know there was a dramatic turn or two yet to come: first, the Brèche du Brec, the “breach of the Brec,” the Brec being a major upthrust on the ridge running southerly toward Utelle. The terrain now was unforgingly Provençal, southern, dry, almost arid. One guidebook, Walking Europe from Top to Bottom, even warned against venemous snakes, and in fact we did see a viper or two on the trail.

The pass itself was remarkable, one of the truly memorable events of the entire five-week walk: at a couple of points cables assisted, handrail-wise, in getting past spots that may have fallen away. A sudden climb took us to a thumb of rock from which we looked down onto the plateau town of Utelle, a sort of island of stone placed at the meeting-point of five or six distinct valle¥s leading away like spokes on a wheel. Some of these valleys lead in turn to important mountain passes: this must have been strategic territory for millenia.

The descent from the Brèche was fairly steep: seven hundred meters in six kilometers or so, down dry and loose terrain though on well-defined trails. By now one of us was limping, walking very carefully. I asked Henry to go on ahead: it was getting late, and I was afraid the hotel restaurant would be closed before we got there. I knew, too, that at seven o’clock much commerce would be finished for the day.

Mac and I arrived at the hotel about 7:30, surprised to find that it was empty. It was in fact not a hotel at all but a vacation apartment building, renting out complete apartments, with kitchens and all, by the week. We’d get an apartment for the week, but there was no restaurant, and there was nothing in town. My 1985 French encyclopedia tells me the population of Utelle is 398; Wikipedia raises that figure (as of 1999) to 488. Clearly the city could house more, though probably not support them.
The hotel guy, or apartment super, or whatever he was, rustled up some food for us: three orders of salmon steak; three rissoles (molded rice side dishes); three crèmes caramels; a bottle or two of rosé. There was a microwave oven in our kitchen, so we made do. There was also a balcony looking out toward the south, toward Nice. We relaxed after our showers and dinner, talking about the walk, making plans for Nice, a day or two away.

Distance walked, day 37: ca. 29 kilometers (18 miles) • Time: 10:30 • dénivelement: ca. 2580 meters (8465 feet)

32: Vacherie de Roure to St.-Dalmas-Valdeblore

2008-10-16T14:23:00.001-07:00

Day 35: July 24, 2008 (walkday 31)

Up early this morning, six o’clock, and out to look at the morning. As I wrote some years ago:

Already in my shorts, I rise
To verify the morning skies

(though in fact I did not, do not, sleep in underwear, not that you care).

The morning was delicious: pink light on the distant Mont Démant; cows coming in to be milked at the vacherie. I had time to look at today’s étape in the guidebook: it will be a long day, taking us to the lowest elevation we’ll have seen since we left Lake Geneva. At seven, the usual breakfast: bread, butter, café au lait, with nice homemade jam at this refuge.

Then, a few minutes past eight, out into the day, another clear one promising warm weather. We walked down the Longon valley, continuing the pleasant walk that had ended yesterday’s stage. We passed the ruins of the vacherie that had preceded last night’s refuge: it had been destroyed by an avalanche, a reminder that these peaceful pastures have a very different personality in winter.

In an hour we’d dropped 400 meters and arrived at Rouglos, where a trough suggested we take a break, and a roofless refuge made me think again of the weight of accumulated snows. Then it was

on again down a country road, practicising our French R’s with Rrrrourrre and Rrrouglos. We were traversing for the most part, crossing little streams from time to time, walking through the Fracha forest, ultimately reaching the paved road D130, banked with red stone, skirting an arboretum I wished we’d had time to visit, down toward the village of Roure, a pretty town improbably holding a steep hillside.

GR5 became a footpath skirting houses and walled gardens, often with lavender, figs, and fruit trees reminding us that we were considerably lower: Roure is at 1100 meters. We peeked into a small chapel,

then continued into town looking for a café, finding it, enjoying a pot of tea.
And then it was time for a serious descent, down 600 meters in an hour and a half to the banks of the Tinée, where a real restaurant provided a lunch stop across the street from a handsome old building, formerly the fish-hatchery, now converted to some other use...

photo: Mac Marshall

Leaving St.-Sauveur-sur-Tinée we took one of our false turns and had to retrace a kilometer or so along the paved road, finally finding a GR5 blaze just a few meters from the restaurant where we’d lunched. From there it was a climb, and I found myself often confused by the terrain, the direction, even the light. After all those days in the mountains we were now walking in quite different country, and the local economy was clearly different; herding and farming had given way to some kind of urban-based economy; houses were more frequent but apparently either for weekend and vacation leisure use or shelter from a commute-enabled occupation in town.

There was Rimplas, for example, where we stopped for a mineral water on the terrace of the town grocery-cum-café. Another hill town, rather like an Italian hill town in Liguria, say, Rimplas seemed utterly deserted on this warm late afternoon. We saw a few old people, people my age I mean; no children, no workers.

We took to the trail again, descending gently now to the hamlet of La Bolline, and then walked rather a disagreeable stretch, often alongside paved roads, through what seemed to be suburbs of Saint-Dalmas-Valdeblore. On and on the road took us, past fenced-off yards surrounding vacation homes and condos, until finally we came to the old village itself, considerably higher than the newer one down in the valley.

A fine old romanesque church from the 11th century stood at the upper end of town, close to our gîte d’étape, “Les Marmottes” — that and Les Glaciers were the names of perhaps a quarter of the places we’ve slept in this last five weeks.
Here, since we're nearing Nice, we were served a good dinner, good and somewhat nissard: a cheese feuilleté, a salt-water fish called colin unfamiliar to me, white rice with pistou, and a green salad. We had a room to ourselves here, shower and toilet down the hall, and slept well.

Distance walked, day 35: ca. 27 kilometers (17 miles) • Time: 10:30 • dénivelement: ca. 2750 meters (9040 feet)

31: Roya to Vacherie de Roure

2008-10-14T14:23:00.001-07:00

Day 34: July 23, 2008 (walkday 30)

Today’s walk was an easy one: 13 miles in about nine hours, with about a mile of dénivelement, elevation change, over two cols. And it was a glorious one: clear, breezy weather, endless vistas, changes of terrain. But psychologically it was difficult: we’re near the end of our Long Walk, and a little regret is setting in; I’d like this to go on forever.

We said goodbye to our Montréal-run gîte d’étape after the usual breakfast and set out a little past eight o’clock, down a park-like river valley, past stone cabins and ruins, soon entering the Mercantour national park without really realizing it. The trail was rising, almost imperceptibly at first, past limestone cliffs with here and there a waterfall.

My guidebook suggested it would be four hours from Roya to our first high col, but we took five and a half. The Saillevieille valley was warm and pleasant, with warm flat stones here and there to rest on,

Mac and me, resting

but at the southern end of the valley the trail began to climb more steadily, the terrain grew rockier, the air more fragrant of sheep, goats, and donkeys,

contrasting with odd miniature alpine rock-gardens growing apparently of their own volition.

We climbed up a scree bank by a series of lacets, heading east now toward the ridge, where we rested and admired the view while Henry scampered up to the right to try for a glimpse of the Mediterranean. The view was extensive, but he was disappointed; I think it cannot yet be seen from this height and distance,

From here it was an hour’s work to descend to a replat, a natural terrace on the shoulder, and then climb again, this time to a more definitive col, de Crousette, marked curiously by a broken Roman marble column dedicated to the memory of Lt. Vallette-Viallard, who died here in January 1938, if I read the inscription accurately.

Henry at the stele

The view from this col was extraordinary; remembering that my little Panasonic camera can take movies of a sort, I took a shaky panorama of 360° — but again we were disappointed not to see the Mediterranean, now only three or four days distant.

Had we time we could have taken an hour’s side trip and climbed to the last nearby high Alp, Mt. Mounier, 2817 meters (9250 feet); from there, our guidebook promised we would see the Mediterranean on a clear day, even Corsica. Next time I’m by I’ll certainly do it. We pressed on, though; walking southeasterly on the ridge, then dropping precipitously by the familiar hairpins to reach the much lower Col de Moulinès by three o’clock.

Now we descended further, heading east, the town of Vignols below us in its valley, on the south. It looked as if we should be headed there, but soon we turned north to cross the Démant torrent, then east and northeast, always admiring the Démant gorge with its fantastic rock formations but at the last minute obviously headed for a narrow defile, truly a portal, the Portes de Longon, which opens into the “hanging valley” of Longon.

At the foot of a steep ascent into those Portes a big, old, serious white dog awaited us, eyed us, then turned and slowly, quietly walked on ahead of us. Mac, who has an eye for flora, fauna, and classifications, knew instantly that this was a Great Pyrenees; this made me wonder if the dogs we’d seen earlier might not have been Pyrenees rather than Tatra as I’d thought.

Well, they’re both big; they’re both white; they both guard sheep for a living. The Pyreness seems more appropriate to these southern Alps, it seems to me.

In any case he led us on the remaining two or three kilometets to our refuge, the Vacherie (cowshed) de Roure, and it turned out to be very pleasant indeed, with a nearly empty dortoir, a donkey to admire, picnic tables in the slowly departing afternoon, a delicious vegetable soup, eggplant in rice, and ham with pineapple.

Distance walked, day 34: ca. 21 kilometers (13 miles) • Time: 9 hours • dénivelement: ca. 1600 meters (5250 feet, or one mile)

30: St.-Dalmas-le-Selvage to Roya

2008-10-09T22:16:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 33: July 22, 2008

We left St.-Dalmas, a town I liked a lot, at eight in the morning, after a nice breakfast. passing its old church, crossing the Jalorgues, and climbing easily up a dirt road past pastures and in and out of forest, often turning around to admire St.-Dalmas as it receded from view.

In a little over an hour we arrived at the Col d'Anelle, having climbed only 250 meters or so: but soon we could look down at St.-Étienne-de-Tinée, a good-sized town where we'd originally thought we'd be staying the night. It took an hour and a half to descend to the town across scree and through brush. Both terrain and flora had definitely changed in the last few days; we were well and truly in Provence: wild lavender grew alongside the path, and I stuck sprigs in my hat to try to discourage gnats.

The descent to St.-Étienne took longer we'd thought, down a number of lacets — hairpins — on loose scree but through brushy country fragrant with roses, lavender, and, now, thyme and oregano; then along a fairly long traverse, losing altitude very gradually. The trail began to skirt houses clearly attached to the town, not farmsteads; then it became a footpath along walled gardens. Fig trees occasionally thrust branches over the walls, but we didn’t find any ripe fruit.

The lacets on the way to St.-Étienne: it's about a mile and a quarter as the crow flies from the upper left to the pond, lower right, and 550 meters down
(from Google Earth: hope they don't mind)

For some time we’d seen helicopters circling overhead: not surprising; the Tour de France was due to ride through town about five o’clock, and the advance press was there, working with the advance support. Nor were we surprised to see barricades at various intersections; vehicular traffic was being held up, or re-routed, to ready the Tour. But there was a much heavier component of security of various kinds than might usually be the case, because the President of the Republic was due to arrive any minute; he was delivering an important speech at two o’clock.
A friendly cop pointed out our best route into the center of town, and there in the market square was an incredible bustle of people — added to the usual mix of housewives, grandmothers, old men, and kids, a very large number of businessmen not normally seen at the market, all in dark suits, white shirts, neckties, and dark glasses, many with various decorations in their lapels. Clearly they were Important, and had to attend the President’s appearance somehow; I imagined it mustn’t have been much different at court, in the days of the Sun King, except for the business suits, of course.

(photo: Mac Marshall)

Well: it was about eleven o’clock in the morning. We scattered to do our errands: bread, fruit, sausage, a bottle of mineral water for me, as my favorite brand had begun to appear in the stores. And then we got out of town. I don’t know what Henry and Mac thought, but the crowds and the noise were too much for me. I hadn’t realized how much we’d been removed, these last four weeks, from humanity in such concentration.

(photo: Mac Marshall)

We walked along the “highway” for a couple hundred meters — D39, a “Départementale” road, equivalent to a minor state road here; only two lanes, but with striped-off bicycle lanes: convenient, since a number of amateur cyclists were on the road preparing in some way for the Tour. Then we turned off, climbing a set of steps to a very steep forest path, then up more hairpins until we’d climbed 500 meters to reach Auron, a good-sized town at 1600 meters. In fact we climbed considerably above it, dropping down from a forested ridge three or four hundred feet above, and then had to walk down a disagreeable asphalt road, past garbage bins and recycle centers, to what turned out to be not a village, as I’d thought for some reason, but a ski resort.

(photo: Mac Marshall)

I’d hoped for a hotel here: it was two o’clock. But there wasn’t a hotel, not one we could afford in any case. We stopped for a pot of tea, but the one café we found open was brusque and unpleasant. These ski resorts may be fun in season, but they’re not very welcoming in summer. We followed one lead after another in search of an internet connection, finally finding one in a hotel a little off-center from the town (and definitely off the GR5); here some of us found e-mail, and I left my glasses behind, had to go back, never found them, was giving up in despair, and then — at Henry’s suggestion — checked my pocket: there they were.
By now it was after three o’clock, and we still had to climb four hundred meters to the Col du Blainon. At first we were walking up through a ski-piste, under the ski-lift; then a long traverse; then the familiiar lacets to the pass, at 2000 meters, a little before five o’clock in the late afternoon.

Our guidebook suggested it would be an hour from there to Roya, where we’d spend the night: but it took us forty minutes longer than that, chiefly because of the steep scree descent. We walked through plenty of flowered pastures, and past curiously pocketed rock-faces, often offering shallow caves that might be handy in a rainstorm. Roya turned out to be not much of a town, but there was a nice gîte d’étape, its shutters painted that flybane blue so popular in Provence. Our dinner was Provençal, too: after a potato-pea soup, a boeuf daube with pasta, really nicely cooked. The management was not Provençal; they were from Montréal: but they know what they’re doing.

Distance walked, day 33: ca. 26 kilometers (16 miles) • Time: 10 hours • dénivelement: ca. 2900 meters (9500 feet)

Additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

all photos cs except as as noted

29: Larche to Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage

2008-10-01T14:02:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 32: July 21, 2008

A SPECIAL MORNING: I opened the last of the four volumes of my topographical guides for The Long Walk: we were leaning into the end of the trip. We left our dubious gîte in Larche at 7:30, walking a country road along the Ubayette,

and reached our first waypoint, Pont Rouge, in an hour or so, resting there for fifteen minutes. This was a trailhead parking lot, and there were a few cars already parked there: at this point you enter the Mercantour national park and its natural-reserve Lauzanier valley.

I've read that there is some concern about disappearing species of wildflowers even here, thanks to the traditional transhumance which encourages flocks of sheep and herds of dairy-cows to browse these meadows in the high summer: but we saw plenty of wildflowers everywhere; we were told this was a special year for them, thanks to heavy May rains.

There were also marmots everywhere. I was grateful for the country road we continued to follow; walking the grassy meadow among all those marmot-holes could have been treacherous. Before long the road narrowed to a footpath leading through occasional rockslides toward the end of the valley.

I looked back toward the north to see Mac toiling up the loose rock, his blistered left foot troubling him; then stepped over a slight rise, too low to be called a col, and there ahead was the true end of the valley, the marvelous Lac du Lauzanier.

Here we had a little company, two or three clusters of day-hikers and one campsite. But it was utterly quiet, the surrounding amphitheater of rocks and mountains enforcing a pristine silence in the high thin air; even the marmots had stopped their whistling. Eleven o'clock: we rested ten minutes, then continued, skirting another, green lake, climbing over loose scree, past occasional patches of snow, up to the Pas de la Cavale, at 2671 meters (8760 feet) the third highest col of our entire walk.

Down, down, ahead of us, was a new landscape, dotted with perfectly round pools of various shades of blue and green. We heard bells, and I'd been smelling sheep for some time; we were certain they were ahead of us somewhere. (Maybe tonight I would finally have some lamb chops!) We spent nearly half an hour at the col, resting and picnicking and admiring the view.

Then it was time to descend by quite steep hairpins. We were thankful there was no wind: our topo-guide warned us of blowing stones during times of heavy wind.

The path occasionally followed narrow shelves between cliff and drop, with plenty of loose stone and scree underfoot; then suddenly we were met by a tired old white dog, and he accompanied us to a rise above an enormous flock of sheep.

We skirted the flock, taking care not to upset the other, more professional dogs — ours seemed to be a pensionnaire — and continued, crossing the Tour ravine (and, on stones, the Tour torrent itself), and then climbing up to the Col des Fourches. Here, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we looked back at the country we'd traveled,

with its many streams draining the cols and summits, cutting the ravines and dumping the stones we'd been contending with. Looking forward, we were surprised to find the paved road, D64; I suddenly realized this country looked familiar because we'd driven that road, the Bonette Pass road from Nice to Barcelonnette, many years ago.

There below us was a scattering of ruined stone cottages, military buildings no doubt; and various sorts of recreational vehicles were beginning to park among them, for the Tour de France was to bicycle through here tomorrow or the next day, and bike-race fans were already staking out their places. This, of course, was the problem we'd been running into concerning hotels and gîtes: from all over Europe, fans were coming here to the Ubaye to watch the race. We walked on down a quite steep trail, cutting across the hairpin lacets of D64, to the town of Bousiéyas: maybe there'd be a last-minute cancellation there.

There wasn't. We had a pot of tea and rested up a bit while waiting for another American, one of the very few we'd seen on GR5, to find a bed for himself: no luck. Now we had two options: stay on GR5, climbing 350 meters (1100 feet) to the Col de la Colombière, only to drop back down the other side to St.-Dalmas-le-Selvage, or walk around the oddly named Tête de Vinaigre on D64. GR5 would be about ten kilometers and the 700 meters of dénivelément; D64 would be twice the distance but constantly descending.

I hate walking on asphalt and wanted to see the pass; Mac's feet were killing him. We tossed a coin; he won. I insisted we hitchhike, though, and before we'd walked a kilometer a nice lady pulled over to give us a ride. It turned out she ran the B&B in Bousiéyas and no, she had no beds that night: everything had been booked up weeks ago. We had a nice conversation; she told me that her husband had seen a wolf a week or so earlier, down by the torrent; wolves were becoming increasingly common, and the shepherds weren't happy about it — this explains the move from border collies to Tatras, an all-white mastiff, much bigger and I think less nervous than the collie.

She dropped us at the side road leading up three kilometers to St. Dalmas, which turned out to be a very welcoming, picturesque village, much nicer than those that had disappointed me in the Arc valley. We stopped at the tourist office just before it closed, at six o'clock, and found a room easily enough — St.-Dalmas is not on the tour de France route — and discovered there was a fête de danse in the village square, where three musicians worked hurdy-gurdies, a violin, and an accordion, and explained how to perform various ancient villager dances.

What a difference between Larche and St.-Dalmas!

photo: Mac Marshall

"The northernmost village in Alpes-Maritimes", it has a Romanesque 12th-century church, a cluster of stone houses, hollyhocks and geraniums, quite a good restaurant, wonderful sudden detailed views — we were lucky to have arrived early, thanks to our hitchhiking, and have time to explore. I did not have lamb chops: I ate maigret de canard and cote de porc. But Mac had lamb shank, the last one from the kitchen, and said it was the best restaurant of the walk.

Distance walked, day 32: ca. 24 kilometers (15 miles) • Time: 10 hours • dénivelement: ca. 3250 meters (10,660 feet)

Additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

all photos cs except as as noted

28: Fouillouse to Larche

2008-09-29T22:53:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 31: July 20, 2008

Breakfast a little after seven; out the door at eight, on an overcast but warm morning. Fouillouse wasn't much of a town, and we didn't linger.

I admired the doorways, many painted alarming indigos and deep violets; and the statuary, odd knicknacks in improbable settings, and a charming little St. Mary in a wayside shrine not much bigger than a postbox; and then we hit the road past the chapel out of town.

In twenty minutes we were well away from civilization; it was raining; we put on our raingear and covered our packs. The track took us up a fairly broad valley, southeasterly, larch forest and open pastures alternating, just as did sunshine and shadow.

We climbed steadily, easily, as the valley broadened and left the forest behind, climbing above them; in a little over two hours we were at the first col of the day, the col du Vallonet, unremarkable;

and then, past the crusty Rocher Piroulire, we began climbing again, past the imposing ruins of the Laraquements de Viraysse, part of the fortifications erected after World War I. Henry and I investigate these ruins, going inside the gate and into the parade ground.

One building retains its roof; in really bad weather one could easily ride out a storm here.

Otherwise the buildings were crumbling back into the rock from which they'd originally risen; a familiar air of futility presides over these ruined fortifications, as useless as the wars they so ineffectively guard against.

From here we climbed harder, up hairpins, to the col de Mallemort, at 2550 meters the high point of the day; and then we dropped into a valley bigger than we'd originally though, the village of Larche far below us. It began to rain again; I was glad I had my umbrella.

photo: Henry Shere

It rained as we entered town, and not knowing where our gîte was we ducked into the first bar we came to. It turned out to be next door, of course, across a little bridge, and we checked in early, into the least promising-looking stop of our entire trip so far.

Larche was completely destroyed during World War II, and its rebuilding has been more pragmatic than attractive. It stands on an important pass leading to Piemonte, toward Cuneo; one of these days I'll have to explore this area further. For the present we were content with a visit to the Bureau de Tourisme, where the lone attendant, laconic and probably bored, sat in the dark, "conserving electricity" as he pointed out when I commented on it, assured us that we'd have trouble finding accommodations down the road.

Distance walked, day 31: ca. 20 kilometers (12 miles) • Time: 6 hours • dénivelement: ca. 1900 meters (6200 feet)

Additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

all photos cs except as as noted

27: Ceillac to Fouillouse

2008-09-26T22:00:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 30: July 19, 2008

THANKS TO FULLY BOOKED hotels, confusion over too much advice, irresoluteness and my own carelessness, this was a hard and a shameful day. But a beautiful one.

"The Germans": Dagmar and Andre Jankwitz, Thomas Greff, Irmtraub Marstaller-Greff (photo: Mac Marshall) Henry, CS, Mac (photo: one of "The Germans"

It began at 8:20, when we left last night's gîte together with our German friends, walking through town, past a grassy recreation field, and then hitting the road and trail toward the col Girardin, at 2700 meters (8850 feet) the second highest point on our entire trip.

In a couple of hours we arrived at the lac des Prés-Sobeyrand (lac Miroir), where we stopped for fifteen minutes' rest. I was increasingly mindful of our Austrian friend's advice: five minutes rest every hour, an hour's rest every day: but mindful is not actual; the terrain and the weather have a lot to do with it. I was surprised to see two or three pop-tents here: bivouackers were making a late morning of it — but then I recalled we'd walked out of the Parc National Queyras the day before; perhaps camping was, if not exactly legal, at least not illegal here.

In another hour we came to the Chapelle Ste.-Anne at an even more impressive lake, crowded with day-hikers (this being a Saturday): we ate our picnic lunch among them, then left just as the Germans arrived — we had actually passed them on the trail somewhere!

It was a tedious climb from here up to the col Girardin: I slow down when I get above 8000 feet. As nearly every day, when climbing steadily, I was annoyed by mentally hearing obsessive silly tunes, always diatonic, always in duple rhythm: today's was

and so on…

Alll you can do is put up with it; after a while something, stray conversation usually, drives it away.

We reached the col a little before one in the afternoon. As well as the second-highest of our entire walk, this was a politically meaningful moment: we were leaving the département of Hautes-Alpes and stepping, finally, into the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence: we were in Provence!, But we didn't linger: we had a lot of territory to cover, and I was still uncertain about the night's lodging — the Belgian had reserved a place at St.-Paul-sur-Ubaye; the tourist bureau lady in Arvieux has reserved one at Fouillouse (I used Mac's name for that one, translating into French — "Maréchal" — for the sake of simplicity and to eliminate confusion).
A number of lacets— hairpins — across a suprising pré, pasturage-field, full of flowers; and then a footpath along a new torrent, the Séchoirs; then a surprising large rock covered with inscriptions, some in the elegant hands of the 19th century, others in more recent scrawls.

I particularly liked one ancient graffito in beautiful majuscules: Folle brébis qui se confesse au loup (foolish the ewe who confesses to the wolf). We rested: then down, down, and down. At 2:45, we were down nearly nine hundred meters from the col.

By 4:40, we had entered the village of Grande Serenne, where some tables and chairs on a terasse invited us to tea, conversation, and a rest for forty minutes, knowing we weren't that far from St.-Paul-sur-Ubaye, where I expected a night's lodging above the town épicerie. And on, afterward, through Petite Serenne, and down a few kilometers of asphalt départemental road to St. Paul and its gîte, where a sign on the door said complet. I told the grocer we had reservations: Ah, en ce cas, montez, montez!
We toiled up the staircase and gave our names, all of our names; but none of our names was inscribed. We had no reservation. There was nothing to be done.
We went back downstairs and had a beer on the sidewalk, though there was no sidewalk, and considered the possibilities. We could take a taxi to the next town, Fouillouse, where there might be a room; but there was no taxi in this town. I phoned Fouillouse: Ah, mussieu Maréchal, on vous attend; a room is waiting for us, dinner too, but how to get there?
A boy in the grocery suggested looking among the notices posted on the door of the mairie to see if there might be a taxi service, so I walked into the town. No taxi notice. I saw three or four men just finishing a game of boules alongside the mairie, and did not hesitate to approach them:
Excuse me, gentlemen, I am walking the GR5 with my grandson and a friend, my friend can't walk another step, he is lame and my grandson not too well; do any of you know anyone who might be willing to drive us to Fouillouse?
They looked at one another doubtfully and discussed the situation. I did not listen. Then one fellow, the largest of the four, said he'd be glad to give us a lift if he had room in his little car.

We drove downhill to the épicerie, picked up Mac and Henry (miraculously restored to good health), and drove across the stunning Pont du Châtelet, above the gorge, to Fouillouse. He turned out to have both a sense of humor and a Jeep Cherokee, He seemed eager to converse with us Californiens, telling us that he lived half the year in Petite Serenne where he was born; that his mother had recently died and yes that was her house, the mansion-like house we'd noticed was for sale; that no, we couldn't give him anything to thank him for the ride, not even buy him a glass of wine; and, finally, just as we drove up to our hotel, that his name was Lafayette.

Ah, well, mussieu Lafayette, I said cleverly, we are here. And we just had time to thank him, climb down out of his Cherokee, assure the anxious Madame in the hotel that we had fiinally arrived, and clean up, before sitting down to yet another chicken dinner.

Estimates of distances and denivelement are even more difficult than usual for this day, as you can imagine:

Distance walked, day 30: ca. 26 kilometers (16 miles) • Time: 9 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2450 meters (8000 feet)

Additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

all photos cs except as as noted

26: la Chalp to Ceillac

2008-09-26T11:15:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 29: July 18, 2008

Breakfast was decent, but I was troubled: there was something a little odd about this gîte, or perhaps the guy who ran it, a Belgian; I never quite understood either what he was saying or why he was saying it; and besides I knew, we all three knew that today and tomorrow would be long hard days, with lots of climbs and very little by way of refreshment possibilities. And I was nervous about finding beds. Mid-July is as bad now as August used to be; there are lots of people on the trails and in the gîtes d'étape and the refuges; and we'd heard, yesterday, that there would be no place for us at Fouillouse, the logical stop tomorrow night. What to do? Ask for help at the tourist bureau in Arvieux, only a kilometer or so down the road, but off our GR5.

So, leaving la Chalp about quarter past eight, we got to Arvieux in fifteen minutes, and the tourist office was not yet open. We killed a little time at the 16th-c. St. Laurent church, whose tower pleased me for its similarity to the one in Chiomonte, with its four "ears", and whose churchyard contained curiously fenced-off graves looking for all the world like little rustic beds,

and whose interior was quite attractively painted,

photo: Henry Shere

and whose portal was suitably Romanesque; and then we went to the tourist bureau whose madame told me rather brusquely that of course while the Fouillouse refuge was fully booked tomorrow night there would be no trouble getting a room in the refuge in St. Paul, only a little off GR5 before coming to Fouillouse; she made the telephone call; our Belgian had already booked the last three beds for tonight in Ceillac, so now, we thought, we had no worries.

At 9:45 we finally left Arvieux and took a road leading by hairpins up the flank of La Muande easterly, marveling at the wild rosebushes and saddened by the tractor-mounted mowing machine that threatened them as it clipped the shoulders of the road, why one wondered, only to cut down the flowers.

And then we were in a most interesting hamlet, Les Maisons, where a twice-weekly delivery truck was just supplying the three or four households with bread, and where we sat for a rest on a bench,

Resident; Mac; Henry: Les Maisons

and admired a very curious, inexpensively built church-tower. And then off again on a pleasant traverse to a glacial lake, the Lac de Roue;

and through pleasantly forested country, still fairly flat, until, at what seemed to be another picnic-ground park, we suddenly were made to descend very sharply indeed down four hundred meters or so to the gorge of the Guil, above which the départemental D947 wends a tortuous two-lane route on which we found traffic to be not only stopped but actually backing away from our proposed rest stop at Château-Queyras, with its famous fortification. By now it was exactly noon, tea-time; but the first place we came to wasn't much more than a convenience store with a picnic table outside, right next to the main road which by now was humming again with traffic.

Fort Queyras above the lumber yard

We walked down the steep street to the old town down by the river, looking for another tourist bureau for another attempt at a bed in Fouillouse tomorrow night, but found no useful information — in fact, we were sent in the wrong direction to rejoin our GR5, and lost twenty minutes or so walking an uninteresting paved road.
Finally we found our trail, though, at a bridge crossing the Guil, a narrow fast stream at this point, and we began a laborious climb up a thousand meters in ten kilometers to the oddly named col Fromage. That sounds hard, and it was, a little; but the afternoon was softened by the marvelous display of wildflowers. Much of the time we were waking alongside the torrent Bramousse, through fields not really all that steep; the afternoon was warm and pleasant, and we took languid rests to admire it all.

By five o'clock we finally reached the Col Fromage, 2300 meters (7500 feet), and had only — only! — to descend 700 meters in a little over an hour, to the town of Ceillac, our four German friends, the Gîte Balladin (nearly full: we'd been lucky to get accommodations), and, across the street, a real bar where I could get a real Martini, it being Friday evening.
I had to teach the bargirl how to make it, of course: No, not Martini Red, a gin Martini. She found a cocktail shaker somewhere, put an ice cube in it…
Wrong already. I had her put several more cubes in, and then the gin, no, twice that much at least; and then the vermouth, no, not red, sec, white: and now shake it fifty-six times. Cinquante-six, mussieu? Bien sûr: let me show you: and I shook the thing fifty-six times, and forbore to ask for olives not knowing what might happen. It was my first Martini in a month, and it was good enough.

photo: Mac Marshall

Back to the gîte, then, for a convivial glass with our German friends, and then dinner, and an early night to bed.

Distance walked, day 29: ca. 24 kilometers (15 miles) • Time: 8-1/2 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2700 meters (7800 feet)
all photos cs except as as noted

25: Villard-St.-Pancrace to la Chalp

2008-09-24T10:59:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 28: July 17, 2008

NO CROISSANT AT BREAKFAST in this gîte! We're in a suburb, buildings set just a little too far apart, hardly any commercial buildings, no bakery to be seen.

We all set out at about half-past eight, Hans and Henny, the Germans, and us; but we lost our way, not finding any balisage (blazes marking the route) and unwilling to trust the map. This cost us half an hour as we actually walked a large circle retracing yesterday's final twenty minutes, and finally we had to trust the map and walked on southeasterly out of town up the Ayes valley.

photo: Mac Marshall

Soon enough we encountered balisage, just where I'd thought it should be, and began the familiar daily walk: forest footpath; unpaved road; alpages; then the higher country toward a pass. An hour up the trek we came to a surprise, a country house hidden away among the trees, but GR5 turned away from it, respecting its privacy, continuing toward the Chalets des Ayes.

Hans & Henny Both, CS, Henry Shere (photo: Mac Marshall)

Here there was a buvette, and at the buvette we found Hans and Henny, and joined them in a pot of tea for half an hour or so; then continued on in forestr and field.

We'd already climbed five hundred meters, but had a harder seven hundred to ascend, first through relatively bucolic country toward the Chalets de Vers le Col, with herds of milk-cows sometimes following, sometimes leading us (but more often stoutly ignoring us). These chalets are in fact used; this being summertime, school-age children seem to be here with their berger fathers and bergeresse mothers, a promising sign…

The last climb to the Col des Ayes was harder, across scree much of the time. At 2477 meters we were well above 8000 feet, where I begin to slow down when toiling uphill; and at the top Henry used my camera to catch me taking a five-minute snooze, first time I'd done that on the trip. (Last time, too.)

Though it's not the highest pass of the walk, even of this southern end of the walk, this pass seemed somehow definitive. We looked southeasterly across ridges and valleys to come, toward Mt. Viso in the distance, on the Italian border, and the country seemed drier, warmer. There was little snow on that border, though there was still a patch here. I had read somewhere that Briançon with its fountains, geraniums and pastel-colored buildings qualifies as the northernmost Provençal city (and, after Davos which is really only a resort, the highest city in Europe); here at the Col des Ayes I really felt I'd entered Provence, though at an improbably high elevation! But I hadn't; we were still in the d´partement of Haut-Alpes; innkeepers and shopkeepers would continue to dispute the Provençality of Briançon as I continued to investigate the matter: Briançon? Barcelonette? Perhaps not really until Gap?
In any case what we were entering was another National Park, the Queyras, and after our snooze and a half-hour for our picnic lunch we started out, at two in the afternoon, downhill, in some cases alarmingly downhill.

There below us, for example, was what seemed an enormous lawn— pelouse is the French word for both :lawn: and "(grassy) prairie." And alongside it a pond; and beyond it, as it turned out, cliffs which served as practise-fields for apprentice rock-climbers.

By half-past three we were in the town of Brunissard, where we stopped for another pot of tea; and then we strolled further down the road (D902) to the smaller hamlet la Chalp, where we'd reserved a bed for the night at the Chalet Viso, right on the GR5, a hundred yards off the road.

photo: Mac Marshall

This seemed a particularly comfortable gîte d'étape, probably cozier in winter than in summer with its fireplace and casual lounging furniture; and we liked the dinner, which seemed contrived to define the terroir through which our long walk was taking us, though in reverse direction: a "Niçoise" salad (so billed, but compromised, I think, by kernels of frozen corn), grilled chicken, and potatoes Dauphinois, with peach tart for dessert. (By the way, I've listed the menu of every night of the Long Walk on The Eastside View.)

Distance walked, day 28: ca. 22 kilometers (14 miles) • Time: 8 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2300 meters (7500 feet)
all photos cs except as as noted

24: Briançon to Villard-St.-Pancrace

2008-09-23T13:30:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 27: July 16, 2008

The Hotel de la Paix is comfortable enough but very old-fashioned, with nice staircases leading to our top-floor "suite" — for two adjacent rooms had been combined for us, giving us our own bath. But I dreamed oddly: books scattered about on a glass floor; a missing author; tools lying about, my grandfather stern; a great wooden chest — for the books, or the tools?

We spent the morning investigating the old city of Briançon, shopping a bit — one doesn't shop much when one carries all one's purchases! — and having a nice lunch at the Restaurant La Passage. Yesterday had been a hard day — seventeen miles in ten hours, and nearly nine thousand feet of up and down! So today would be almost a rest day, our last before Nice: we would walk only two hours today.

photo: Henry Shere

We filled our canteens at one of the fountains and walked down, out of the old city throuth the porte d'Embrun, down to the broad Avenue de la République, and then along a footpath to the remarkable Parc la Schappe, with its esplanade, pond, and lawns; a very nice retreat on a warm sunny day like today.

But we didn't linger: we walked past a former paper mill now being turned into an exhibition space and along suburban streets to the hamlet of Pont de Cervières.

We were halfway to our destination as the crow flies, but the GR5 took us instead on a footpath among scattered trees, often along a charming irrigation canal, hardly more than a gutter, with a few frogs here and there.

This led to a forest road along and above the left bank of the Cerveyrette. we climbed almost two hundred meters, then turned nearly 180 degrees to descend westerly toward Villard-Saint-Pancrace, where, at 4:15, we checked in at Le Bois de Barracan, rather a nice gite d'etape where we found Hans and Henny, our Dutch friends.

photo: Mac Marshall

Here too we met two German couples — close friends who have rambled together on many paths, one a landscape architect and gardener, the other two physicians. When I described the curious burning sensation I'd felt for weeks on my left thigh, placing my hand on the exact spot, "Ah yes, the quadriceps fascia, used only for walking down hills," he said, explaining a good deal.
There was nothing to do in Villard-St.-Pancrace, nothing but relax, study the guidebooks, and talk. Tomorrow would be a tough climb, two thousand meters; and then we'd have a couple of really hard days: it felt good to relax in the sun.

Distance walked, day 27: ca. 6 kilometers (4 miles) • Time: 2 hours • dénivelément: ca. 400 meters (1300 feet)

all photos cs except as as noted

23: Plampinet to Briançon

2008-09-22T19:01:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 26: July 15, 2008

Today was going to be a long day: we could stop in Montgenevre, I've stayed there before, but that would leave a very short walk next day to Briançon, and I wanted Mac and Henry to spend the night there — it's such an unusual place, pretty and unusual; and to my mind it signalled the three-quarter stop, after which our walk would definitely be winding down.

We left the hotel about 8:30. Madame had forgotten I'd asked for bag lunches, and when I asked if there were épiceries en route she clearly remembered, stepped back into the hotel, and came back out again with three apples and three peaches: no time to make sandwiches.

We left Plampinet behind us, taking a gravel military road that climbed steadily, up a number of lacets or hairpins, vertical rock to our left, considerable drop into a deep gorge to the right.

At one point we stopped: Henry wanted to explore a tunnel that seemed to lead back into the mountain below the road. It turned out to be merely a culvert, but an impressive one, with names engraved by the soldiers who'd built it in 1908 — exactly a century ago! — and, predictably, scrawled cartes de visite from more recent explorers.

photo: Mac Marshall

photo: Henry Shere

While we waited for Henry, the Primhaks arrived -- the couple from Sheffield we'd met back at Mont Thabor and dined with last night in Plampinet. Rob joined Henry in the culvert; Bev good-naturedly indulged him; and we continued on up the road, stopping to eat our peaches at the chalets des Acles.

These chalets are maintained, apparently, by and for the shepherds who manage the transhumance, the annual summertime herding of cattle and sheep through these lush pastures. This has gone on for centuries and seems to do the ecology no harm, though there are those who complain certain species of wildflower are in decline. The chalets range from out-and-out ruins, with collapsed or missing roofs and sometimes walls crumbled away, to quite tidy homesteads that look to me to be viable year 'round — though of course I haven't been here in the dead of winter.
In another two hours, just at noon, we arrived at the col de Dormillouse, a thousand meters above Plampinet.. Mac had got there first and was grinning in anticipation, standing with a pleasant-looking couple who greeted me in Dutch.

Henny Both, CS, Hans Bothe. Note white & red balisage on post (photo: Mac Marshall)

Hans and Henny Both turned out to be from Ten Bosch, the second Dutch couple we'd met from that city (a city I've never visited). Mac introduced Hans to me as a teacher of gymnastics, and I politely asked what Henny might do: She's a psychologue, Hans replied; whereupon I turned to her and asked "What's wrong with me?" "Everything," Hans beamed, "that's what she'll tell you!" A jovial couple whose company we would enjoy later on as well.

Henry and Mac at the col de la Lause

On, then, to the col de la Lauze, a hundred meters higher and half an hour down the trail. Rob Primhak wasn't content with the col: seeing a clear view to the south he scampered up the ridge on our west to the nearby summit.

We continued, knowing we had a long way yet to go. It's a gentle descent into Montgenèvre, through park-like forest and occasional clearings, and we met tourists along the way: a big group of noisy Italian adolescents; then, by contrast, a pair of sixtyish Italian men, nicely dressed and making a bella figura, out for a comfortable stroll up to Mont Chaberton and back. We were very near the border, and looked down the valley to the north at Bardonecchia at one point: but instead of entering Claviere, a kilometer or so to the east, we turned west and walked eight times that far, it seemed, to Montgenèvre.

When I was last here, not that long ago, this was a small border town. I told Henry how I'd scored a room when all the hotels were closed: entering the hotel dining room, where the staff was at dinner watching a quiz show on television, I hesitated: vous avez une chambre pour la nuit?
Non. Then the quizmaster intoned: Les sanglots longues / des violons / De l'automne…

Verlaine, I said authoritatively, and without thinking of what I was doing. The staff turned their faces from the television back to me, surprised I was still there. The quiz clock ticked in silence, the contestants looked pained, a buzzer sounded, and the quizmaster said Ah, dommage, c'est Verlaine. The staff looked back at me again, rose from the table; the oldest man came to me and asked how many beds we'd need, his wife went into the kitchen to find us something to eat.
You see the usefulness of a little knowledge of French poetry, I told Henry.

But Montgenèvre had changed in the meantime; it's full of condominiums, both built and a-building; it's ugly as sin, and I couldn't find the hotel in question, or any other place we'd want to stay. Besides, I pointed out, the old city of Briançon can't be far; let's press on. And so, after half an hour for a sandwich at an unpleasant beer-hall sort of place, we set out down the main road, N94, brnching off into the Sestrières forest, knowing our GR5 had to be in there somewhere, though balisage was for the most part lacking, and we found our way by map, guess, and logic.

photo: Mac Marshall

In fact Briançon was three hours away, down steep pleasant forest trails and unpleasant lumber-roads, beyond the hamlet of L'Envers-du-Fontenil, and across the magnificent
Pont d'Asfeld, built in 1734, 40 meters long and 56 meters above the river Durance. We crossed, walked to the principal street, and booked into the first hotel we found, old-fashioned and charming and, fortunately, blessed with a decent kitchen.

It was only 6:30: we had plenty of time for a shower and change, a walk around the curious, picturesque, entertaining old city and its moody 18th-century fortifications, and a late snack before one last admiring glance at the gathering night.

photo: Mac Marshall

Distance walked, day 26: ca. 27 kilometers (17 miles) • Time: 10 hours • dénivelément: ca. 3000 meters (9850 feet)

all photos cs except as as noted

22: Mont Thabor to Plampinet

2008-09-22T11:27:00.001-07:00

Beginning with the walk of July 14, additional photos from our walk across the Alps can be found here

Day 25: July 14, 2008

There was fresh snow on the ground and the picnic tables outside the refuge this morning, but Muesli as well as the usual bread and café au lait for breakfast; and we knew we had a relatively short walk today, so we lingered until quarter to eight, then headed out into light snow in a strong cold wind, stopping at the Col de la Vallée Étroite for photos.

The Narrow Valley was Italian until after World War II, and Italian is still the language of choice on the few occasions there are for conversation with locals. Mists continued, though the snow had let up as we entered the valley,

crossing its streams on makeshift bridges. One of the bridges, the Pont de la Fonderie, was considerably more permanent than the one pictured here, and near it, under a tree, we found the Canadian-Norwegians of yesterday, yawning and stretching after a night in their tent. Once again I regretted not having a tent, at least a little. Camping is not allowed in this country, but "bivouacking" is: you can spend one night under canvas, but the assumption is you'll be on your way next morning.

By a little after ten we came to the Rifugio di re magi (the three kings: three nearby peaks are named Balthazar, Melchior, and Gaspard). Here I warmed up with a couple of cappuccinos, the second of them corretto with a drop of grappa, and a spectacular tarte à myrtilles: we've had a number of these, always apparently with local berries; this was a standout among excellence.

On leaving the Rifugio we found better weather and looked back at our Val Stretto as we climbed through forest, past shallow caves, leaving the Vallée Étroite and heading for the Col des Thures , skirting a lake

and arriving finally at the Col, marked by a cairn dedicated to Joseph Giavelli, an Italian shepherd who worked the transhumance hereabouts. Cows and donkeys share these alpages, no doubt enjoying the sweet wildflowers and grasses. The Col divided the Vallée Étroite and its Italian roots from the Maurienne: we rounded a fiercely eroded combe

and descended easily to Chapelle des Ames, then, along the river la Clarée, to Plampinet, where we checked into the first auberge to offer itself, the Auberge de la Clarée. We might have done better had we looked around, but not all of us were so minded, and the Auberge was quite satisfactory.

Plampinet is a nice little village, probably bustling in ski season but restful in July, even on Bastille Day. The Clarée runs fast here, and the few stone and stucco'd buildings hug one side, leaving a fertile field and orchard on the other.

There's a 16th-century church, whose frescos and furnishings are said to be worth seeing, but we didn't bother the verger, if there was one; we were content to relax, walk about, dine with the Primhaks who were staying at the same auberge, and enjoy a genepi.

Distance walked, day 25: ca. 21 kilometers (13 miles) • Time: 7 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2070 meters (6800 feet)

all photos cs

21: Modane to Mont Thabor

2008-09-21T12:20:00.001-07:00

Day 24: July 13, 2008

A good night's sleep, in spite of a lumpy, hard mattress, the only one of the trip. It rained overnight, but during breakfast it stopped. And it was a good breakfast: I'd seen Madame under her umbrella trudging off to the boulangerie, and we had fine croissants with nice apricot jam.
We set out a little after nine, walking past an interesting modernist church that had replaced one destroyed during WW2.

The road was still wet and rather muddy and soon led to a narrower path through forest.

We reached the Valfréjus ski station by eleven, and here we rested half an hour, taking a pot of tea and shopping for a picnic lunch. Then we returned to forest path and road, climbing steeply for an hour or so to the Lavoir fortifications. At this point the entire pass is apparently one huge mostly invisible fortification; what looks here like a pillbox is in fact the entrance to extensive underground galleries and casemates.

At lunch we'd met two Canadians now living in Norway: they were walking the entire length of the GR5, having started in April. What one stretch would you omit next time, I asked them: easy, they said, the Lorraine, that first stretch in northeast France: flat, uninteresting country.

Not this country. We'd climbed out of forest, above trees, into alpage, fields full of alarmingly green grass and wild with wildflowers. It was near here, thirty years ago or so, that I first met the alpine Trolius: we were too late for them, but there was God's plenty of other flowers to see.

Mac was delighted, photographing them in close-up and identifying them; I mostly delighted in them en masse, fascinated by the color-texture they provide, whether under full sun or cloud shadow.

We climbed further, then took a bit of a detour, leaving the GR5 for a few minutes to ascend to the Col de la Vallée Étroite. Here a wooden cross marks the former French-Italian border, and here Henry and I looked down into storm-clouds over the valley ahead, then turned back to the track and up, across snow and scree, to the Refuge du Mont Thabor, arriving about 3:30.

We were well used to marmots by now, having seen and heard them for weeks; but here for the first time we watched them deal with an invasive border collie. A marmot would screech; collie would run as quickly as the scree allowed; marmot would disappear at the last minute, handing the dog off to another marmot a hundred feet off in another direction, and the process repeated. Henry swears he saw a marmot deliberately dislodge a fairly large stone that rolled downhill narrowly missing the dog, and I can't contradict him.

Mac had gone on to the refuge ahead of us and welcomed us to rather a busy place. A few French had arrived before us, and it was a bit of a shock, after our two nights in a proper hotel, to once again share sinks and mirrors with strangers in their underwear. Like so many of the refuges, Mont Thabor seemed politically very aware: a number of posters hung in the stairway, persuasively describing Un monde inégal, a world out of equilibrium in which the three richest people in the world share a fortune bigger than the total worth of the 48 poorest nations.

I stood a while reading these posters (and photographing them), and another rambler, noticing my interest, guardedly sounded out my own opinion, in fluent but not native English. These refuges have their point of view, he said; I share that point of view, I responded. The conversation was short and interesting, and he seemed thoughtful and open-minded.

Dinner was soup, salad, lasagne, cheese, and apples; and it was good. I turned in early: I like going to bed, and rising, before the others.

Distance walked, day 24: ca. 15 kilometers (9 miles) • Time: 6.5 hours • dénivelément: ca. 1500 meters (4900 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

20: the halfway point: rest day

2008-09-20T12:14:00.001-07:00

Day 23: July 12, 2008

MODANE WAS THE HALFWAY POINT in our projected walk from "Geneva" (actually Evian-les-Bains) to Nice, and we were finally there. We'd never been actually certain of our daily totals: distance traveled is hard to track because of all the hairpins; walking speed is inconsistent because of grade and terrain; even elevation change is uncertain because of frequent fairly small (but cumulatively significant) gains and losses of altitude. But for what they're worth here are my estimates for the first half of the walk:

walking days: 19
rest days: 3
distance walked: 274 km (170 miles) (average: 15 km (9+ miles) per day
hours walked: 128.6 (5 days 8 hours) (average: 6 hours 40 minutes per day)
elevation change: 25,580 meters (83, 920 feet) (average: 1350 meters (4400 feet) per day

After a rocky start we had hit our stride, as you might say; we'd walked the last ten days without taking a day off, averaging more than ten miles a day. I'd long planned to take a day off here, in order to show Henry and Mac the Italian side of the border: the valSusa, leading from the ski town of Bardonecchia down to the small city of Susa.

Chiomonte under the rain

We got up fairly early to walk to the bus station, took the bus to Bardonecchia, then the train to Chiomonte, where Lindsey's father was born. As we walked into town it began to rain. We took refuge in the one café-bar in the center of town; then I bought an umbrella in the one haberdashery and we walked the town, including a visit to the cemetery to see Henry's great-great-grandfather.

I got a haircut while we waited for the bus down into Susa, a town I like; there we did another walkabout — having bought the umbrella, the rain stopped, of course — had lunch, and took the train back to Bardonecchia where we had dinner while waiting for the bus back to Modane. Strange, all these motorized conveyances; strange, covering all these kilometers so quickly. Tomorrow we'd be back in harness.

19: Bramans to Modane

2008-09-17T18:56:00.001-07:00

Day 22: July 11, 2008

Yes: time to shake off this mood and walk out of this devilish valley. We had a decent breakfast at our decent hotel, filled our waterbottles at the trough-fountain, turned our back on the hotel at 7:45, and took a final walk through the rough-textured town of Bramans.

Truth to tell, if you haven't been to similar towns in these mountains before, on both sides of the border, Bramans is architecturally interesting: the stone roofs, the adaptation of peasant vernacular architecture through up-to-date techniques into residences comfortable for early-twenty-first-century tastes. And a lot of the buildings are being fixed up: like virtually every town we'd walked through in the last three weeks, Bramans had its crane.

We were walking fairly close to the Arc, alongside fields dedicated to hay, or grains, or potatoes, or beets. Before long we noticed the fortifications, defenses built high up the mountainside on the other side of the Arc: this is and has been a strategic valley, leading to the Mont Cenis pass into Italy, one of the easiest passes.

Photo: Mac Marshall

It's said Hannibal brought his elephants through here, but of course that's the boast of many valleys and passes hereabouts, and the closest evidence I know of is the stone elephants in the park in Chambéry, some distance off. (And that's not very good evidence.)

By nine o'clock we'd come to imposing ruins: an enormous stone-walled building had been here at some point, and before long a placard announced we were seeing the remnants of a plaster factory. Much of the stone hereabouts is rich in calcium, and the constantly swift-moving water must have provided plenty of power for the hammermills. Life must have been noisy and dusty here for centuries.

On we went, through forest road by now and climbing, of all things, through resort country. Soon we came upon an alarming white marble Modernist sculpture, looking quite embarrassedly out of place among the spruce and pines; and soon there were more: this had apparently been the haunt of a sculptor bent on improving the aesthetic appeal of these surroundings.

We were bound for the resort "town" of La Norma, a pocket version of Tignes with its many restaurants and bars, its residences, its ski-lifts and playgrounds. Before we actually dropped into la Norma, at the foot of ski slopes, we'd walked through a collection of little cabins, all neat and clean and distributed with an unusual concern for orderliness. Most of the license plates on the parked cars were Dutch, and when I asked of a woman out tending her front garden "Is het een café vlakbij?" she responded immediately "Jazeker, niet hier maar honderd meters verder," and no one gave a moment's thought to French.

We rounded a bend, walked out of the forest, and a little past ten in the morning found an immense lawn in front of us, with tall buildings at the bottom of the grassy bowl, to our right, and in front of them a number of cafés advertising Heineken and Amstel and such; and here we had a pot of tea. La Norma is so greatly used and occupied by vacationing Dutch that it might as well be Dutch. Whole families apparently spend weeks at a time here on their annual vacations, and there's plenty to do. Of course there are miles of hiking trails; we'd spent the morning on one ourselves. There are tennis courts, a softball diamond, soccer fields; there's playground apparatus for the children, and a busy activity center.

We watched a group of adults gathered at a worktable all busily making sculpture under the friendly but attentive eye of a teacher; he seemed to be getting remarkably good results from these hobbyists.

After twenty minutes, though, it was time to hit the trail: Modane lay ninety minutes off, according to our guidebook. That seemed unlikely given a glance at the map: it was right around the corner. But to get there we had to skirt an immensely deep hole, a gorge which has probably been quarried for millenia.

I hadn't been looking forward to Modane, which I recalled from our first trip to Europe, in 1974, when we spent the night there in a sorry cheap hotel across the street from the railroad tracks. Modane is an industrial town, hardly a city; it sprawls along the tracks, offering very little by way of shopping or leisure. But beyond Modane, maybe a twenty-minute walk, lies a twin city, Fourneau; here there were shops and cafés, the bus station that would make Italy an easy ride tomorrow, and a very nice little hotel, the first one we came to, set away from the town, off by itself.

We had errands to do: packages to mail, e-mail to read and perhaps send, tea to drink. We found a nice little regional museum on the main street, and there we saw an absorbing installation about the turn of the last century in Modane, when the really significant local industry was a factory producing mechanical musical instruments — nickelodeons, player pianos, and the like.

The museum also documented Modane as a way-station in the considerable tide of emigrants from Italy, which lies just across the border: this interested me because Lindsey's father was one of those emigrants, having left Chiomonte, an hour away by bus and train, in 1914, when he was ten years old.

And next door to the museum was a bar, and the bar was featuring another item the museum had introduced to us through posters, paraphernalia, and interesting historical documentation: absinthe. Recently restored to legality, absinthe was available in the bar, and naturally we had a glass. Much of the effect is very similar to the pastis that became so popular when absinthe was criminalized (and perhaps it was in order to sell pastis the laws were drawn up in the first place): the liquid was poured into a glass; a little cold clear water is added, immediately taking on a milky tone; then a pierced flattened spoon is laid across the top of the glass, a sugar cube or two placed on it, and drops of water are poured onto the sugar, gradually dissolving it and slowly running down into the glass.

Photo: Mac Marshall

Mac wanted a photo of an absinthe drinker, and I obligingly posed. There's no doubt the drink, or more likely the legends that have built up around it and its adherents, affects the drinker, or at any rate this drinker. I felt and looked like an early Picasso, I think. But the effect soon wears off.

Back at the hotel I asked if we weren't staying en pension, bed and board. Ah no, replied the innkeep, I don't think that was my understanding. Then can you recommend a restaurant in town, I asked. Oh yes, he said, there's plenty, let's see... Then he called into the kitchen, to his wife, the cook: Marie! "Y'a assez pour les trois californiens?
Eh, oui, treize, seize, pas beaucoup de difference… as well sixteen as thirteen, she said; and we sat down to a delicious dinner: crudités with lentils, carrot, corn, and hard-cooked eggs; then roast pork with tartiflette. We slept well.

Distance walked, day 22: ca. 14 kilometers (9 miles) • Time: 4 hours • dénivelément: ca. 900 meters (2950 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

18: Lanslebourg to Bramans

2008-09-14T12:47:00.001-07:00

Day 21: July 10, 2008

Up at 6:45 to a fine clear morning, the sun lighting the forest and shops across the river Arc, out our east-facing window,

and to a nice hotel breakfast: orange juice, croissant, café au lait. We were under way by quarter past eight, walking through town, past a little park with a boulder bearing a bronze monument to Flambeau, a rescue dog whose life was sacrificed, in 1988 I think, in the rescue of a number of mountaineers nearby.

There are many avalanches on these slopes, and weather comes up quickly. We seem to be at sea level, walking this sluggish valley after the last couple of weeks among the cols and passes, but we're still about a mile above sea level and this can be dangerous country.

At the foot of the monument an inscription: Passant je suis autre chose qu'un monument / peut-etre plus qu'un symbole / je suis un example (Passerby: I am not merely a monument / perhaps more than a symbol / I am an example.)

We crossed to the left bank of the Arc, crossed the highway N6, skirted a tennis court, and regained the Chemin du Peit Bonheur, stopping for a bit to admire a troupe of adolescents out on some kind of group camping activity. In an hour and a half or so our forest road led us to yet another vieux village of stone-roofed buildings, Termignon, where we stopped for tea, and to Sollières-l'Enverse, where a recently built museum of archaeology enlightened us as to the history (and prehistory!) of this once-remote valley.

A short conversation with the archaeologist in charge, who'd driven up in a little car, made it clear that the museum is financed locally for the most part (though local finances may be heavily helped by national funds, for all I know): this history is a source of pride here in Sollières and apparently in the entire valley; increasingly I've noticed communities wisely investing in not only tourism, not only eco-tourism, but intelligent, educationally interpretive tourism, with local museums, illustrated pamphlets, and signposted walking paths presenting the terrain and the villages and contributing as if subliminally, I think, to a sense of ownership, participation, and understanding of their corner of the globe to the inhabitants as well as their guests.

The museum had been built next to and attached to a chapel with a strikingly painted ceiling, also proudly shown off — the cultural inheritance is as important to these people as their natural history. But we had no taste to linger. Everything you see in these towns seemed ambivalent: artificially maintained in its overall aspect, on the one hand; fraught with interest and sudden beauty in its details, on the other.

Somehow we lost our way after leaving the museum and wound up walking far too long along the asphalt shoulder of N6 into the next town, le Vernay; but from there we rejoined our small-happiness way on a farm road,

through pastureland, crossing bridges, and entered Bramans just before one o'clock. Then we had to decide whether to continue on: the next certain night's lodging would be in Modane, five hours away.
Here was a more tempitiing alternative: a little hotel standing at the crossroads that seemed the center of town; a pleasant forecourt with shady tables offered lunch…

Photo: Mac Marshall

We were sluggish, complacent, diffident. We should have gone on to Modane today, but lacked resolution, I thought. Bramans was quiet, everything closed up at midday. The one grocery didn't open on time, at two o'clock; we waited outside, then went to the town library for a little Internet work. I spent the afternoon thinking about the options down the road: I want to celebrate hitting our halfway point -- Modane -- by spending a day in Italy, taking Henry to see his great-grandfather's grave, and the little mountain town his grandfather came from.

In a guidebook to the mountain refuges our slothful valley variant had ruled out I read a description of the reason for these Alpine rambles: for the "conquest of the useless." Irrelevant preoccupations kept flitting through my mind: how many "Les Glaciers" had we slept in; who actually owns these houses and how often do they visit them; just how spontaneous are the waters in all these trough-like fountains. The hotelkeeper filled a plastic sprinkler-can at his fountain and watered the geraniums. What kind of place would we find in Modane? Lindsey had read that it was Fourneau, not Modane, that we wanted to investigate.

Henry and I played some gin rummy; I took a pastis. Rabbit, braised in white wine, for dinner in the huge unsuspected upstairs dining room, virtually empty of guests. Fairly early to bed.

Distance walked, day 21: ca. 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) • Time: 4-1/2 hours • dénivelément: ca. 150 meters (essentially flat)

all photos cs except where noted

17: Bonneval-sur-l'Arc to Lanslebourg

2008-09-13T13:46:00.001-07:00

Day 20: July 9, 2008

A RIDICULOUSLY EASY day; a stroll. But in spite of a decent breakfast in the big, empty dining room at the Hotel Glacier des Evettes, I started the day's walk in a disaffected mood. We were low, at 1800 meters (5900 feet), and would spend the day in this valley. There were peaks on both sides, behind us and ahead of us; beyond the ridge to the right there were glaciers; over there to the left lay Italy, and here we were down in this riverbottom with flies buzzing around us.

We were walking the "Chemin du Petit Bonheur," literally the way of the small happiness, idiomatically "hit-or-miss road," I think. We were taking it because the guidebooks had promised interesting human-related evidence: isolated mountain life, evidences of early settlement, etc., etc. But we were three, Mac, Henry, and me; we had divergent interests, and we had to get on.

I wasn't sure how far we'd walk today, and I was impatient. This was the twentieth day of the trip; I'd budgeted forty for the entire walk, and though we were close to my projected halfway point — Modane, a city I did not look forward to — I felt a sense of haste. We'd already given up one aspect of the GR5, the high peaks in the Vanoise; now I sensed we'd have to give up another, the reportedly glorious descent to Menton. We'd have to go to Nice instead.

We left the hotel at quarter to nine, quite late by our standards, walked through the old town, and then took a farm road down the valley, whose fields were devoted to grains, pasturage, and wildflowers — many wildflowers. We were walking southwesterly, into the sun — the one disadvantage of taking this walk toward the south (offset by many advantages).

In an hour and a half we stopped at a pool on a side-stream coming down from the Vanoise to join the Arc. I've seen other such sites; pools of clear water, set about with small trees or flowering bushes, they often seem special, atavistic, even somehow sacred. I'm no monotheist; to me what is sacred speaks out from the landscape (or very occasionally from within living sentiment). The Fontaine de Vaucluse is such a spot; another is at Filitosa on Corsica; there was one on the creek among the oaks and madrones on the place I lived on as a child.

This was another such place: ordinary to many, unphotographable, but to me resonant. One doesn't expect such places to be anything but private and personal: but when we resumed the path it took us, within twenty minutes, to the famous Rocher du Château, a cliff bearing petroglyphs from the Stone Age, a neolithic factory site, in fact, famous for its spear- and arrow-points, prized locally and even abroad, the subject of extensive neolithic trade.

Another unphotographable site, in fact: the rock-paintings are faded almost away, and photographs can't examine them while remaining aware of the site, as the human eye can; nor can they convey the feel on the skin, the perception in the ear, of the warm rock wall one faces, the scent of the roses and grasses, the whisper of the breeze, the space within the valley. I'm not sure the others felt all tihs; I wondered whther the busy stone-chippers did, twelve thousand years ago; and whether anyone would, twelve thousand years from now.

The Rocher du Château was more interesting than the next village, Villaron, which has retained its traditional buildings at the expense of a somehow artificial, complacent quality. The houses seem lived in, in comfort, but not actually worked in; thrre's little activity; the towns seem like bedroom communities. I doi enjoy the vernacular architecture, though; the way the pitch of roofs echoes the slopes of the mountains beyond; the stone walls continuing their conversations with the stones of the stream-beds.

Henry, Devil, and me (photo: Mac Marshall)

By eleven o'clock we were in Bessans — "not a village like the others," promised my guidebook, distinguished "by its traditions, customs, and history." All this is true, but what is fascinating in these villages takes time to unfold, and we lacked the time. We photographed one another with the curious devil on the town's central fountain, then climbed to the St. Anthony chapel on a hillside east of town, visiting first the church, then, thanks to the presence of a young man who sat knitting with his girl friend, the chapel itself.

Bessans has a complex religious history: why does this chapel enclose the most beautiful, utterly fascinating primitive frescos I've seen outside of Italy? Dating apparently from the early 16th century and painted by unknown hands, they portray scenes from the life of Jesus, revealing as many details of medieval life as they do evidence of Christian theology. You could spend three hours in here, but, Devil take it, it was time to move on.

East wall of chapel. Photographs of the church, chapel, and frescos are online here in a Dutch-language page: search for "Bessans".

By 2:45 we were in the next town, Lanslevillard, where a small outdoor market languished almost unattended in the sun, in the main street, above the huge concrete walls that contained the river Arc, for here there had been a disastrous flood. We crossed to the left bank of the river and finally found a café that was open, had a beer, and continued on: there seemed no bed for us here.

In an hour and a half we re-crossed the river and walked into Lanslebourg, our best chance for a hotel. This was the most active town of the day's walk, with bars and cafés, hotels and shops; and here, par hasard as the French say, we found a very nice hotel. We knew it by its proprietor, a tiny, birdlike woman who must have been of retirement age but who busied herself happily in the hotel dining room. Yes, she had a room for three; and led us upstairs (of course: we'd been walking all day) to a pleasant room with lots of windows looking over the river. Yes, she would wash our clothes for us — what a pleasure! So we showered and changed, visited the town library for its Internet connection, stopped for an apéritif to while away the time until dinner, and then ate at the hotel: Savoyard salad with charcuterie, blanc de volaille with soft polenta and grilled endive (the obligatory tartiflette on the side), tarte aux myrtilles; ordinary wine in the half-liter pitcher, as was our evening routine.

Then we retired to our room to think about the day and the weeks so far. The Long Walk was punctuated, I had projected before leaving home, by three cities, dividing the walk into quarters: Chamonix, Modane, Briançon. Tomorrow, I thought, we'd be in Modane; we were finishing the second of the four guidebooks. The high mountains had been exhilharating; today's walk was somehow a let-down. I prefer the presence of cows to that of cars; mountains to men.

Distance walked, day 20: ca. 23 kilometers (14 miles). • Time: 7 hours • dénivelément: ca. 400 meters (1300 feet, all descending)

all photos cs except where noted

16: Val d'Isère to Bonneval-sur-l'Arc

2008-09-13T00:33:00.001-07:00

Day 19: July 8, 2008

I don't know if I should credit the Dutch exclusively for it, but more and more hotels in France and Italy are serving breakfast buffets these days. We were up at 6:45, noted threatening weather again, and hit the breakfast by seven: granola, fresh fruit, sausage and cheese, bread and croissants, boiled eggs, juice and coffee — a far cry from the usual mountain refuge breakfast of bread, butter, and jam with café au lait. And the desk clerk-proprietor, hearing we were tackling the Col de l'Iséran that day, gave me an enamelled medal he'd received a few years earlier commemorating that feat.

We lacked bread for breakfast, though, and didn't want to backtrack into town. We'd heard there was a fabrique, a wholesale bakery, not far off the GR5 on our way out of town, and there we bought a loaf of bread while admiring an old, slow, jet-black bakery cat, flour on his whiskers.

Then, about 8:30, it was a kilometer or so up a paved road and a right-angle turn to a ski piste — a wide greensward under the téléférique or ski-lift, which climbed quite steeply away from the Isère. Before long we'd lost our way, having overlooked the balisage pointing the correct way — if indeed it was there: they sometimes seem lacking when most needed.

We were walking up a stony riverbed, finally crossing the stream on loose stones.We realized the error soon enough and found the path, which had left the piste and struck out, equally steeply and by means of frequent hairpins, as a narrow sentier, a footpath through fairly dense forest. Today's climb is to the highest point on our entire walk, the Col de l'Iséran, 2764 meters; and before long we're back up above the trees again.

We come out of the forest onto a broad unpaved road leading to bare alpage, the ski-lifts always present to remind us of the real economy these days — sports et loisirs, fun and games.

We stop at a curious concrete slab to eat an apple, and idly investigate what might be underneath a manhole cover: a deep concrete-lined hole, steel ladder-rungs set into its wall. These Alpine prairies are full of works of man: dams, waterworks, electricity conduits, bunkers, herdsmen's refuges; the history stretches back for decades, centuries.

photo: Mac Marshall

Then by 11:45 — how did we manage it so quickly? — we were at the col, over 9000 feet above sea level. A col is not a summit, and we were not alone: a number of cars had driven up D 902; there was a good-sized parking lot, and not far from the old stone church stood a more modern hotel-restaurant-gift shop sort of building, not terribly handsome. Here we had tea and tart, paying a pretty penny for them, and looked at the postcards, keychains, napkin rings, toy marmots, walking sticks, and assorted other kitsch offered as souvenirs, and decided against any of them, and struck out again 45 minutes later.

Our descent was in three stages. First there was a laborious descent of 230 meters over wet alpage on tedious switchbacks: it took forty minutes to reach a resting place, the Pont de la Neige, where we stopped for twenty minutes for our picnic lunch.

Next came one of the most memorable stretches of the entire month of walking, the Gorges de la Lenta, a fast-running stream on our right and a long way below us. We walked along a narrow path on loose scree; to our left a vertical wall of live stone, to our right a steep slope of very loose scree — lose footing here and you're in a bad way. Mac overcame the last of his vertigo here, if he hadn't vanquished it utterly before; and his reward was the first edelweiss we'd noticed on the walk.

The gorge opened out into a broader valley. We walked past a sort of dispersed hamlet of ruined stone refuge-huts, rounded a corner toward a maison de chantier built years ago to house road-workers, and met a couple of British fellows out with butterfly nets, intent on identifying, or counting, or merely annoying the local insect population. I asked if they had a permit to do this, and they assured me they did not, and were concerned that I might be an officiel de la bureau des études sur les insectes, and I assured them that I was, and was prepared to collect a pretty stiff fine from them, but they did not pay.

Next we walked along the shoulder of D902 a kilometer or two, and then steeply down a mule-path and through a few pastures and back yards and out into the village of Bonneval-sur-l'Arc, for we'd decided to take the low road of the two variants GR5 offers here, avoiding the high country, saving a day or so, and finding greater certainty of lodging for the night. The tourist office offered us the Hotel Glacier des Evettes as our cheapest alternative, and it lay only ten or twelve minutes further along the walk: we arrived at 3:30.

Bonneval (photo: Mac Marshall)

A bottle of mineral water, a phone call home, a walkabout in the "old village," billed in our guidebook as one of a number of quaint, isolated hamlets along the Arc river between here and Modane. We'd chosen this alternative for that reason too; we were given to understand we'd see a way of life all but disappeared elsewhere, the true ancient montagnard traditions as they'd been preserved through the centuries, in a valley so isolated it was still more Italian, and certainly Savoyard, than French.

Bonneval (photo: Mac Marshall)

Alas, the village seemed to me a mediation of Carmel and Chiomonte, Lindsey's father's home town on the other side of the Italian border. It was all cleaned up, neat and tidy and set about with potted geraniums. There were no overhead wires, and cars were discouraged from driving through the town on its narrow streets. You had the impression it was a movie set, that a few truckloads of dirt and horse manure, and taking up the bed & breakfast signs, would make it ready for a movie set in medieval times.

We ate in our hotel: a slice of tasty zucchini bread in a dish of tomato sauce, a faux-filet with macaroni and cheese, a fine crème caramel. I contrived to plug my trusty PDA into the hotel computer overnight, to charge its battery: the desk-clerk had no idea how to do this, but his ten-year-old boy smiled at me and solved the problem in the wink of an eye. C'est toujours les jeunes qui savent. And we had a hot bath before bed!

Distance walked, day 19: ca. 15 kilometers (10 miles). • Time: 7 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2600 meters (8500 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

15: Col-de-Palet to Val d'Isère

2008-09-12T13:01:00.001-07:00

Day 18: July 7, 2008

The Refuge du Col-de-Palet (photo: Mac Marshall)

Up this morning at 6:30 to sun and scattered clouds in cool weather and, at the usual 7 am, a good breakfast. I said goodbye to Floriane, the serving-girl who'd been so teasing and friendly at dinner last night — impossible not to grow fond of these pleasant, attentive girls — and we took another look at the weather: rain and sleet. We put off our departure and put on our raingear, finally leaving the refuge at twenty to nine — it would be an easy day's walk today.

We had rain and a little sleet, but the terrain was easy. and climbed easily to the Col du Palet, cold and windy.

From there it was an easy two-hour walk downhill through the rain to Tignes, a ski-resort community built over the last thirty years or so, remarkably ugly given its beautiful setting.

In the ski season this may be a bustling town; in summer it seemed desolate. We had a pot of tea, though, in a bar whose keeper seemed sullen with inactivity, and dried out a bit. On, then, after half an hour, on a slowly ascending traverse to the

Pas de la Tovière where, had it been clearer, we'd have had our last view of Mont Blanc from this walk; and then down across the prés, fields, horses now pastured instead of cows,

and, ultimately, at the end of our descent, through a wooded park set about with picnic tables — I'd have liked to lunch there, but we went on, hoping to arrive at Val d'Isère before things closed for the afternoon or possibly, it being Monday, for the day.

Val d'Isère is a ski town, like Tigne; but set on a traditional mountain agricultural town. The Isère runs right down the middle of town, and while the sports-equipment shops, the banks and the tourism office are in fairly new "chalet-style" malls, there are plenty of architectural vestiges of the old days. I liked the town.

photo: Mac Marshall

The Tourist office recommended a fairly cheap hotel, the Relais du Ski, out at the far end of town: we ate a picnic lunch in our room,

showered and cleaned up, and then went for a walkabout, as I call them, checking e-mail, shopping in the open market with a marvelous collection of sausages,

and investigating the pleasant, curiously named BuBu Bar where the Tour de France played on the television, and a beautiful old man tended bar.
More walkabout; a visit to the church; then the dinner question. Our handsome bartender had recommended the restaurant in our own hotel, but we were seduced by a more picturesque place in town, where we had an indifferent locally traditional dinner — polenta and biot again, served by a pretty young Swedish girl whose parents had been natives of India. The world is getting small.

Back at the hotel we found our old friend the bartender in the lobby. Ah, then; he's related to the proprietor here; that's why he'd recommended the kitchen — but in fact things did smell very good indeed. "Ah, les américains," he greeted us. I confessed we'd eaten elsewhere; and that we should have listened to him. "Eh bien; trop tard," he answered good-naturedly: no hard feelings. We had a couple of genepis and went early to bed.

Distance walked, day 18: ca. 15 kilometers (10 miles). • Time: ca. 4:40 • dénivelément: ca. 1150 meters (3800 feet, mostly descending)

all photos cs except where noted

14: Landry to Col-de-Palet

2008-09-11T17:04:00.001-07:00

Day 17: July 6, 2008

I WAS UP AT 6:45 this morning; the weather seemed promising; we had a fine prune jam and even apple juice at breakfast.

Mac and Henry at breakfast in Landry

To the épicerie for groceries: a donkey sausage, carrots, oranges, apples, dried apricots. Then, about 8:20, on the road: a nice though fairly steep climb through forest, occasionally picking fraises des bois along the way.

The guidebook promised hotels and restaurants at Le Moulin, ninety minutes and nearly 500 meters up the road, but nothing was open: Sunday drivers had parked there to take hikes in the woods.

An aging border collie, bored I suppose with village life, led us out of town; I had to speak angrily to him in French to get him to give up his game.

We continued on through the forest, passing a fellow quietly dressing fallen logs with his ax, and crossed the Pont Romano in hopes of tea in a hotel in Nancroix, but there too all was closed. Continuing up the left bank of the Ponturin we came to the long-abandoned School of Mines, ambitious and important in Napoleon's day. The setting, in its melancholy forest; the purpose, the extraction of lead and silver from the earth; and the long abandonment, together with the informational placards some of which showed the fancy, fashionable uniforms worn by students here two hundred years ago, all interested me intensely,

but Mac and Henry were more absorbed watching a tiny ermine they'd startled. Smaller than my hand, it had caught a vole almost its size, dropped it half-dead when they surprised it, and ran distractedly between its cover and its prey, its hole and its vole. We had a bite to eat, and went on, through Les Lanches; then Beauprez, where the French quartet was eating its lunch at a picnic table — but there was no tea, only a party of three or four playing diffident boules in the middle of the dusty road. For a kilometer the GR5 stayed on the right bank of the Ponturin, walking an unpaved road past fields and across an impressively stony dry watercourse, the last dry course we'd see this day.

Soon, around the pass you see at the center of the photo above, the valley broadened and we were approaching the Refuge de Rosuël, whose modenist architecture, designed to deflect avalanches, had intrigued me from photos. They are deceptive, at least in summer: the "refuge" is more a gîte d'étape, commodious, with a busy bar-café whose tea service we were glad to patronize, sitting outside on a deck. It seemed to be at a surprisingly low altitude, remiinding me of the Yosemite floor. It was a little past noon, but we still had a lot of climbing to do, and rain threatened; I was sorry we lingered as long as we did, forty-five minutes.

Soon after resuming the trail a real storm broke, with considerable lightning and thunder and heavy rain. We hurried our packs and ourselves into raingear, but twice we had to stop and take cover, once under thick foliage, again under overhanging rock. The many watercourses and waterfalls were readily explained: there's a lot of water in these skies, and every three days or so it's more than they can hold.

photo: Mac Marshall

We were in what I call sous-bois, underbrush — much of it rhodendrons and rosebushes. The terrain was often quite stony; the footpath was often running with water and we were drenched; but we had to press on if we were to reach the night's refuge by dinner-time. And in any case there was no place to get out of the weather, which changed rapidly between sun and storm: the few chalets we found were either locked tight or already occupied — I looked longingly into one window, and saw a cowherd's wife stretched out on a rude bed, glowering back at me. We did take a break at a forest service chalet, huddled under a sort of canopy at its door: but this too was locked up tight, and we pushed on, a very hard push, past the pretty Lac de la Plagne, through the narrow passage de la Grassaz, and finally in another hour or so to the Refuge du Col-de-Palet, arriving at 6:10.

There was a fire in the wood stove, and we were just in time to clean up, dry off, and warm up with vin chaud, mulled red wine, before a very welcome dinner of nettle soup, local sausage (biot) and polenta with a delicious red-wine-and-vinegar sauce, tomme de Savoie, and of all things a brownie for dessert.

Distance walked, day 17: ca. 23 kilometers (14 miles). • Time: ca. 10 hours • dénivelément: ca. 1800 meters (5900 feet, all ascending)

all photos cs except where noted

13: Chalet de la Balme to Landry

2008-09-10T16:51:00.001-07:00

Day 16: July 5, 2008

I WAS UP QUITE EARLY, by six, to admire the morning. They're so silent; the air is so clear and bracing; the silence so beautiful. The only sign of human activity was a few steel milk-cans set to cool in the basin at the end of the fountain: I was glad Mac hadn't heeded my suggestion, yesterday, that he soak his blistered feet in it.

Before long, though, the gardien was out with his toolbox, ready to attach what looked like an old Signal Corps telephone to a post by the front door, purely for décor. I gave him a hand, and we conversed a little: last night's genepi was indeed made in Italy, the French stuff isn't nearly as good; the secred ingredient in the barbecue sauce was Coca-Cola, it was a Tex-Mex recipe.

And then others began to emerge from the dortoir, and then it was time for breakfast, rather a nice one given the lack of croissants, bacon, or eggs. We ate with an English couple, Jill and Peter, and watched bemused as two other Brits, young men, approached Jill for a temporary loan: they'd not brought enough cash for their room and board. These refuges don't take credit cards; you have to be prepared.

Then we began our walk, about 7:45, down through alpages with their bespectacled Abondance milk-cows, then — too soon — on paved roads, quickly losing our way, not having noticed a significant balisage. The general way was clear enough: we were descending from 2000 meters to the river Isère at 719 meters; there we'd cross, after walking through a few villages, and continue on to the town of Landry where we'd spend the night. Since our guidebook promised a hotel there I had reasoned that a clinic or at least a doctor might be available to deal with Mac's blistered foot, and the gardien at La Balme assured me that if we couldn't find medical help there, it would be easy to get to a bigger town, Bourg-St.-Maurice, where it would surely be available.

photo: Mac Marshall

So we continued downhill, past chapels and fields of flowers, but off the GR5 and instead on paved secondary road leading to Valezan, "a picturesque Tarentaise village," my guidebook had promised, "with houses staged along the main street following a line down the steepest slope of the terrain," like an Italian town. Here at 10:30 we found a gîte-restaurant, not open for its principle business, but with a bar-café whose genial proprietor, apparently Nigerian in origin, supplied a pot of tea and slices of caramel cake, and we celebrated having found the GR5 again.

Then we walked down that main street, indeed winding down the slope, between barns and farmsteads, sometimes clearly a donkey-path, not a road meant for automobiles. We found the English couple here, but quickly lost them: they apparently didn't believe we were on the GR5; we never saw them again.

Soon we were out of Valezan and in the country, on a dirt, sometimes roughly cobbled donkey-path descending in lacets, hairpins, along an old stone wall, skirting what seemed an abandoned orchard: huge old cherry and apple trees quite neglected but sometimes heavy with fruit. Ultimately this brought us to Bellentre, whose café was frustratingly closed though we wre hungry for lunch.

We crossed the Isère here and again abandoned the GR5, deliberately this time in order to reach Landry, arriving after another couple of kilometers on asphalted pedestrian-and-bicycle path along the river. The town seemed elusive: we walked up a fairly steep main road away from the river, across the railroad tracks, and finally found a café and, across a stream and a parking lot, our hotel, the Bon Acceuil.

It was only one o'clock: we showered and changed and took a cab into Bourg-St.-Maurice where Mac had his foot tended to; we strolled the interesting (pedestrian) shopping street, and had lunch. Our obliging cabby picked us up about four and took a different route back to Landry, pointing out the local features and discussing the local history, and we had a delicious dinner at our hotel (paté, Boeuf Bourgignon tasty of cloves, and the three classic cheeses of Savoie: tomme, Beaufort, reblochon) in the pleasant dining room, very characteristic of country French hotels.

And then it was time for a short game of boules in the twilight, and so to bed.

Distance walked, day 16: ca. 16 kilometers (8 miles). • Time: ca. 5 hours • dénivelément: ca. 1350 meters (4400 feet, nearly all descending)

all photos cs except where noted

12: Croix-du-Bonhomme to Chalet de la Balme

2008-09-09T14:25:00.001-07:00

Day 15: July 4, 2008

BREAKFAST WASN'T VERY GOOD: tired bread, stale coffee, diffident heated milk. And neither the shoes nor the socks and jackets had really dried out overnight; that stove was never properly lit.

photo: Mac Marshall

But the morning was beautiful, with mists rising, thinning, reassembling among the peaks around us.

photo: Mac Marshall

We left the refuge at 8 am, walking easily back up to the Col du Croix-du-Bonhomme; but Henry had forgotten his poncho and we waited while he returned for it, losing us maybe ten minutes. (More to the point, watching him go back, we realized we might have taken another path; we needn't have returned to the Col at all.)

Our first assignment was a traversal of the spectacular Crête des Gittes, a horizontal track at about 2600 m. leading us south from our refuge (that's Mont Blanc barely visible in the distance at the left).

It was here that Mac finished losing his vertigo: the trail's about two feet wide, and steep hillside drops away on each side, a drop of perhaps a thousand feet to the valleys below.

We arrived at the oddly named Col de la Sauce in an hour, passed over a few patches of snow,

and continued the descent from the Col through wet alpages, slippery with water occasionally running over the trail, turning it into a freshet.

At about ten o'clock Mac, distracted by the many beautiful wildflowers, lost footing and fell on a baton, breaking it but, fortunately, not himself. We continued through another damp pasture, past cows and portable milking apparatus, and to the Refuge du Plan-de-la-Lai for a delicious apricot tart;

then across the paved road and up an unpaved one to the Plan-Mya, nearby, where we watched two pretty children shell beans, and where Henry went into the fromagerie to buy some Beaufort

We left about quarter past eleven and made an easy traverse to Presset, walking the flank of the Aiguille du Grand Fond and looking down, west, toward the calm, artificial Roselend Lake.

From there we climbed through a series of tedious switchbacks

3:12 pm

and then the much steeper ascent to the Col de Bresson,

difficult with wet, loose scree; the switchbacks were bad enough, and the weather threatening;

4:51 pm

and it was getting late; we were tired and damp; Mac's blisters were slowing him down and the altitude was slowing me: we didn't arrive at the col until 5 pm.

5:04 pm: the weather changes fast!

From the col it was another hour, fortunately a fairly easy descent, to the Refuge Chalet de la Balme,

photo: Mac Marshall

where we arrived at 6:15, just in time for an apéritif before dinner: soup; barbecued ribs. We were served by a young flirtatious girl who congratulated us on our Independence Day but teased us about the ribs: "Can you guess the sauce? No? I won't tell you!" But she brought us a complimentary gnôle after dinner, and we slept soundly in a dortoir big enough that we didn't notice the other guests.

Distance walked, day 15: ca. 19 kilometers (11.8 miles). • Time: ca. 10 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2100 meters (6900 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

11 les Contamines to Croix-de-Bonhomme

2008-09-08T23:04:00.001-07:00

Day 14, July 3, 2008—

UP AT SIX this morning, though breakfast wouldn't be ready until seven. Just as well, though: soon after we'd got our breakfast from the Grizzli buffet, the breakfast room was invaded by a bevy of Japanese tourists, excitedly discussing the tricky serve-yourself milk-froth machine and generally slowing things down.
By eight we were under way, walking a very nice road bordering the Bonnant — though signs had been placed warning of the danger of possible flooding. (There'd been a considerable storm night before last; yesterday's trail had in fact been washed out at one point.) In less than an hour we came to the (locally) famous Notre Dame de la Gorge, a handsome Baroque chapel on the site of one of St. Anthony's hermitages;

here I put on my rain pants for the first time, and covered my pack, and we turned off the road onto an old "Roman" road paved with living stone. Forty minutes later we were at the splendid "Roman" bridge at Téna, crossing the Bon Nant at a spectacular gorge.
(I set "Roman" in quotes following the example of my guidebook, Du Léman au Mont Blanc, published by the Féderation Française de la Randonnée Pédestre: the authenticity of much of this Romanness is in question, and the bridge doesn't look all that old to me.)
In a few more minutes we'd climbed up through very heavy mists to the Chalet du Nant-Borrant: it seemed closed, but a very handsome, lean, montagnard-looking guy beckoned us in and brought us tea, willing to converse in Italian as well as French, and telling us a little about business: open during the ski season, open again during the summer rambling season; otherwise he lives down in town, doing what I didn't ask. A pleasant life, I'd think.
It was pleasant, but we couldn't linger beyond half an hour: we had a lot of climbing to do, and real rain was beginning to set in. We went out into it, through a troop of Netherlanders divesting themselves of raingear and backpacks.
The weather was pretty miserable but it took only 45 minutes to arrive, on time by the guidebook, at the chalet la Balme, where we warmed up with another pot of tea and some really first-rate tartelettes aux myrtilles, made, clearly, on the premises.
Then it was a real slog up to the col du Bonhomme. The terrain alternated between scree, packed dirt, and patches of snow, and visibility was limited, with rain on one's eyeglasses, hat and hood pulled down over one's eyes, and blowing mists.

At one point things lightened up enough for us to stop for a quick lunch — fruit and sausage — at the "Dame Anglaise" tumulus, a pile of rocks that's been accumulating for years on the site of an Englishwoman's accidental demise. Then the rain began again and we set out again, losing our way at one point, costing a fifteen-minute penalty, but finally arriving at the col du Bonhomme, 2329 m., where we found a small stone hut protecting four stoic British ramblers, and here we rested half an hour out of the rain.

We'd climbed nearly 4000 feet since breakfast, but we had more climbing to do before reaching the day's goal, the Refuge du Col de la Croix-du-Bonhomme. at 8146 feet. From there it was another hour over rock, snow, and streams, always in rain, to the true Col de la Croix-du-Bonhomme, where finally at 3 pm we found a nice refuge.

The place had 108 beds, and was nearly full that night, mostly with French ramblers out making the Tour du Mont-Blanc. We were seated at a miscellaneous-languages table with a couple from Barcelona and three Italians, and I turned in early, falling asleep to the welcome (and muffled) sound of the French tables singing folksongs, accompanied by the refuge gardiens on violin and guitars.

Distance walked, day 14: ca. 17 kilometers (10.5 miles). • Time: ca. 7 hours • dénivelément: ca. 1950 meters (6300 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

10 Les Houches to les Contamines

2008-08-28T23:03:00.001-07:00

Day 12-13, July 1-2, 2008—

WE SPENT A DAYin Chamonix, resting up, provisioning, and studying the route ahead. I was beginning to worry: we would clearly need to reserve ahead for our night's stays, and in some cases gîtes and refuges were few and far between, not to think of hotels. We'd been on the walk ten days; it was July now; July's as bad as August in France these days as more and more people have summer vacations and more and more non-French vacation in France — and we hadn't covered a quarter of the walk.

First thing after breakfast, then, was a visit to the Tourist Bureau, where we reserved for the next two nights: tomorrow at les Contamines, in the Hotel Grizzli, recommended by an English woman who ran walking tours; next night at the Refuge de la Croix-Bonhomme. Outside the tourist office was a huge chess set, its pieces perhaps three feet high; Henry and I enjoyed a game, then went to lunch — omelette fines herbes for me.

photo: Mac Marshall

In the afternoon we left our clothes at a laundromat, played a game or two of billiards at the hotel, and did a little shopping — a pair of clip-on sunglasses for me: the snow glare had been tiring. Dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita, where I could rattle away in bad Italian with the proprietor, who was pleased that i was pleased with his food, and eager to talk about it.

photo: Mac Marshall

Chamonix is not my favorite French mountain town, but it was more interesting, more fun, more cosmopolitan than I remembered from previous visits. The town was full of Indians, for some reason; their saris lent a surreal note of color. And the scenery outside of town — Mont Blanc and its glaciers, and the Col de Brévent we'd conquered the day before —did a lot to make up for the mishmash of architectural style.

photo: Mac Marshall

Next morning, July 2, we rose early to catch the 8am bus to les Houches, where we would rejoin the GR5. It's not much more than a wide spot on the road, but there we had our café au lait and croissant in the one café open, bought some apples and chocolate, and set off on a very nice walk uphill, alongside a country road, then a ski lift, through forest, past a World War II bunker, past ruins of stone shepherd's refuges. By about 10 am we'd come to a gîte, Hors Piste, where we topped for tea and conversation with the gardien, a nice guy, conversant in Italian and French. We had the place to ourselves, but as we left a bevy of Dutch ramblers looked in, uncertain as to whether the place was open.

Soon we came to the Col de Voza, the terminus of theski-lift from Les Houches. ("The Girls," as we by now referred to Suzanne Margolis and Ginger Harmon, whose Walking Europe from Top to Bottom (1986: Sierra Club) had inspired me to take this long walk, had taken that ski-lift, one of what we suspected may have been a number of short-cuts they'd resorted to. (Another had been the skilift from Le Brévent down to Chamonix: it was not running the afternoon we'd made that hard descent, two days earlier.)

The Col featured a huge hotel, a corral of rental donkeys, and an excursion tram! Lazier folk than we took advantage of these amenities, but we turned away from all that, admired the view ahead of us, and rambled on down to Biomassay, a pretty little hamlet, and at about noon in to the village of Champel, where we found delicious cherries hanging from branches above our path.

Then came fine walking through forest, and afterward rather a boring walk through vacation villages and the fields separating them. In Gruvaz we admired a fine old school building, where a vacationing couple sunned themselves in the doorway: "How old is the building," I asked; "Aucune idée," came the bored reply.

Then suddenly it was hard going down to and back up from the Bonnant (bon nant, good freshet), ultimately to find, at a bench occupied by a sweet old couple, a footpath leading up to Les Contaimnes, where at 3:20 we found the Hotel Grizzli, tourism, a company of Japanese tourists walking the Tour de Mont Blanc, boissons, a mediocre dinner, and a good night's sleep.

Distance walked, day 10: ca. 17 kilometers (10.5 miles). • Time: ca. 7 hours • dénivelément: ca. 1950 meters (6300 feet)

all photos cs except where noted

9 Chalets d'Anterne to Chamonix

2008-08-28T10:52:00.001-07:00

Day 11, June 30, 2008—

THIS WAS A VERY TOUGH DAY. By the time it was over, in fact, I was worried we might not get to Nice, not on foot anyway. But it began very gently: I woke early, awakened by shepherds incomprehensibly rallying their dogs to move the sheep; and at six we had a very early breakfast, having made arrangements the previous evening: black coffee out of a thermos, cold milk, bread, good cherry jam, and a cake of some kind. We were joined by the three French we'd met the previous day, one of whom turned out to be Swedish.

We left the refuge at 6:37 (!), walking up through alpage toward the Col d'Anterne, crossing a few snowfields; in an hour we'd reached Lac d'Anterne, small but beautiful. From there it was another hour to the Col, elevation 2257 m. (7300 feet) at 8.30 am on fine morning - nearly 2 hours of ascent, 1-1/2 by the book: but we'd rested occasionally en route.

photo: Annie Autier

Our french friends had beat us to the col, and Annie photographed us as we arrived — she explained that when she saw me, "There's my husband, in twenty years," she thought. He'll have to grow a beard.

photo: Annie Autier

We rested at the Col a bit, but it was soon time to get on. We descended, again across snow at times — and I fell twice — but also across fields of rhododenrons, often seeing cascades nearby.

We found the French again at the Refuge de Moëde, forty minutes later, where we had coffee and a Twinkie-like (though not filled) cake, something like the one we'd had at breakfast. A regional specialty, perhaps. Here we rested a good half hour: then down a steep, often wet stony trail to Pont d'Arlevé, v. picturesque, bottom of steep-sided valley. Another rest: it felt good to lie on cool stone in the warm sun.

Concerned about us, our French friends had waited for us at the Pont. After a 20-minute rest we followed them on a very difficult climb to the Col du Brévent, at 2370 m. the highest point we'd reached so far. The French had already left; in their place we found a troop of french walkers with their guide, doing the Tour des Dents.

photo: Mac Marshall

It was cold and windy, and already 3.10 — we were three hours behind the book, and had no certain place to sleep tonight. On, then; down, then, to the Refuge at Bel Lachat, where that troop & our French friends were staying: but there was no room for us. We rested half an hour, then left (to applause from the French for les Californiens!) and took the long, hard, stony descent toward the next programmed stop, Les Houches, a village on the southern outskirts of Chamonix.

Mont Blanc beyond Chamonix, a long way down

We turned off the route, though, at the Merlat animal park, arriving about 6.30. The park was just closing. The taxi phone number in my guidebook was unproductive. We walked down to a parking lot, where a local was reading a magazine in his parked car: he was sympathetic, but unable to help. Then a ramshackle van drove up filled with sound equipment and three young guys from Liverpool. They drove us further down to a main road, the Route de Coupeau; then we walked — downhill, bien sûr! —to a gîte. Our bad luck held: it was not yet open: but they called a cab & we drove in to Chamonix, to a newish, cheapish hotel the cabbie recommended, the Auberge du Manoir. Shower, change, and walk into town for dinner: salad Niçoise, with potatoes; and then back to the hotel and to sleep at 10.30 or 11.

Mont Blanc glacier from Chamonix, 9 pm

Distance walked, day 10: ca. 20 kilometers (12.5 miles). • Time: ca. 12 hours • dénivelément: ca. 2500 meters (8,100 feet!)

all photos cs except where noted

8 Samoëns to Chalets d'Anterne

2008-08-25T11:14:00.001-07:00

Day 10, June 29, 2008—

APART FROM THE WALK to Dent d'Oche on day 2, this was the most strenuous day yet, in spite of a deceptively pleasant stroll at the beginning.
We left Samoëns after a hotel-buffet breakfast of eggs and granola — better not get used to that! — about 8:30, walking alongside the Clévieux, rather a broad, easy-going stream, alongside a recreational park. When we came to the faster, fuller Giffre, though, we unaccountably turned right instead of left, walking a couple of kilometers out of our way, passing a couple of middle-aged locals with an ugly dog in both directions: they must have wondered why three men with backpacks were out for a morning stroll!

Finally we got straightend out and strolled in fact along a country road up the Giffre valley, finally coming to the gorge which was the glacial-age bed of the Giffre, a startling stony canyon.

This was perhaps the most spectacular closed scenery of the Long Walk to date, mute and ancient, far from anything humanly commercial or industrious. Our pace slowed because of the stony terrain and the climb, but even more, I think, because of the looming walls, the stillness, the sense of huge spans of time. Places like this have a hypnotic effect; they always seem like gateways to a past which, however remote, feels intimately connected to one's true center of being.

photo: Mac Marshall

.

At its upper end the gorge is closed by solid rock cliffs made passable by a series of cables and steel staircase-ladders. On climbing the last of these we came out into a peaceful forested valley, broader, perched high above the present course of the Giffre very far below. Here ancient nature ignorant of humanity gives way to agriculture; the valley is set about with farm buildings and the fields are beautifully grazed, while above the dents and pics and falaises testify to the glacial activity that left these pastures behind.

We took a break to reflect on these matters and more especially to eat our apples, then continued: we had a long climb ahead. We hesitated at the cascade du Rouget, then plunged into forest on a difficult stony trail on which we ultimately lost our way for a while, improvising an emergence

photo: Mac Marshall

to an even more spectacular set of waterfalls, a national monument with an accompanying café where we rest for an hour with crèpes and salads.
The weather was threatening, though, and we had more distance to cover, and there was snow on the ground ahead, at the collet d'Anterne.

photo: Mac Marshall

By the time we reached this ridge it was raining hard: time to cover the packs, then ourselves. In two hours, though, we reached our goal: the rain had let up; the pastures were incandescently green; sheep grazed the hillsides, and the low Chalets d'Anterne were ahead of us.

We stayed at the Refuge Alfred Wills, which occupies the house that pioneering alpinist built for his home in the 19th century. Here we joined a few French randonneurs for a delicious nettle soup and… what? the only main course we've failed to recall: we must have been tired. We were early to bed.

Distance walked, day 10: ca. 16 kilometers. • Time: ca. 8 hours 45 minutes • ascent: ca. 1200 meters

all photos cs except where noted

7 Mines d'Or to Samoëns

2008-08-21T23:21:00.001-07:00

Day 8-9, June 27-8, 2008—

Our gite d'etape at Mines d'Or (photo: Mac Marshall)

This was a tough day, not because of the distance or terrain, not because of altitude or weather, but because of indisposition. We'd got up for an early start, but one of us had what Mac says the Australian aboriginals call a "wog," though I must say this confused me at the time and confuses me more at this distance, as that word, to me, is disrespectful British slang for "non-Caucasian," being the acronym, as I learned sixty years ago, for white Oriental gentleman. Wikipedia calls this a "backronym, but goes on to gloss the word in the sense in which Mac used it, and we adopted the word in that sense during the rest of our walk: it came in handy a number of times.

Anyhow, one of us had a wog, and it wasn't me; but I knew what to do: administer a small dose of Fernet Branca and a Pepto-Bismol. This had the nearly immediate effect of correcting the affected stomach, and after breakfast we got under way at nine o'clock, walking down a paved road, then up a stony one. It was a fine clear morning filled with birdsong and cowbells, but the wog dogged our steps. photo: cs
By 9:45 we had to stop for a long rest, near a curiously abandoned hut-in-the-making.
photo: cs

Before long I was carrying two packs, mine on my back, another on my chest — each weighing maybe ten or twelve kilos. This wasn't fun, but paid me back for my inattentiveness last night, when I should have watched the gnôle intake a little more closely. This particular wog was nothing but a classic hangover.
photo: Mac Marshall
We soldiered on, though, reaching the col de la Golèse (1660 meters) by 10:30, in weather that had begun to turn cold and misty.
photo: cs
In another two hours — our guidebook said it should only have taken one — we reached the hamlet of les Allamands, where we'd hoped to have lunch. Alas the only café was closed for the day. We weren't the only ones disappointed: I noticed a small car drive up past us, two women in the front seat; before long they were coming back toward us.
I didn't hesitate: I stepped out into the road in front of the car, raising my hand in what I hoped was a gesture of friendly despair. "My buddy here is very sick, and I don't see how he can walk all the way to Samoëns. Can you give us a ride, if you're going there?"
They good-heartedly made room for two men and two backpacks; the third would have to keep walking.
We were let off in the heart of Samoëns, where the first person we ran into was our Austrian friend. She was just leaving town; she'd spent the night in a gîte that she recommended, but it wa full and we had to check in at the only hotel. We lost no time checking in, and one of us immediately went to bed.
photo: cs

In an hour or so the third party walked in: fortunately we both have mobile phones, and we soon met for a boisson and a walk in the park. The woman who founded the (formerly) great Paris department store La Samaritaine, Marie-Louise Jaÿ, was from Samoëns, and she funded a splendid alpine botanical garden on a hillside above town, where we spent the afternoon. There we found among other things a Sequoiadendron, always a curious sight away from the Sierra but to a Californian a welcome one, even if alongside an ornate Savoyard spire. photo: cs

Distance walked, day 8: ca. 6 kilometers. • Time: ca. 3-1/2 hours • elevation change: ca. 1100 meters
Day 9: rest day

6 Col de Bassachaux to Mines d'Or

2008-08-18T21:44:00.001-07:00

Day 7, June 26, 2008—

photo: cs

Another quiet night of solid, sound sleep; then up at 5:45 to cool, low mists. We left right after breakfast, at 7:30, and reached the col de Chésery 90 minutes later and 200 meters higher, having climbed easily along a dirt road;

photo: cs

then up steeper loose stones to the col, at 6525 feet.

photo: cs

Along the way the sound of birds, cuckoos hidden among the distant trees. At Chésery, quite a different scene: a team of Swiss women (and one or two men) unloading things from trucks into the chalet-refuge, which would open in a day or two. We had crossed, in fact, into Switzerland.

photo: Mac Marshall

Everything was vacuumed as it was unloaded; one woman busily dusted off a couple of apparently brand-new telephone directories. We asked if we might sit at one of the picnic tables to have a snack: "Yes, you may rest, but leave the tables clear, we have to clean them."

This was not amusing and we soon left, walking along the edge of an improbably green alpine lake, then climbing, then descending to Chaux-Palin, where we found a cup of tea and, a little later, a glass of delicious Swiss milk, the first glass of milk I'd had in weeks.

A long pleasant traverse, then the climb 300 meters to the col de Coux: en route, we stopped for lunch (egg, ham, bread, orange, tomato, supplied by last night's refuge) and were photographed

photo: Sabine Schroll

by a handsome athletic woman who walked our way, an Austrian with a lithe frame, a heavy pack, and a wonderful, enthusiastic, strong and competent disposition: I'll have more to say about her later on.

photo: cs

At the col, conversation with a couple of English walkers; then an easy descent on switchbacks, then a straight dirt road, to a crossroads:

photo: cs

which of a number of refuges to choose? The closest, by now: and we took a difficult descent through rough pasture, often lacking trail, to les Mines d'Or, where we arrived at 2:45, too late for lunch, far to early for dinner.

French fries, we all cried for, and a huge bowl arrived with the salt we craved, and bottles of Badoit (I added drops of Fernet to mine); and then showers, and a stroll around a trout pond, and a game of boules.

It's called "Mines d'Or" because in fact the mountainside above the hotel was mined centuries ago; you can still see openings to mines. The gite is really more an old-fashioned hotel: we had a nice room to ourselves, with an armoire and a balcony; the wc was down the hall,

photo: cs

and the dinner wasn't bad: gazpacho, poulet Basquaise, watermelon with "red fruit," and, as a digestive, a delicious pastique.made with local gnole, a rough Savoyard version of grappa smoothed with sugar and mountain herbs. Sleep came easy.

Distance walked, day 6: ca. 20 kilometers. • Time: ca. 7 hours 15 minutes • elevation change: ca. 1500 meters

5 la Chapelle d'Abondance to Col de Bassachaux

2008-08-18T16:55:00.001-07:00

Day 6, June 25, 2008—

We left the hotel at 8:15, stopping at the ATM and to fill our waterbottles at a bar with a very pretty bargirl. We followed the Torrent des Mattes, admiring its cascade,
photo: Henry Shere

climbed through forest through Sur-Bayard and up lacets — switchbacks — across fields; then easier climbs back in forest again.

photo: Mac Marshall

We reached the Chalet des Crottes after two and a half hours, stopping for conversation with a herd of French tourists and their guide; then through open flowery and sometimes marshy fields to another chalet or two and then, in snowy weather, arrived at the col des Mattes, today's highest point at 1930 meters, at 12:15.
photo: cs

There we ducked under a fence, tricky with a backpack on, admired the view,

photo: cs

and then set off down more lacets, down over 200 meters through pastures. These switchbacks ease the grade, of course, but make problematic any estimate of horizontal distance covered, which is why you must take statistics at the bottom of these pages with a grain of salt: I try in general to underestimate.

The Chalet de l'Etrye was closed, of course — no provisions here but a few apples we'd brought with us. We took a country road to Lenlevay, where we could refill our canteens; then a harder climb up 150 meters the arête de Coincon, and then across generally open country, down 200 meters and back up another hundred, to the fine gite

photo: Mac Marshall

photo: cs

at the Col de Bassachaux, where for dinner we had potage, tartaflette, and a delicious tarte à myrtilles, washed down with Apremont.
photo: cs

Distance walked, day 6: ca. 16 kilometers. • Time: ca. 7 hours 30 minutes • elevation change: ca. 1600 meters

4 Chalets de Bise to la Chapelle d’Abondance

2008-08-18T13:48:00.001-07:00

Day 4 & 5, June 23, 24—

Up at 5:30 to watch the dawn and the cows coming in to be milked,

one milker helped by three dogs, one of whom was apparently being trained by the other two.

First sun on mountaintops to the west. A fine morning, not a trace of the predicted rainstorm.

A fairly easy climb for an hour or so from Bise to the Pas de la Bosse, gaining 300 meters,

the valley beautiful behind us; ahead,

the stone walls of the mountain changing as we neared. Then a fine Col, and an easy descent to the Chalet-laiterie, closed unfortunately (as all seem to be). But then, after passing a ruined transhumance refuge,

we lost our way somehow and had to "bushwhack" through rough brushy vegetation hiding marmot-holes. Ultimately we regain the track, but it's a steep, stony, challenging one through forest.

Then, at the bottom, another kind of disappointment: civilization. Big tracts are being "developed," apparently for more timeshare leisure residences. We hurry past and find a "discovery route," a nice footpath leading past explanatory panels describing the flora, fauna, and history of the area.

This leads to the town of la Chapelle d’Abondance, where, tired, we simply fell into the first hotel we saw — too grand a hotel for me, with an indoor swimming pool and a theme-park decor, but pleasant enough for our first recuperation.

photo: Mac Marshall (other photos: cs)

And we could select our meals from menus! Lunch was trout, tomato, fennel, and potatos; dinner was pintadeau — guinea fowl, a favorite of mine — with the Canadians, who'd booked a nearby gite.

We decided to stay here an extra day. Chef drove us to a supermarket a couple of miles away, where we replaced our lost straw hats and water-bottles; then, to stay in shape, we walked back. That night we enjoyed a “traditional” dinner: mountain salad with lettuces, lardons, and hardcooked eggs; and sliced dry ham; and boiled potatoes to dip into your fondue; and best of all pickled sour cherries with tiny mushrooms, served in a downstairs dining room done up in traditional chalet style.

Distance walked, day 4: ca. 10 kilometers. • Time: ca. 4 hours • elevation change: ca. 1100 meters
Day 5: rest day

3 Dent d'Oche to Chalet de Bise

2008-08-18T11:50:00.001-07:00

June 22, 2008—

photo: CS

But it was a harder day than I anticipated. Up about five to see the dawn and take photos, then write with a first coffee — black, in a bowl, with sugar, okay. Then, at seven, our real breakfast: cafe au lait, bread butter and jam. Not very nourishing for the kind of thing we're doing.
photo: Mac Marshall

We packed up and set out, climbing to the summit of the Dent d'Oche fairly easily, then descending along narrow fairly level footpaths at the edge of the precipice — the north side of the Dent being virtually vertical — then rounding the top to descend along an arrete, a spine of small-to-midsize exposed rock falling away on each side quite steeply.
A ridge, in fact, descending southeasterly, at say thirty degrees. Often we were helped by cables attached to the rock: you give up using your walking sticks, hold them both in one hand, grab the cable with the other (left in this case), swing away from the rock to the next footing, then quickly slide your hand further along the cable for the next operation.

photo: CS

This is fairly exhausting, but more normal descent, on scree, cobbles, and occasionally exposed soil, often stepping down six to ten inches at a step, is tiring in another way. Yesterday I was concerned about Mac; today about myself. Quadriceps and knees complained bitterly as we stepped down hundreds of meters on frustrating switchbacks, and then we were faced with another chimney, shinnying up between two stone surfaces, again with a cable to help, only to resume the switchbacks.

Ultimately all this led us to — the GR5, the trail we intend to take south to Nice. First there was a climb of some hundreds of meters up switchbacks like those we'd just descended to a pass which seemed to define a new area: we were leaving the influence of Lac Leman and entering a different kind of Haute Savoie, a kind more like the Chartreuse we know from thirty years ago.
photo: Mac Marshall

A beautiful green lake beckoned to us down off the path, but visiting it would have required otherwise unnecessary descents and climbs. Didn't take long to decline that invitation. Instead we continued, walking into a herd of at least forty bouquetins, most of them adults with long, elegantly curved horns. I suppose they might have looked menacing, but I just walked forward, parting the herd.

Next came a much gentler descent, but one which took us across occasional patches of snow, unfamiliiar footing to me but rather pleasant. We found our way next up to the Col de Bise, another demarcation, and below us but oh so far away was the day's goal, the Chalets de Bise.
photo: Mac Marshall

One of the two chalets is a refuge run by the Alpine Club, its sleeping facilities similar to those at Dent d'Oche but less spartan. We were first to arrive so were given three lower bunks at the end of the row, under a window.

We were invited to wash our clothes if we liked, and finally I had an opportunity for a sponge-bath. We washed the clothes in cold water in a trough, leaving a few moss-stains in my pants which in any case now have a good-sized tear on the seat — I must have slid on something unknowingly.
photo: CS

And we had a decent lunch, at two o'clock, a big salad with bacon, egg, walnuts, croutons and of course lettuce, good lettuce; and a bottle of local white wine.

The Canadians, Patrick & Nancy McMahon, arrived shortly after us, in good cheer but just as tired, and joined us for lunch; we'll dine with them in a minute. They're an interesting couple: she works as an ER nurse (and helped Mac out of his muscle cramps, giving him electrolytes); he's a field geologist and knows a lot about mountains. Weather, too: Tonight a storm is promised: good. It'll clear the air. But tomorrow may rain, and we have to walk in it for three hours or so to get to Le Chalet d'Abondance. We'll see how it goes.
photo: CS

Distance walked, day 3: ca. 8 kilometers. • Time: ca. 8 hours • elevation change: ca. 1000 meters

2 Creusaz to the Dent d’Oche

2008-08-18T11:29:00.001-07:00

Réfuge du Dent D’Oche, June 21—

This second day started well, proved difficult later, ended oddly, at least in my experience. I rose at six to do some writing and thinking; no one stirred; even the parrot was relatively sedate. At seven, though, we were served a hearty breakfast: the usual croissant, sliced baguette, and coffee au lait, plus orange juice and, later, two fried eggs and big rashers of ham. We went then down into Bernex, following first a paved road, then a grassy and stony mulepath.

We had to wait only five minutes or so for the village store to open, where we found some dry sausage sticks, apples, and peanuts for the day's lunch, and a bottle of water for me.
Across the street the tourist shop was open, but their only hats were heavy winter felt affairs and one straw sized, I think, for Charlie McCarthy; so I bought some sunscreen and let it go at that.

We walked up the asphalt road, infrequently traveled, to Trossy and beyond, finally arriving at the curiously named Fetiuère where the cafe would open in an hour, at eleven; but the manager saw our disappointment and gave us three coffees and welcome chairs on the terrace — gratis!

Then began the real day's walk. At first we were in a forest, and the way was packed earth, occasionally a bit muddy, over loose stones. Quickly this led to a harder way, crossing the contours and climbing sharply, many more loose stones but still shaded. Then we heard sheepbells ahead, and dogs barking, and came upon a small flock just moved into a paddock within temporary electric fence and guarded by two nervous sheepdogs. Now we were in full sunlight, and remained so generally for the rest of the day — a warm one. The way continued to climb but began to alternate between climbs and contours, rising above the forest and leading into high pastures with here and there a small herd of heifers, finally to a promising fromagère, an ancient stone building where cheese was made — closed, of course, the tables and chairs fenced off in a most unfriendly manner, and a prominent sign

Le maison n'a pas des toilettes
Voir la Dame Nature

There was however a long concrete trough with two jets of cold water streaming into it, and here we rinsed our hands and soaked our head-scarfs and rested.

Now we were joined by a number of other walkers, solitaries, couples, and two or three families with children. The path splits here at the Chalet d'Oche, and we took the left, climbing through high pasture on a steep stony trail with many switchbacks — difficult climbing.

Always we wondered how we would come to the day's goal, the Refuge du Dent d'Oche, always out of sight the other side of a prominent rock outcropping, and up at 2114 meters elevation. Would we round that outcropping on the left or the right?

Neither, it turned out; there is a narrow way, a sort of chimney, in a cleft; and here we no longer walked, we scrambled, often hauling ourselves up hand over hand with the help of chains and cables thoughtfully pinned to the rock.
It was exhausting, but it led to a magnificently placed refuge, its small patio providing views over the whole of Lac Leman and the Alps, Mont Blanc a challenging distant mysterious white presence beyond all.

The Refuge accommodates sixty guests in three dortoirs, big common rooms with box-beds, really only thin mattresses on the floors, set side by side in rows. There's one toilet, a Turkish affair; you hang onto a rope with your left hand to steady yourself and keep he door closed in front of you as you do your business. There is no running water, though a bucket of cold water is thoughtfully provided just outside the toilet door for rinsing one's hands. Otherwise there is no way to clean up here.

The refuge is supplied by weekly helicopter drops of heavy items — beer, wine, water, and such. The gardien, who we met back in Trossy, brings bread up every day or two on his back, climbing the same route we’d just taken — and going back down that chimney to fetch his German shepherd, now too old to make the climb unaided.

But the view is splendid. Henry and I climbed to the summit, maybe twenty minutes away, and found a young bouquetin there, grazing quite near the handful of visitors who seemed stunned and silenced by the view — and inspiring it certainly is.

Dinner was soup, pasta, slabs of roast beef, cheese, and canned fruit cocktail, with a glass of red wine and many of cold water. And then, a little before ten, I retired, to sleep pretty well.

Distance walked, day 2: ca. 8 kilometers. • Time: ca. 8 hours • elevation change: ca. 1000 meters

1: Evian to Creusaz

2008-08-18T11:06:00.001-07:00

Friday, June 20 2008, day one

Mac and Henry embark on the adventure

Train from the airport into Geneva, tram to the French train station at Eaux Vives — a badly outmoded and ill-maintained place, but serviceable. Then an odd hour at Evian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), making a reservation for tonight's bed and dinner and finding out how to walk here, and managing to lose a guidebook and a canteen.

The walk was hard. No more than ten miles, but a considerable gain in elevation, from Evian at about 370 meters to here at 1170, or 3800 feet. Nothing compared to what we'll be doing, but hard given lack of sleep, jet lag, fairly high temperatures, and grades up to 20 percent. The sleepy vacation resort town of Evian-les-Bains gave way to suburbs; these quickly becoming more rural. Our roads climbed and curved among fields and woods, often with surprising vistas over Lac Leman, always the distant mountains challenging us.

Now and then you come to a hamlet, with only a few of the old buildings to recall their original peasant economy; now nearly all buildings are from the last twenty years or so, in the prefab linconlog chalet style, nicely set about with gardens and potted flowers — weekend or vacation houses, no doubt: this is ski country. We walked along country roads about ten kilometers to La Beunaz, then overland on footpaths and dirt roads through forest and pasture.

We are in Haute Savoie; the cows are wearing their delicious bells; the hills are incredibly green, the air soft and sweet. Our gite d’étape, l’Alpage,

will not be terribly expensive and gave a decent dinner: trout, french fries (boy did we want that salt!), fresh crisp delicious lettuces, fine ice cream with magnificent whipped cream. There’s a parrot in the dining room — caged, bien entendu — and a friendly woman running things, and we three are the only people staying here.

Our windows look out over the pastures and we hear the distant cowbells. Tomorrow will be even harder than today, but we must do it — and so to bed.

Distance walked, day 1: ca. 15 kilometers. • Time: ca. 4 hours • elevation change: ca. 800 m.

Introduction

2008-08-18T11:05:00.001-07:00

August 18, 2008—

TWO DAYS BEFORE my seventy-third birthday I finally begin the account of our Long Walk of this summer. We flew, my grandson Henry and my friend Mac and I, into Geneva on June 20, landing about 10 am after marveling at the landscape out the airplane window: were we actually going to walk across those mountains? Well, no, the GR5 takes us over ridges along the foot of the Alps. Still: pretty daunting.

Grande Randonnée 5 runs from Hoek van Holland, on the Dutch North Sea coast, to Nice, on the Mediterranean. I first read about it years ago in Walking Europe Top to Bottom, by Susanna Margolis, who walked the entire GR5 with her companion Ginger Harrison in the 1980s: Lindsey and I immediately decided to do the same, but starting further north in order to ease into it.
That led us to investigating the Pieterpad, a 400-kilometer traversal of the Netherlands: We took three summers to do it, but that's another story, one still waiting to be documented. (A more recent Dutch walk along the Lingepad has resulted in a photo book.)
A more recent book, Paddy Dillon's The GR5 Trail, brought information closer to date and further inspired me with its photos, so even though Lindsey refused to try it, pleading uncertainty with the terrain, I determined to give it a try. I told all my friends I was doing it, so I couldn't back out. I joined a gym and walked its treadmills, so I'd invested too much in it to back out. And I invited Henry and Mac, and wasn't about to let them down.
It's going to be so much fun, I reminded them continuously through the months leading up to the walk. And, in the end, it was. It was strenuous and at times monotonous. But it was memorable, stimulating, invigorating, and always incredibly beautiful. In the next days I'll try to re-live the walk day by day.