Alps, 2013, 19: St.-Dalmas-le-Selvage to St.-Étienne

St.-Étienne-sur-Tinée, July 12, 2013—

Leaving St.-Dalmas le Selvage

Breakfast was, surprisingly, in the living-dining room of the couple who own this auberge — their eleven-year-old daughter was not in evidence. As we walked to it, through the kitchen, i regretted we'd not dined last night en pension, entertaining (and good) as the next-door restaurant had been. Everything in this auberge is bio, and on one wall there was a small open cabinet of perhaps five shelves, each filled with little vials — there nust have been sizty of them. No idea what was in them. I posted photos of the breakfast room on Facebook: in the room, a Roland electric piano, a tomtom, a pair of bongos, paintings — not his, the host assured us; his are in the next room, hidden. And yes, that's turpentine we're smelling. 

I was sorry to leave St-Dalmas-le-Selvage; it's very peaceful; everything — even the two or three buildings that eem to me new since five years ago — seems to be where it should, to look as it should. Of course it didn't hurt that the village was nearly empty. Four teenagers had been playing foosball on the machine outside the Bureau of Information last night, but they weren't around today. The village dog was lying on the street in front of the local-products alimentation. We stopped in to buy a saucisson sec for our lunch, then, at twenty minutes to nine, walked past the pretty little church whose interior I've yet to see and crossed the fine old bridge to take the ancient road up to the Col d'Anelle. 

The road climbs gently between alpages on its left and forest on the right. It was a fine morning, blue sky, warm, with much birdsong in the air. We reached the col in a little under an hour.

The col is not particularly rewarding; there aren't really any extensive views from it. It doesn't offer a sharp ridge or crest, defining zones; it's more like a gentle hilltop — it's only 1739 meters high, 239 meters above St-Dalmas-le-Selvage. (5705 feet; 784 feet.) It was interesting to me for being the first one we've crossed without walking across snow, north or south side. 

From there it was a pretty simple descent down to the first real town we've seen since Briançon, nearly ten days ago. We walked into town alongside restanques, noticing thyme, lavender, and pinks in the path — the first pinks we've seen. Plenty of lizards, too. . 

I suddenly realized the Bureau of Tourism would soon close — it was nearly noon — so we got away from the café we'd stopped at, on its bleak and tawdry street, and walked around the corner into the town center, alive with the weekly market and dressed up with a huge shade-canopy over the town square, a temporary stage set up at one end, and tricolor bunting and pennants everywhere. 

The lady at the Bureau of Tourism was dry, stern, brisk. The hotels were all full; so were the gîtes. There was only one possibility. She made a phone call, then told us to go through the market, just at the end, past the school, on the right, was the Rabuons; we should talk to Mme. Jeannine. 

This turned out to be a strange place. Mme. Jeannine showed us to a small, clean room with two small single beds, a plain armoire, and its own bathroom. We heard children practicing on string instruments, and were told the place offered all kinds of activities for vacationing families. 

We showered and changed and went out to a nearby café for a coffee and pastry, but immediately a violent downpour chased everyone inside, grabbing folding tables and chairs to take with them. Another afternoon thunderstorm had rolled in. I asked the woman running the place, in fun, if she sold parapluies: no, but the souvenir shop next door did. We dashed into it and bought inexpensive compact folding umbrellas, stepped outside, unfurled them, and began walking back to our room. Immediately the rain stopped. 

Since Rabuons had a pretty good wi-fi, I began working on accommodations for the next few nights. It's going to be difficult. We have a reservation in Roya night after next, though we should in fact be there tomorrow. There's nothing here in St-Étienne tomorrow, either. Finally I found a hotel a half hour's bus ride down the road at St-Sauveur, and took the room, though there's only one bus a day. 

Then, though, the woman at the gîte in Roya called: do you still want to come tomorrow? We've had a cancellation… so I called St-Sauveur and apologized and then, while I could, researched beds for the next few nights: Sunday the 14th, the Vacherie de Roure; Monday, Les Marmottes, in St-Dalmas Valdeblore; Tuesday we'll be in Utelle already… absolutely no rooms in Utelle. Well, enough for tonight: let's have dinner…

St.-Étienne-sur-Tinée

Alps, 2013, 18: Bousiéyas to St.-Dalmas-le-Selvage

Bousiéyas

July 11, 2013: a lazy day, welcome after yesterday's epic. We started about 8:45, knowing we had no more than four hours of trail, but it was a false start, someone forgot a hat and went back for it, and it was closer to 9:15 that we actually left. The first climb was delightful, from Bousièyas at 6200 feet to the Col de la Colombière at 7300, at first on forest road, then somewhat steeper forest trail, and ultimately out onto the incomparable Vallon de Frondière, one of the quietest, most regularly beautiful landscapes we have seen, open to the northeast, green woth new grass, and save one or two shepherd's chalets entirely unspoiled — though clearly modulated by centuries of grazing. 

Then, in a little over two hours, we climbed further, again once or twice walking on snow, to the col, which seems the absolute demarcation: descending on stony path, bowling-ball runnels, and grassy track, we were in roses, broom, lavender, thyme, lilies, and Flora knows what else. Arnica, for one, whose sap I put in my troubled fingertip; and angelica, and violas, and many many more. 

I saw my first lizard of the walk, not bright green as advertised in the guidebooks but dull brown. There were still the enchanting butterflies, small as my little fingernail, apparently cut out of dusty Alice-blue silk, with surprising yellow edging along the wings; and others, hardly bigger, violet-mauve; and then those an alarming marigold orange-yellow with brown leopard-spots, small enough to have flown out of a dressmaker's thimble. Yesterday put me in mind of King Lear; today I thought of A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

We walked down along ledges between dog-roses and broom, across patches scattered with sparkling mica and pyrites, across crumblimg schist, decomposed granite, clay, occasionally scree. We stopped at a ford on the Combe, to admire the no-longer-so-distant church and bridge at St.-Dalmas-le-Selvage.  We walked into the village along a restanque, our first on this trek; to our left,  field of Flanders poppies. 

Alps, 2013, 17: Larche to Bousiéyas

July 10, 2013: up at 6:30, the usual businesses, breakfast at 7 but we were 15 minutes late. We left Larche in good time, but after walking ten minutes or so Stefan had the happy idea of asking the nice bartender to make us sandwiches for our lunch, which would let us have a cappuccino while waiting. And so we actually left town later, about 8:30. The first part of the walk was very pleasant and almost imperceptibly climbing, most of the time on a country asphalt road leading to the trailhead parking-lot at the national park. 

We never saw the serious guy and his friend: I'm sure they are very fast and disciplined — or perhaps they simply levitate. We soon caught up with the couple from Limoges, though; we played leapfrog with them all day. 

Having walked east, nearly to Italy, to get to the trailhead, we then turned south to walk up an extraordinarily beautiful valley. To my mind it's been slightly spoiled since five years ago by the addition of explanatory panels and, for the first kilometer ir so, a concrete pavement suitable for wheelchairs. There were marmots everywhere; the air actually smelled of them, probably because day-hikers feed them, in spite of signs politely asking them not to.

After a while, though, the concrete trail gave up, there were fewer people on the trail, and the smell of marmotry gave way to grass, larches, and quickly flowing water. The grade increased, and the surface became more rutted, then occasionally stony. Here and there footbridges and steps assisted, but it was still a hiker's trail, not a walker's footpath.

A little before reaching the col we passed a couple of lakes, the second of which, smaller and higher, was mostly iced over. It took a few hours to get to the first col, the Pas de la Cavale, at 8700 feet. Six or eight times the trail was under snow, sometimes for sixty or eighty (linear) feet. The view from the col was extraordinary, but we didn't linger, as we were hearing a thunderstorm approach. 

Soon after beginning a steep, stony descent, with many switchbacks, it began to rain in earnest, and that quickly turned to hard hail, copious haikstones the size of BBs, or coriander seeds. This made the descent that much harder, particularly wearing glasses. I'd put the raincover on my pack and put on my windbreaker, but hadn't had time to put on my rain pants, and before long I was pretty well soaked through.

The thunder and lightning seemed to have moved on, but the hail didn't let up. We found a goodsized boulder, big enough for the four of us to shelter in its lee, and waited a few minutes, and the storm began to seem to lett up. I knew we had hours to go, though, and that the weather could turn nasty again, so we set out.

Almost immediately a steady cold rain set in. The trail, a deep dirt rut through rather high grass, was running water, and very slippery. I fell once, my feet sliding out from under me; and I fell again, stepping into a marmot hole invisible in the grass, which I'd begun to walk on to avoid the slippery mud. 

Suddenly a bolt of lightning and its thunderclap struck almost simultaneously. I wasn't seriously worried about lightning, as we were well below the col and its surrounding peaks, but I saw Stefan throw himself on the ground, and wondered momentarily if he'd been struck; then realized  of course he'd have been on the ground before I'd ever heard the thunder. 

We pressed on. I remembered that it was a good three hours from the col to our lodging in good weather; who knew how long this was going to take us in this. I set a pretty fast pace on the rest of the descent, finding the way partly by instinct, partly from memory – from the book, and from five years ago. At one point I tripped on a tuft of grass and pitched headlong forward, taking most of the fall on my right shoulder.

At the bottom, though, two thousand feet below the col, we came to what I'd been most worried about, the ford we'd have to make of the stream draining this valley. The path had been washed out earlier, and the water was beginning to run high — and, I noticed, not clear as the snowmelt is, but almost black with dissolved black shale.

We found a way through; then faced the next problem: a steep ascent, on fairly dry dirt still but slippery where steepest. We had only six hundred feet to climb, but it was raining hard and pretty cold. It didn't help morale that Stefan noticed the body of a good-sized sheep that had apparently been lying there a day or two. 

I thought to myself: I would never do this willingly, but being faced with it, of course one perseveres — and, fact is, it was exhilarating. In some ways the three hours or so since the storm began was the severest weather I remember facing unprotected. Where looming thunderstorms had earlier made me think of Giorgione, now I was thinking of King Lear. It was magnificent.

But on reaching our second col, at 7400 feet, we still had to descend to Bousiéyas, 1200 feet lower and 45 minutes away in good weather. We were in a thick fog, so thick it might as well have been rain. Visibility was poor. Our path was partly on the asphalt D64, the famous Col de la Bonnette road from Nice to Barcelonnette, and partly on slippery, steep mud ruts cutting through the many D64 hairpins. We chose to stay on the asphalt, and after watching a few campers drive by I held my hand out to the next car, which obligingly stopped.

The driver opened his window halfway, and I saw the back seat was empty. Do you have room for two of us, I asked, and he looked at me with a concerned, rather mystified silence. I realized I was in such a state that I'd forgotten to speak french, and asked again: avez-vous deux places pour madame et mussieu?

His wife popped out of her door and suddenly both back doors were welcomingly open. The couple from Limoges absolutely refused to get in, insisting that we do — they'd seen our falls, having walked always behind (and profiting from our footsteps). We argued a very short time; I wasn't sure how patient the driver would be. Then we tossed our packs in the trunk and got in.

It was so foggy, and we were so wet that the defroster couldn't clear the windshield, that we drove down to Bousiéyas with the two front windows open, the driver's wife with her head out, trying to make out the edge of the road. They were very nice people, in their forties or early fifties, down from Orléans for a week's holiday in Provence. They'd been in Barcelonnette yesterday, and had pretty well decided to give it up because of the storms, and head for Nice.

We finally reached our gîte, where I immediately took a nice hot shower. There's more to report, but it will wait. 

Alps, 2013, 16: Fouillouse to larche

For a number of days we have lacked internet access. I will post here the notes of the last few days. Photos alas will have to wait until I have more tome and a real computer, but those who follow me on Facebook may find some there.

July 9, 2013: 

Breakfast at 7:15 — we were a little late — bread, butter, little package of peach jam, café au lait into which I added some powdered cocoa. Then we hit the trail, stopping to admire the little Fouillouse cemetery with its cautionary  warning over the nice metal gates:

PASSANTS

Souvenez-vous que nous avons eté ce que vous êtes

Et que vous serez un jour ce que nous sommes

The path was easy at first, ascending through now forest, now with their small patches of snow always close left and right and of course ahead. Military history was rarely absent, in the form of old pillboxes and hillocks which seemed likely to have. Been mounded over other installations. I wondered idly if these areas had ever been mined, then dismissed the idea. 

In a couple of  hours we reached our first col, the Vallonnet, at 2520 meters (8260 feet): we'd climbed two thousand feet. It was cold and windy, though not bad enough to require windbreaker or jacket; and mists swirled around the nearby peaks, though to the southeast the sky looked more promising. 

From there it's a fairly easy traverse, then climb toward the imposing ruin of the Viraysse barracks, whose parade ground, big as a soccer field, was entirely surrounded by barracks in beautiful stonework. Virtually all the roofs are gone, and two sides have lost their barracks, but what is left is impressive.

From there a half hour climbing switchbacks to the Col de Mallemort, a little higher than the Vallonet, and soon our destination was in sight, hardly a mile off as the crow flies, but down nine hundred meters — three thousand feet! — and about two hours of difficult walking, sometimes through exceptionally beautiful fields of flowers, but too often down steep switchbacks paved with loose scree and gravel.

Military installations continue to be ubiquitous, and at one point there's an explanatory panel describing the events of World War II, when the town of Larch ws completely destroyed, all but the memorial to the dead of World War I, by the retreating Germans and Italians. Now the flags of France, Italy, and the European Union fly over the site.

We entered Larche at quarter past one, footsore and with aching calves. The gîte is simple but clean and comfortable. I had a nice conversation, what I could understand of it, with two women in the Syndicat d'Initiative; they assured me that nothing at all happens here most of the time; a few skiers from December to March, a few hikers like us for six weeks in the summer. It uses to be busy here, with an army detachment and their dependents, a national gendarmerie, and the customs officials and workers, since Larche is a border town. Now all that is closed. Peacetime and open frontiers are bad for business.

Alps, 2013, 15: Maljasset to Fouillouse

For a number of days we have lacked internet access. I will post here the notes of the last few days. Photos alas will have to wait until I have more tome and a real computer, but those who follow me on Facebook may find some there.

July 8, 2013: 

We found breakfast gathering itself a little before seven. Of our dortoir we were the first up; then the two Germans; the two Lyonnaises didn't appear until we were finishing breakfast. 

It looked like rain, so I covered my pack and for the first time broke out my windbreaker/jacket, and we were en route by 8, walking down D25 toward St. Paul-sur-Ubaye.  The morning continued overcast for a long time, even drizzling from time to time.

The only unusual thing that happened was our meeting a huge flock of sheep coming our way. At the head, two stalwart paisanos with staffs (not trekking poles) and, between them, one milk cow, wearing her bell. A black dog had preceded them. Then came the flock, a couple of hundred sheep I would say, some marked M, others F – I have no idea why. At the back of the flock there was a truck towing a trailer full of young lambs. It was driven by a good-looking well-dressed woman, I asked her where they were coming from: Forqualquier, in Provence. 

We turned off the paved road for a while to cut through flowered meadow between the road and the Chátelet torrent, but after the previous night's rainfall everything was quite wet; my boots and trouser-legs were soon soaked.

In a little over an hour we'd reached the road leasdng up to Fouillouse. This was new to me: five years ago Mac and Henry and I had walked on down to St. Paul in the mistaken thought we had a reservation there, and had finallly had to commandeer an obliging fellow to drive us up to Fouillouse. Finally today I learned what the GR5 does here. 

What it does, is climb, steeply, first up the asphalt road to the magnificent pont du Châtelet (a stone bridge 300 feet above the river), then up stony forest path, nearly 300 meters, often breath-to-a-step steep; and then finally descend on gravel and dirt path to Fouillouse. You really begin to feel you're in Provence, as technically you are. Poppies, roses, thyme, geraniums, low juniper, pinea. 

Now here we are. In a comfortable gîte in our own room, not a dortoir, with a BATHTUB, our first. We arrived at 11:30, first dampened by light rain, then dried out by sun, then soaked in sweat — me at least; don't know about Stefan. It was not much of a hike, I guess, but a little strenuous at the end. We cleaned up and washed some clothes, and then had lunch: charcuterie, omelette, salad. Again, we have neither telephone nor Internet: I write up these notes, read a little, and take a nap.

Dinner with a guy we met in Ceillac: German, on a bicycle tour holiday, Manfred, from Bönen, near Dortmund. Very interesting and nice. Systems analyst, I think. Interested in the fortifications hereabouts: French, Italians proud of them, make tourist attractions of them, unlike the Germans, who lost nearly all theirs, and choose not to dwell on it. Has been within a few km of many peaks, which completely satisfies him. Totally satisfied with life except when he thinks of political situation, and daughter's situation. I say: it's their problem; their world; they will find a way. He agrees. 

Alps, 2013, 14: Ceillac to Maljasset

For a number of days we have lacked internet access. I will post here the notes of the last few days. Photos alas will have to wait until I have more tome and a real computer, but those who follow me on Facebook may find some there.

July 7, 2013, refuge du Club Alpin Français, Maljasset—

I was awake at six, and soon up; breakfast at seven, with the women we'd dined with last night. Decent coffee from a huge urn, and hot milk for a change; orange juice, bread and butter, and nice myrtille jam. (I forbore yoghurt and corn flakes.)

We filled our canteens at a fountain and struck out at eight o'clock, walking down a pleasant track alongside a stream, the Mélezet. After an hour or so, though, the trail took us more steeply uphill, on stony terrain in a forest, sometimes quite steeply indeed. Occasionally we walked beside alarming drops, only inches from the trail. We came upon a fine cascade, then finally emerged from the forest into more open country about ten o'clock, passing the Prés-Soubreyand lake, also called Lac Miroir but today too wind-rippled to reflect the magnificent peaks above it. 

Next, at 11:15, came a really stunning lake, a sort of miniature Crater Lake, incomprehensibly blue, as if its waters had dissolved every nearby gentian (they hadn't; there were gentians all around, and pretty tiny pansies of some kind, too). We rested there a short while, near the chapel of Ste. Anne. Soon, though, dozens of day-hikers showed up, because it is possible to drive to this location, and we resumed the trail, knowing we had a pretty hard climb ahead. 

It led us, through switchbacks on dirt, on scree, and once even on snow, to the highest col we will have faced: Girardin, at 2700 meters — only 8,850 feet, but cold and windy. We didn't spend a lot of time admiring the view, because a thunderstorm was threatening. 

The descent to Maljasset took nearly two hours. It began fairly easily, once we improvised a way around a snowbank; but then, especially after leaving our GR5 and taking the sidepath to Maljasset, it became quite steep, eroded, and treacherous, on decomposed schist, fragments of stone as big as your hand, slick and brittle and sounding like shards of glass or porcelain underfoot. 

We reached the night's lodging early, at 2:30 I think, but none too soon, as it had begun to rain.  Maljasset is only 1900 meters above sea lavel, 6200 feet, but it feels remote, with neither telephone nor Internet access (though somehow our hostess was able to telephone to tomorrow's gîte, at Fouillouse, to reserve a room for us). Our gîte is comfortable; there are seven bunkbeds in our dortoir, no spaces between them, but only six of us in the room. The showers and other facilities are clean and adequate, if you have your own towel; and dinner was fine. 

Alps, 2013, 13: la Chalp to Ceillac

Ceillac, France, July 6, 2013—

 I KNEW THIS was going to be a hard day. Paddy Dillon's book, which is detailed but in some ways misleading I think, suggested that it would be. My own book, which I find utterly reliable, said that it would be. ("Today’s walk, the book warned, would take nearly eight hours, and would involve nearly 2400 meters — 7800 feet — of elevation change, including a steady gain of a thousand meters in four hours.")

And my memory warned me the same. We did have one advantage over the experience of five years ago: we did not descend to Arvieux, the next town, but set out at quarter past eight, directly from our very fine Chalet Viso, on a forest trail that led us through cool surroundings and gentle ascents to the hamlet of Les Maisons, where we arrived at nine o'clock, filled our canteens at the fountain, and engaged in some banter with the three men and one woman who were cutting the grass and weeds from a triangular plot hardly bigger than a modest house.

A scythe would ne faster, cleaner, and a lot more tranquil, I observed, and the guy with the Stihl weed-wacker smiled, and agreed, and shrugged his shoulders, and went bacck to work.

The path took us through pasture and forest to the Lac de Roue, now greatly overgrown with vegetation, and then down through spruce forest and picnic ground, down down down, to château-Queyras, where we broke for tea and a rather firm but still delicious Charentais melon. The fort here is architecturally beautiful from outside, but our host at Chalet Visi had warned us that the interior was not particularly interesting, and I was thinking about the climb facing us, harder, I knew, than anything we had yet done.

It begins with a long scramble up stony paths, often very steep indeed. I've often thought about actually measuring these gradients, but when you're actually climbing them, especially not alone but with a companion, it's just too hard to take the time. If I were to bend over to put my iPhone on the ground, to measure the gradient, I might have a great deal of t rouble picking it up, or righting myself. 

Instead I think about my breathing. It's always best when you're unaware of your breathing. I find that when I do become aware of it I'm probably inhaling for two steps, then exhaling for two. As the grade grows steeper it's inhale sharply on one step, exhale the next two. Then it's inhale on one, exhale the next —I try to exhale while planting the right trekking pole and advancing the left foot, then alternate.

The worst, of course, is inhaling on one step, exhaling the next.. But it gets worse than that, at times, and you find yourself panting, a quick inhale and exhale on EACH step. At that point I stop, lean on the poles, and think about my pulse, which is probably up to about 130. Before long it drops to something more comfortable, and I resume the walk.

Of course in addition to the lean-on-poles there are also the occasional sit-down-catch-your-breaths, and more rarely, when a stone or a grassy bank the right size shows up, a throw-off-your-sack-take-a-proper-rest break, maybe every twenty minutes.  

In this manner we finally reached the Col Fromage at 3:30. It's only 2300 meters, 7500 feet, but it seemed higher. It was windy, of course, and a little chilly, though it was the first col we've approached and crossed without being hampered by snow. We found a place out of the wind and ate the sandwiches last night's hostess had provided, and began the long tortuous descent, through many switchbacks, steeply, 

We were in the day's destination, Ceillac, by quarter past five. I remembered a fairly decent Martini I'd had at the bar across from our gîte, but that's another of the changes I'll be writing about when I really address this adventure. For mow, another amazing sunset, and another hard day tomorrow.

I seem to have taken very few photos today, or at least few successful ones. You can only do so much.