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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072 |
26th May 2016 Hiking - Walking: Col du Montaud to La Sure Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: 9 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Wednesday 25th May – Travel and short walk – cloudy and sun later A good night in our carpark by the Roches de Solutre but woke to low cloud again. You could still see the roche though and did exercises outside. It is a really beautiful spot. After breakfast we set out (our usual very late morning start!) and drove through literally thousands of vines with people working on them everywhere. Followed small roads on a route similar to last September crossing the etangs of the Dombes - a different route this time but you still couldn’t see very many etangs from the road. Joined the Rhone in the same place as before and stopped at over night spot at the Base de Loisirs on the banks at Serrieres de Briord in the Bugey region for lunch. It looked like someone had pulled the plug on the water in the river as it was very low and a horrible beige colour:( Watched a lovely Coypu saunter down the long strip of mud rather than river bank to the river for a loll in the water and quick swim before returning to the under growth. We wondered if she had a nest of babies and had just grabbed a quick five minutes on her own! On again and went round the Lac Paladru, the opposite side to last time. Up into the Vercors mountains and followed a road to the Col de Montaud - there was a notice at the bottom to say that the road was closed in 10km but we followed it up and up and the road surface got worse and worse until finally there was a huge rock in the middle of the road warning that the road ahead was definitely closed. Luckily for us there was a perfect place for us to spend the night in the most beautiful spot – really high up overlooking the valley with huge mountains behind us. It is so remote but we did see one other car and there are walk signs a little way back down the road and a paragliding take off a bit further on. After sitting out in the sun with our books we went to walk the 900m to the complete blocking of the road with soil and grass. We couldn’t resist carrying on and the road got narrower and narrower where it has been left to its own devices. Rocks and trees have fallen and grass has grown so that it is only a narrow footpath. There was even some snow left! Then eventually the whole road/path has been taken away by a landslide! There is a small footpath made by walkers crossing the mud and rock to join up with the road again but we didn’t try that as it was gone 8 o clock and actually quite scary! There was a small deer like animal dead and scavenged just as the footpath ended – yuk – poor thing:( We walked back to eat a late tea and watch the sunset. Thursday 26th May – hike ***** Col du Montaud to La Sure – Sunny periods Survived the night in our remote spot on the edge of the world with a huge unstable rock cliff behind us and were relieved that no large boulders crushed the van in the night, which was lucky because it’s our 37th Wedding Anniversary:) Did our exercises in the sunshine and had breakfast outside. Even saw a Chamoix and a Chiff Chaff - our bird list just keeps on growing. We decided to have another hike up the road as a couple of cars had arrived this morning and the hikers disappeared towards the road block so we took the rucksack but no picnic as we didn’t have breakfast until 11:30 and were stuffed! We retraced our steps from last night past the snow and dead deer to the place where the road had gone in a landslide, gingerly crossing without incident! The road the other side had been almost completely covered in rocks but we made it to some metal gates which blocked the way, luckily they had been broken and we passed through. The next obstacle was a recent landslide of snow and grass and the flowery meadows above looked very like Marmot habitat but we didn’t see any:( It was then a scramble over a large fallen tree and just around the corner we came to the graffiti covered tunnel which was open our end but had a gate the other approx.. 400m away! We walked along in the damp, dark tunnel following the light from the other end hoping not to trip up but the road was in very good condition and when we made it to the gate a large hole had been cut in it but this wasn’t needed as it was unlocked and open! We were in a large car park with walk signs which was accessed from the other side - the road coming up from Grenoble. We had a look at the map and decided to go to the Sous La Grande Breche which was only 15 minutes away and started walking up the steep stoney path. We reached there quite quickly but it was only a forest clearing so we followed another sign to Sous le Pas another 10 minutes and then on again to Sous la Sure where we finally found the edge of the cliffs. It was pretty scary, there was a fence away from the edge and a sign saying Falaise (cliffs) which we gathered was aimed at skiers so we knew we must be somewhere near a ski lift. After having a break for our snack and drink and taking some photos to show our precarious position we carried on up to La Sure which gave us the most amazing views of the mountains on the other side of Grenoble, up to Chamrousse we presume, still snow covered and beautiful:) Even saw our first Vulture of the holiday soaring the cliffs:) We carried on to Le Cretas taking us across a grassy plateau which was basically a mouse/vole run! When we got to the way marker for Le Cretas we found the ski lift for the tiny resort of La Sure and saw the runs going off in several directions. There were some walkers sitting at a picnic bench obviously made for snowy conditions because their feet were nowhere near the ground! We walked back deciding to follow the Pres Du Mortier - roughly translated nearby is death!!! and that was a good description because the path was a very rocky scramble really close to the cliff edge all the way back to the descent to the tunnel car park! It was terrific fun and although our legs were beginning to ache it was really worthwhile. We came out of the path just above the tunnel and saw several cars going down the road. When we got to the car park the people were digging around in a seem of rock and trying to crack smaller rocks to find fossils. We passed them and went back through the dodgy tunnel and found our way over all the obstacles back to the van. We used a different path across the landslide thinking it looked easier but it was a lot harder!! Glad to get home after 5 hours away covering around 9 miles!! We had a cuppa and a read, sitting out in the sun and stayed out to eat a late tea:) Cracking day. Photo Gallery Here |
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