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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072 |
18th March 2018 Hiking - Walking: Circuit of Reserve Naturelle Vallee D’Eyne Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: 7.27 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Sunday 18th March – walk ***** Circuit of Reserve Naturelle Vallee D’Eyne (Vall D’Eina) – sunny periods. 6hrs 30 mins out covering 7.27 miles. Last night’s snow didn’t amount to much at our parking spot just outside Eyne near the start of the Vallee D’Eyne walk but with sunshine and an inch of snow we woke to a beautiful scene:) The weather seems to crack up as the day wears on so we were keen to get away early. After breakfast, picnic packed and GPS on we set off at 9.40 leaving our snowshoes in the boot as we didn’t think we would need them? As the path had a light covering of snow we have never seen such a large number of animal prints mainly walking the same way as us but we didn’t see any:( We hadn’t got far when we had the usual conversation, have we locked the van??? Mag quickly returns to the van to check and yes, we had locked it so we are free to continue. The first sign we come to points left, and right? We decide right as it takes us closer to the mountain stream which runs the full length of the valley. Our aim is to try and make it to an ancient stone shelter used by shepherds as our lunch spot but according to the map it looks a long way! We soon lose the path as usual and have to make it up as we go along which is great fun and great picture taking opportunities were presented too :) It is absolutely stunning with everything covered in fresh snow which does make the path hard to see! We see what looks like a path above us so climb up to discover a rill for carrying water down to the village. It has been neatly replaced with a large metal trough which we follow until it ends in a small sluice connecting it to the stream. We see the path below so limbo under the electric fence (not on!) and scramble down. Again, the path is hard to follow but we find yet another rill which leads to the proper path which we would have been on if we had turned right back at the start. This would have meant we missed a lot of fun! This was a lot better path that climbed out of the trees to reveal stunning rock cliffs covered in bright green lichen against the deep blue sky just stunning, another pinch yourself moment, you just can’t believe you are up here enjoying this:) Then we discovered we were not alone as two ski tourers whizzed past us! Then another larger group came down and a nice girl who spoke English so we asked if we were near the Shepherd’s shelter and she said it was a kilometre further up the path. I asked where they had walked up from and they said the ski resort of Eyne and it only took them half an hour. Although we had been walking for the best part of three hours we carried on as the valley opened up with pasture so thought we must be close to our destination! We had now been following the tracks of the skiers and a snowshoer which made walking in just boots OK and we didn’t need our snowshoes. Mag then spotted high to our left loads of ski tourers and the tracks made by the other skiers today down from the highest peak in Eyne over 2700m. While looking at the skiers slowly walking to the top we saw two large birds of prey and thought they must be Golden Eagles. Coal Tits were feeding really close to us in the pine trees. Still no sign of the shelter but we found a flat rock for our picnic and enjoyed the fantastic views. The snow shoe man had continued up a steep slope to a point we thought you might be able to see the shelter from and as it looked so close we decided to give a try. In the end we had to give up just short of the top as it got too steep for just boots and we thought we were going to take a tumble! As it was so hard to walk up we decided to slide down on our bottoms and have not laughed that much in ages:) Then all we had to do was follow the ski tracks back down, the path took us up higher and further away from the stream. We were glad we had found this way back as were getting tired but pleased we had taken the more adventurous and scenic route up :) The ski touring looks so much fun and if younger we would love to give it a try. Making fresh tracks in powder far away from the resorts is amazing but the downside is the walking up. Even the skiing down is fraught with difficulties as the path was covered in rocks and I think you must have to do serious ski repairs after every trip!! Think we will stick to the pistes! The path we were on is what the farmers use to take their cows up to the mountain pastures in the spring but we then had to turn right away from it and head down a very steep rocky path. We made it back to the van after 6hours 30 minutes and were shocked to discover we had covered over 7 miles no wonder we were so knackered! Will stop here again tonight, have an easy day tomorrow before looking for another small ski resort. It’s snowing again so let’s hope we don’t have to dig ourselves out in the morning! Photo Gallery Here |
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