Climbing Climbing in the Alps de Haute Provence

Decided to give the group Thursday hike a miss because we were both recovering from colds.  We still managed to do a gentle 15 kms hike by ourselves.  We started from the Pont du Toulourenc and walked up the road past lots of picturesque vineyards and orchards.  Then we cut uphill into a forest before returning to the car.           

We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday on an away trip with 10 other members of Randouveze.  We stayed in a gite in a little town called Clamensane in the Alpes de Haute Provence region.

First up on Friday was an exceptional hike near the spectacular town of Sisteron.  We left from the left bank of the Durance River and climbed steeply up the Montagne de la Baume, which looks across at the town.  We got great views of Sisteron and its citadel.

We climbed for a couple of hours before arriving at a rock face, below a cave called Le Grotte du Trou de l’argent, where we had lunch and admired the views of the Durance Valley.

After lunch we put our head lamps on and climbed up the rock face into the cave.  This involved going up metal steps built into the rock face and pulling oneself up using metal safety wires.  Then we had to find our way through a couple of chambers in the cave, for a few hundred metres, to an exit further up the mountain.  You could only get through the exit on your hands and knees and removing your backpack.  I was at the front, so I clumsily left my backpack on and dragged myself through on my stomach.  Much hilarity – and I ended up pretty dirty.

 

The next part of the hike was even more vertiginous.  We had to do a lot more rock climbing using the metal steps and wires.  Our heart rates were right up by the time we got to the top.

And then the heavens opened, and the rain and hail dumped down on us for the entirety of the descent.  We were very lucky to have completed the rock climbing only moments before the rain started. 

We all put our wet weather gear on, but we didn’t have time to put on our rain proof over pants.  No one else had them, and they all just started heading off without us, so although we had our great jackets and backpack covers, we, along with everyone else, were quickly soaked through up to our thighs.

Once we got back to our cars, we had a further 30-minute drive to Clamensane, where we all raced to get out of our soaked clothes and to have a shower.

The wonderful gite in Clamensane is run by Charlotte, with a little help from her husband Nicholas and their three kids, and it turns out that Charlotte is also the mayor of Clamensane.  On the first night we had our aperitifs and dinner in the large but very warm dining room, which adjoins the large kitchen where Charlotte was hard at work.  Nicholas arrived home from his day job as a pompier (firefighter and emergency services worker) in time to help plate up, while the kids set the table.

Dale was feeling a little under the weather on Saturday, having been subjected to a soaking on Friday, so wisely decided to sit out the Saturday hike.  Having said that, this was the only day when it didn’t rain during the hike. 

We climbed up to a ridge line and then had a gentle downhill walk along the ridge, looking west towards the Durance Valley and north and east as far as the French Alps.  After lunch we descended fairly easily – other than for the 30  minutes that we had to go down a steep forested path covered with a deep layer of slippery leaves.

Fortunately Dale was feeling a lot better when we got back to the gite.  After showers we enjoyed aperitifs on the undercover terrace off the dining room.  Our hiking leader, Christian, had brought a number of bottles of Clairette de Die for us to enjoy.  This was accompanied by a couple of delicious charcuterie platters.  Dinner was a most amazing chicken and spinach lasagna served in individual baking dishes.  It was too much but perfect after two days of hiking.

Sunday started out bright and sunny. We drove east, uphill for about 20 minutes to reach the trailhead. And then we climbed, climbed, climbed and climbed again.

The first ascent was easy enough as we followed a twisting path up the mountain side until we reached another spectacular ridge line.  There were many beautiful flowers.

Then we had to ascend an open pastured slope to reach the first of 3 peaks.  The hill slope was at least wide enough to be able to conserve energy by zigzagging our way up where magnificent 360-degree  views awaited us.

We then descended a little before climbing to our highest peak.  We climbed beside a sheer cliff and there was really no opportunity to zigzag our way up. 

After that we descended to another ridge line and found a spot to sit on a protected slope for lunch. 

As our pleasant lunch came to an end a partial ring of black storm clouds started to close in on us.

I think that on the whole most people were keen to get down the mountain pretty quickly but there was still a lot of frustrating pfaffing about.  Then we reached a fork in the path and our leader was at the back helping the oldest member of our group.  So, most people started to climb to yet another peak, while two wise people realised that the path skirted this peak.  Not knowing what to do – and trusting people who had gone in each direction we took the wrong decision and followed the larger group up the climb.  When we got to the top, we realised that we’d made the wrong decision. So we, and one other person, headed off to intercept the wise ones at as fast a clip as possible to try to catch up with them and to stay ahead of the coming storms.  But it was all to no avail as the hail and wind hit us before we could start the slippery, rocky and unstable descent.  At least we were in the first half of the group, so we had time to get all our wet weather gear on this time, including our rain proof over pants.  This was worth it as we were able to stay dry from head to toe.

But back to the descent.  It was very technical and two people fell, but thankfully there were no injuries.  We were however worried for a few minutes as we saw our oldest hiker fall, knowing that he’d already been having a pretty exhausting day.

There was a break in the weather at the bottom of the bad descent and most people decided to stop and have a break, but a small group of 4 of us decided that we needed to keep pushing on because there was obviously going to be more bad weather.  We were right and the others eventually caught up with us after about 10 minutes.  We still had a long slog downhill through spectacular forest, and then a graded road to get back to the cars. 

Now, despite the way the hike ended, it was a truly spectacular and enjoyable route.

The gite had said that we could go back and have showers before heading home but we decided, along with Christine and Vivienne (who were coming back to Buis in our car) that we just wanted to get home, so we grabbed our bags and got on our way.  As it was, we didn’t make it back to Buis until just before 8 pm. All completely exhausted.

Last word goes to Dale.  “Coming to south-eastern France to hike in soaking rain is not part of my French dream”.

 

It was also Eurovision week.  How delightful to be able to watch the semis and the final live without getting up at 5am.  We were able to watch the semis on Tuesday and Thursday evening on youtube in bed at home.  For the final on Saturday night, we were away with Randouveze in Clamensane.  No-one we’ve met in the club seems to be interested in Eurovision, so we turned in at 9pm to watch the 4 hour telecast, again on youtube.  Knowing that Loreen was strong favourite going into the final week meant we weren’t surprised with the result, (nor displeased).  Finland, who came second, were also second favourite with the bookmakers.  In some ways the betting market detracts from the excitement and surprise of the results as they extremely accurate.  As for the bullshit on social media the following day about the competition being rigged, social media seems to exist solely to give imbeciles something to do.