A weeklong ramble through the Alps along the GR58

 Click here for a Google Map of our GR58 trek

Feeling pleased atop Le Petit Col de Malrif

After settling into our comfortable digs here in lovely Guillestre (an 18th century house renovated by my sister and her partner over the past decade) in late August (after realizing that we could be reuinted in Europe), Terri and I decided that we needed to take advantage of the wonderful outdoor playground that surrounds the town.  After poring over topographical maps, we decided to hike around the GR58, a long-distance hiking trail that loops 110 kilometres around the Queyras region, the territory that lies upstream of Guillestre along the Guil River.  We had nibbled at the edges of the Queyras back in 2013 when we cycled the Col d'Izoard and the Col Agnel, but this was going to be an in-depth inspection of all the corners of the area, and we were keen to get out and explore.

Day 1 (Sept. 3):  Ceillac-St. Veran

The first signpost of the trek

We spent the day before the trip packing, repacking and getting food ready for our hike.  We carried full camping gear, with about 5 days' worth of food and 2 litres of gasoline for cooking on my MSR stove.  I am used to carrying full packs from years past, but I have to confess that carrying this year's 24 kilograms was a bit rough that first morning.  (I was carrying the tent, all the cooking equipment and half of the stove, so I was the expedition Sherpa.)  It's possible, of course, to travel far lighter if you sleep indoors at a refuge or a gite every night, but it's also quite a bit more expensive and restricts where you can spend the night.  I prefer to carry a bit more gear and have the ability to camp wherever strikes my fancy.  As the saying goes, "The price of a nomad's freedom is the weight of the pack on his back."  

The hills were alive with butterflies every day

Villard

On the way up the Col des Estronques

We drove out to Ceillac that morning under cloudless skies.  We found a place to leave the car for 8 days, pulled on our boots, donned our backpacks and set off upstream.  Unlike hiking in Georgia, the French hiking routes are extremely clearly marked, with red and white paint markings on rocks and trees and big yellow signs at trail junctions.  We ambled along, past the tiny hamlet of Villard which had been wiped out by massive rockslides in 1982 and lovingly restored.  After a while our path turned determinedly uphill and we laboured up a series of switchbacks to the Col des Estronques, at 2661 metres above sea level, a vertical kilometre above our starting point.  We took a few photos at the top, then started down the other side towards St. Veran, under a series of impressive cliffs, occasionally getting off the path to let some very skillful mountain bikers fly past downhill.  A riverside meadow beckoned us to stop for a late picnic lunch of bread, cheese and soft-boiled eggs before we continued downhill.  We had no desire to sleep in the ski resort of St. Veran, so when the path got down to about 1950 metres and crossed a stream, we scouted out a good spot to pitch a tent.  A tasty dinner of leftover fajitas from the night before was followed by a post-prandial brandy from the PET bottle in the side pouch of my pack before we turned in, a bit sore and tired from the novelty of carrying heavy packs.

Atop the Col des Estronques with my big pack

Mountain bikers flying down the GR58

The scenery on the way down to St. Veran

Day 2 (Sept. 4):  St. Veran to Lac Foreant

Terri on the climb to the Col de Courbassiere

Pointe de Cornascle

We slept soundly, tired out by the first day of walking, and awoke to a cool, dewy morning.  We cooked up some oatmeal porridge for breakfast, packed up and continued our descent towards the river and St. Veran on the opposite bank.  Rather than climb into the village, we elected to keep walking upstream along the south bank, through a lovely forest interrupted by a series of beautiful glades.  Eventually we climbed out of the trees and into a landscape of meadows grazed by the occasional flock of sheep or herd of cows.  It was another day of glorious sunshine, and we paused below Chapelle de Clausis, a remote, pretty chapel, for a mid-morning snack before tackling the highest pass of the GR58, the 2884-metre-high Col de Chamoussiere.  

Pain de Sucre

We made steady progress up towards a broad saddle where we found dozens of hikers lying in the grass sunbathing and having lunch.  We found our own spot and settled in for another substantial picnic while gazing across at probably the most impressive mountain scenery of the trip, the nearby Pain de Sucre and the slightly more distant but much higher Monte Viso, just across the frontier in Italy.  Below them and to the left snaked the long road leading to the Col Agnel, at 2744 metres the third-highest true highway pass in Europe, a road which Terri and I had ridden back in 2013.  

Me with the Pain de Sucre and Monte Viso

Saxifraga azoides below the col

Terri crossing scree below the Agnel

Our hunger satiated, we descended toward the Refuge Agnel, anticipating a cold beer and a place to pitch our tent.  Instead we found the doors shut as the staff took their sacred midday siesta, so instead of waiting around, we climbed a few hundred metres up over the Col Vieux and descended to the stunning tiny jewel of Lake Foreant.  We found a flat spot and pitched our tent near the water's edge, admiring the smooth rock slabs of La Taillante towering above us and, around sunset, capturing near-perfect mirror reflections of the mountains on the glassy surface of the tarn.  It was an idyllic spot to spend the night, although I could have done without the overzealous sheepdog who came around several times in the night to bark at us and at the other two tents pitched nearby.

Terri atop the Vieux Col with La Taillante behind

First view down towards Lac Foreant

A campsite with a view for our Big Agnes tent

Reflection on Lac Foreant

Day 3 (Sept. 5):  Lac Foreant-Abries

Reflection in Lac Egorgeou

We awoke a bit groggy after the canine ululations, breakfasted in the chilly shadow of the Crete de la Taillante, packed up and started the long descent towards the Guil river from our eyrie at 2600 metres above sea level.  We dropped down to Lac Egorgeou, another beautiful tarn some 250 metres below.  Like Foreant, much of the area around the lake is a nature reserve set up to protect rare plant species.  From there we walked relentlessly downhill towards the hamlet of l'Echalp where we joined a broad valley and could finally swing our legs rather than picking our way down precipitous drops.  

Here we decided to skip a section of the GR58.  The path takes a long, high loop up above the river, then drops back down to Abries, only a few kilometres downstream from l'Echalp.  Instead, we tramped along the road and the river, stopping in at La Monta and Ristolas in unsuccessful attempt to buy bread before we trudged down into the larger town of Abries, where we stayed in a commercial campground, did laundry in an actual washing machine, bought supplies for the road and ate pizza before sleeping soundly.

Gentian

Day 4 (Sept. 6):  Abries-Les Fonds de Cervieres

A thatch bear in Abries

Stations of the Cross, Abries

Scotch argus butterfly

Refreshed by our afternoon off from walking (and our day without any serious ascents), we awoke on Sept. 6th ready for the biggest climb of the GR58, from Abries (at 1550 metres) up to the Petit Col de Malrif, at 2820 metres.  It was another day of perfect sunny weather, and the scenery on the way up was beautiful.  The town of Abries is obsessed both with building elaborate scarecrows out of thatch, and with bears.  We ate our morning pain-au-chocolat sitting beside a bear scarecrow in the main square before setting off.  We climbed steeply out of town (appropriately enough starting off along a Stations of the Cross path leading up to a church above Abries), then angled more gently across the hillside and up into the once-abandoned hamlet of Malrif, where a couple of old farmhouses have been lovingly restored.  It was an idyllic, bucolic setting beside a rushing stream, and we paused for a snack a little further upstream in a clearing, gazing up at the steep climb to come.

Lovely Malrif

Le Grand Laus and its Mediterranean colours

The path wound uphill in a series of extremely steep switchbacks; from time to time we would stop and look up and see, hundreds of vertical metres above us, brightly coloured backpacks lurching along narrow goat trails.  Finally, our legs tired out by hours of climbing, we wobbled around a ridge and found the improbably blue and green waters of Le Grand Laus, a sizeable lake, waiting for us.  We sheltered out of the searching wind and ate lunch, gazing up at the final climb to come.  It took about an hour to reach the Petit Col de Malrif, where another trekker got a rare photo of Terri and me together before we descended down into a wide-open deserted valley that reminded me of Kyrgyzstan.  We found a perfect campsite amongst a pile of boulders, surrounded by golden grass stalks, set up our tent and sat watching the sunset while cooking up a memorable feast of bacon, fried eggs and (instant) mashed potatoes.  Marmots frolicked and called among the rocks, and we felt content with our place in the awe-inspiring mountain backdrop.

Looking back at the gusts on Le Grand Laus

Great scenery from atop Le Petit Col de Malrif

Another great campsite

Day 5 (Sept. 7):  Les Fonds-Brunissard

A beautiful Ranunculus sp.

Climbing up the Col de Peas

Atop the Col de Peas

We were about an hour's walk above a small village, Les Fonds, which we reached around 10:00 the next morning before turning uphill towards the first pass of the day, the Col de Peas.  We were dubious about the weather that day, and so we stormed uphill, our legs finally feeling as though we were walking them into shape.  The valley was more or less deserted, aside from a distant shepherd and his dogs and sheep, and we climbed fairly steeply until we reached a broad saddle at 2629 metres, nestled below the reddish crenellations of the peak of Rochebrune.  This section of the GR58 actually lies outside of the Queyras region, but in crossing the Peas we were re-entering it.  The scenery was grand, and the section of the path running north from the Peas was one of the most exhilarating parts of the entire walk, giving a sense of infinite space as we strode along a broad, grassy ridge.  Eventually we reached a larch forest and descended a long series of switchbacks into the small village of Souliers, where we splurged on craft beer and a small, delicious chocolate cake.  

On the beautiful descent from the Peas

We decided to make our way up the next valley towards the small Col de Tronchet, only a few hundred metres above the river.  We passed a series of perfect riverside campsites, but with our legs feeing strong and the weather still looking dubious, we decided to camp on the other side of the pass.  This was a poor decision in retrospect, as there was not a drop of water to be found anywhere.  We trudged wearily down another steep path into Brunissard late in the afternoon, keen to buy some bread, only to find that the village doesn't have a single store.  We camped at dusk in a small clearing on the edge of a pine plantation that wasn't terribly flat and was (as we discovered in the morning) a mecca for slugs.  It had been a long day, and this was, for once, a sub-ideal campsite, but we had a meal of lentils that Terri had cooked up two days earlier in Abries that we could heat up quickly before crawling into bed.

Day 6 (Sept. 8):  Brunissard to Furfande

Rugged ridge on the climb up the Col de Furfande

Packing up the next morning was slowed down by the need to find and remove dozens of slugs that had crawled all over the tent and anything left outside; we kept finding dried-out slug cadavers for the next two days.  Once again we deviated from the GR58 in search of sustenance, walking quickly down the main road (the one that leads uphill to the famous Col d'Izoard, so a road full of road cyclists, motorcyclists and assorted tourists) to the main local centre of Arvieux, where we found a well-stocked grocery store and bought a final assortment of snacks and bread for the last 3 days of the trek.  

After gorging ourselves on a Hobbitesque second breakfast outside the shop, we shouldered packs and set off towards the Col de Furfande (2500 metres).  It was a bit of a trudge at first, but eventually we turned into a dramatic cliff-lined valley and started climbing steadily to the Col de Furfande which we reached around 1:00.  The views to the south were dramatic, but also surprising.  A jeep road had run up the valley beside us the whole way, and there was a surprising number of cars parked there.  We realized that the various chalets in the alp below us brought in people and supplies this way.  Looking further away, we could see the various peaks that we had passed under on the first days of the trek, and could trace the remaining parts of our journey.  

Looking north from the Furfande towards the Izoard

Descent from the Col de Furfande

We lunched on soft-boiled eggs, tinned sardines, salad and fresh bread (the benefits of having been inside a grocery shop three hours earlier) before descending into the small plateau below.  We collected water at the Refuge de Furfande, then walked another 15 minutes downhill to a likely-looking spot to pitch a tent.  It proved to be perfect, with a vertigo-inducing view a kilometre down into the gorge of the Guil river.  We dined on sausages, fried eggs and mashed potatoes and sat outside toasting the sunset colours on the surrounding peaks with a snifter of brandy before climbing into our sleeping bags.

Our eyrie

The rugged cliffs above our campsite

A well-earned fry-up!

The view just before sunset

Day 7 (Sept. 9):  Furfande-Ceillac

Morning pancakes

We were awakened a couple of times in the night by strong winds rattling the tent, and we awoke unexpectedly late to cloudy skies.  The weather seemed to be turning, so we decided to compress the last two stages of the trek into one long day and try to make it to Ceillac and our car by the end of the day, rather than risk a rainy night in the mountains.  To fuel ourselves for this endeavour, Terri cooked up pancakes which we ate slathered with the last of our butter and honey.

Centranthus angustifolius

Full of energy, we took down the tent (for once we got to put it away dry, as the wind prevented a buildup of dew on the fly) and set off downhill.  The big challenge of the day was the long descent to the Guil, followed by a thousand-metre ascent to the final pass of the trek, the Col de Bramousse.  We set off downhill, along a track that wound its way down an almost vertical descent to the village of Les Escoyers.  At that point we abandoned the footpath and made our way down the relentless switchbacks of an asphalt road, as the GR58 track bore alarming warnings to mountain bikers and horse riders to stay off.  Given the fearless nature of some of the mountain bike descents we had seen, it sounded more vertical than we wanted to face!

At 1200 metres' elevation we finally came out on the main highway, crossed over a small bridge and repeated the process up an equally precipitous slope up to the village of Bramousse.  We pressed on, setting a relentless pace, and got to the top of the Col de Bramousse around 3:00.  It was a broad, grassy meadow on the other side and we stopped for a final picnic lunch before hurrying downhill under leaden skies to our waiting car.  By 4:30 we were headed back to Guillestre, our legs weary and our stomachs growling for food.  

Echium sp.

It was a fabulous week of hiking.  It felt good to be carrying our own gear and camping where we chose, and my body, after some initial soreness, got used to carrying a heavy pack again.  I felt a lot fitter afterwards, after too many months of not enough exercise in Tbilisi.  We were very lucky with the weather:  not too hot during the day, not too cold at night, brilliant sunshine for six of the seven days, and not a drop of rain.  The views were stunning, with an endless sea of rugged peaks in all directions, punctuated by sapphire lakes and tumbling mountain brooks.  The last wildflowers of summer provided splashes of colour, as did a surprising array of butterflies and grasshoppers.  The walking was challenging (more or less every day saw at least a thousand vertical metres of climbing) but the paths were well-maintained and perfectly marked.  The Queyras may not be France's most famous or highest mountain region, but it certainly kept us entertained with great views.  I would recommend it highly to anyone keen on a challenging week in the mountains.  It also left both of us keen to do more of the various GR routes that criss-cross France and several neighbouring countries.

A Disappointing Winter

Leysin, March 30, 2011 It's a grey, rainy day and Leysin is swathed in a veil of cloud that makes it feel as though my mountain eyrie is completely alone in the world. Quite pretty, very uninviting for outdoor activities, and so a perfect day to reflect on the last three months here in the Swiss Alps, while listening to a backlog of BBC and CBC radio podcasts. (Yes, I am a nerd!) When I last updated this blog (yes, Kent, I am still the world's laziest blogger!), the winter term here at Leysin American School was about to begin. I was looking forward to it, as Tuesdays and Thursdays during the winter are half-days for classes, ending at lunchtime, followed by afternoons on the ski slopes. It sounded idyllic, and, being a huge fan of skiing, I was looking forward to being on the slopes four days a week, plus a few evenings of skinning up the Berneuse for a nocturnal ski down. In fact, the winter turned out to be a colossal disappointment. After a beautiful snowfall on Christmas Eve, it simply stopped snowing. In Leysin, it was almost two months before it snowed again, although it did rain once or twice. Leysin's ski slopes were appalling: icy strips of artificial snow, frequently soggy and wet, with rocks peeking through. In addition to not having any new snow, it was also remarkably warm, sometimes hot, throughout January and early February. On February 6th and 7th, I took pictures of some of our students sunbathing in hammocks, and having class outdoors. On February 12th, I had a great bike ride to Interlaken, through the ski resort of Gstaad, with barely a flake of snow to be seen anywhere. It was not just Leysin that suffered, although we had probably the sunniest, warmest weather. Most of Switzerland also had an almost completely snow-free winter. I did go out skiing a few times, searching for that elusive endangered species, snow. I had a few good days at the nearest high-altitude resort, Glacier 3000, up above Diablerets, about a 30-minute drive from Leysin. It went bankrupt a few years ago and was bought by a few Gstaad residents, including Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone. The slopes on top of the glacier are generally not terribly steep, but between wind and very localized snowfall, there was often fresh powder up top. As well, the steeper slopes of the Combe d'Audon were open sometimes, and when they were in powder, they were truly excellent, despite the irritatingly long series of lifts to get back to the top. I went out on a ski tour to Le Metailler, a 3000-metre mountain south of the resort of Super Nendaz, in early February, but, although we were up high, and although the views were wonderful, the snow was mushy soup full of rocks. I did a very informative avalanche course with a local mountain guide, Roger Payne, at Glacier 3000 (since there wasn't enough snow in Leysin to even pretend that there could be an avalanche). I went with Terri to the lovely surroundings of the Gemmipass, up above Leukerbad, and had a great weekend playing on our inflatable Airboards. Another weekend, we hiked up the snowed-in road to the top of the Grand St. Bernard Pass, had soup and tea at the Hospice run by the local monks, and airboarded back down. Mostly I played squash and rode my bicycle, trying to make the most of a bad situation. My friends in BC and Japan kept e-mailing me to tell me about the epic snow years they were having, while I looked out at the flowers blooming in February and wondered what the hell I was doing in the Alps. A three-day weekend in late February had been pencilled in for some skiing, but with the drought continuing, I decided to add to my country count instead, and flew up to Copenhagen to visit my Yangon tennis friend Hans, who now works for the WHO in Copenhagen. It was cold and wintry and clear, and I had a great time, wandering the streets, visiting the Little Mermaid, gawking at the amazing displays in the flagship Lego store, and playing tennis with Hans. Neither a case of being poisoned by a dodgy kebab (in Denmark?!?!) nor the uniformly high prices put me off enjoying my 94th country. When I got back, it had actually snowed, and I had one week rather like the ones I had envisaged: skiing Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in Leysin, powder at Glacier 3000 on Saturday, and snowboarding on Sunday in fresh powder in Leysin. The following week, I toured up the Pic Chaussy with my sister Audie and a couple of my colleagues, and despite there not having been snow for three days, and despite the Pic Chaussy being perhaps the most popular ski touring peak in French-speaking Switzerland, we still had fresh tracks on the way down. That weekend, I did two ski tours near Leysin with Terri, one up the col beside the Pic Chaussy (some fantastic cold, deep powder on the shady north-facing slopes) and an eye-opener of the possibilities near Diablerets, when we toured from Isenau to L'Etivaz. A week after the last snowfall, and we still had great snow. I feel that if we could find that sort of snow in the worst winter in years in the Alps, next year I will have better ideas of where to go hunt elusive powder. A final weekend before the two-week spring break looked unpromising for snow in Switzerland, so Terri and I drove through the Grand St. Bernard tunnel to Aosta, Italy and its excellent food and general cheeriness. It was a much snowier world down there, and we had a decent day of skiing in Pila, before spending the next day walking and lunching in the snowy, pretty valley of Cogne as great fat flakes of snow belted down out of us. I was excited at the prospects of snow back in Switzerland, but as soon as the car poked its nose out of the tunnel into Switzerland, it became obvious that, as had happened several times this winter, the snow clouds had only peeked over the mountains into Switzerland before turning back again into snowy Italy. In places near the Grand St. Bernard, snow levels were only 20% of their historical average this winter. It amazes me that after a winter spent living in a ski resort in the Alps, I only once went to one of the famous Swiss ski resorts (Zermatt), since most weekends the snow was so miserable that it wasn't worth driving a couple of hours for more rotten snow. I certainly hope next ski season is better! For the spring break, I had tossed up the idea of abandoning the Alps in favour of the Persian Gulf, but the occasional snowfall that we had started to receive made me decide to stay in the Alps for two weeks of ski touring. I planned two five-day trips: first the Wildstrubel Route (click on "Prospectus" for the route) from Glacier 3000 to Kandersteg, then, after a day off, the classic Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt. The Wildstrubel Route was fantastic. With my colleague Sion, I skied east under perfectly bluebird skies, along the crest of the Pre-Alpine Ridge, bagging a series of 3000-metre peaks and skiing down through fresh powder (the heavy snowfall the day before we set off helped make for fresh tracks every day). It was a seductive lifestyle: an early breakfast, five or six hours of skinning up and then skiing down peaks, arriving at our comfortable Swiss Alpine Club huts in the early afternoon, having a beer and some rosti, taking an afternoon nap, eating a lavish evening meal, and then tucking up into bed at an early hour, ready for another day of the same. There were 19 people following the same route and same itinerary, and it was fun getting to know them and sharing ideas and travel tips for the mountains. The fourth and fifth days, around the Laemerrenhutte and the Gemmipass, were the highlights, with fantastic views of the High Alps and the best powder descents, with the Rothorn providing probably the single best ski run of the entire winter. After a lazy day in Leysin, I changed ski partners and headed to Chamonix with my colleague Paul. The plan was to spend five days ski touring between the twin meccas of Alpine sports, Chamonix and Zermatt. The weather forecast looked less brilliant than it had for the Wildstrubel Route, and so it proved. Getting to Chamonix on the little train from Martigny was a highlight of the trip, as we chugged up the spectacular Trient Gorge. Chamonix was a shock to the system after the quiet and beauty of the Wildstrubel trip, with the train filled to overflowing with hordes of skiers, and the city pulsing with the energy of tens of thousands of tourists. After a less than restful night in a local dive, we set off for the Grand Montet lift, where we found ourselves in the worst lift lines I have ever seen anywhere. We got to the bottom by 9 am, and skied off the top at 11 am. For such a mega-resort, Chamonix has some pretty antiquated and poorly-designed lift infrastructure. It was hot as we skied down a bumpy, unpleasant slope to the Argentiere glacier and put on our skins for the climb up to the Col du Chardonnet. The climb was relatively easy, but the weather clouded over and it began to snow. At the top of the col, it became apparent that we had been misinformed about the existence of a fixed rope, and our short glacier rope was clearly too short to get us down the 100 metres of 45-degree icy slope below us. We got halfway down by abseiling on another group's rope, before they abandoned us halfway down, and it took a while to be rescued by the guides from a second group. We arrived at the first day's cabane chastened, late and tired. The second day was more of the same, with an advertised two-hour climb and descent to Champex taking five hours, as we ice-climbed up a hard, steep slope to the Fenetre d'Arpette, having missed the start of an easier col. By the time we skied down rotten, bumpy slush in the Val d'Arpette into Champex, we had missed the last bus to take us to Verbier and the next leg of the tour. With the weather forecast looking gloomy, and our confidence shaken by two epic, rather unpleasant days, we decided to abandon the rest of the Haute Route and leave it for another time. After the spring break, less than two months of actual school remain, and I am busy trying to line up my summer's travels. I have bought a ticket to Tbilisi, in Georgia, and I'm trying to get my Abkhazian, Russian and Belorussian visas for a bicycle ride from Tbilisi, across most of the Eastern European and post-Soviet states that I have yet to visit, to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. I'm really looking forward to this, as it will take me to a few places that I've wanted to visit for years: Svaneti, the Crimea, Transylvania and the Tatra mountains. I will certainly keep the blog updated during this trip, and maybe even before then, as the school year draws towards its close.