DAY 15: Saturday June 16th - Pallon to Briancon: 30k (make that 23.5k), 8hrs: Blue Skies, hot 18°C to 30°C
In the valley of the Durance River
The fast flowing Durance River
Who you meet is always a surprise
Looking back to L'Argentiere
Steep track across gully saves 7k
It's 30°C - cooling down in icy water
Kayaking in the Durance
Washing up in the creek after lunch in the dog park
Heading for Briancon - at 1356m, it's the highest city in Europe
Sheep herding - road to Briancon
We're here at the start of the real alps. We've had a magnificent day in the valley of the Durance - a river valley we have been following for 3 days. Blue skies, although a very hot 30°C at times, herds of sheep on the road but best of all, Ian found a goat-track short-cut between the two roads leading into and back out of a deep in a gorge to Les Vigneaux, that saved us 2hrs in time and cut 7k off our day.
We were supposed to start early as we knew we had a long 30k today, but it was so quiet and dark in our room that we slept in til 7am. We showered (refuge style with a press button, can't let go style to save hot water), packed and had a quick breakfast we made ourselves in the refuge/gite kitchenette with hot tea, yesterdays bread heated, old cheese and dried ham - we've had worse. Gaby, the caretaker greets us and I ask how much to pay him - 28Euro. I ask if this is for 2 or 1 - he says 2 - that's cheap. In some places like the 3 Pitchouens it was 86 Euro that included room, 7 course dinner and breakfast - that was good value. In other places like Chatereauroux at Relais des Ecrins it was 118 Euro which included the room, dinner (barely OK) and dried bread and jam for breakfast. We have been spending on average about 150 Euro per day - room and breakfast, usually a restaurant meal at night, and a picnic lunch - that's about $100 per day per person - no transport costs either!!!!
It's 8.30am when we set out down the road to L'Argentiere (the name comes from Argent - French for silver - as they had silver mines here from the middle ages to the 20th C). It's about 7k mostly down a country road (you could tell it was a country road by the sheep herds we encountered). Very easy so far but still 23k to go. The town is spread out along the valley and it's very quiet for a Saturday morning.
We find a 8 to Huit store (open from 8am til 8pm) and buy the minimum of tomatoes, fresh bread, some yoghurt for a late breakfast add-on, and Ian wanted a bottle of honey for his tea. I also buy a box of Carte Noir coffee sachets - we are running low. We sit in the park opposite and boil the billy for a coffee and yoghurt and a chunk of fresh bread - too good to wait til lunch.
Then its on up the road to the spot where the road does a huge loop into a deep gully - more than 4k in and 4k out. We can see the road coming back on the other side - there has to be a way up to it - there's nothing marked on my map, there's no official randonnee on Ian's IGN, but bringing the magnification up on a 1:4000 scale, Ian see's a black line leading off a tiny road between the houses down in the gully - it's worth a try to save 2hrs and 7k.
We head off down the small road and pick up the goat track going up the other side - we're optimistic it will work. Half way up the other side we see a sigh that says Prive and another sign hat says Retour Accuel (Return to start). Bugger going back. The Private sign, we guessed, is to stop people going through to a large water pipeline crossing the Durance ravine but we'll be quick across the Prive section, so we continue up and up and eventually we can see the road. Yahoo!!! (The last photos in the series at the left shows the GPS system tracking us between the two orange roads). Otherwise we would have had to have walked 7 to 8k along a main road and it would have been a 30k day in 30°C. We can walk leisurely now. Thanks Ian.
We take a tiny detour up through a small village Villard Meyer, a collection of mostly deserted old houses, and discover a spouting water pipe - they are in many Alpine villages and they mostly have a sign "Eau Non Potable" (water not drinkable), but high in the Alps, the water should be fine. We ask a man just leaving his house if the water is ok, and he gives us the thumbs up. The water is icy cold and we stop for a drink and to fill our water bottles. We've got time to spare now. Why not have a second morning tea - boil the billy for a cup of tea. And the water is so icy, why not soak our feet. So we do all of that. 40 mins later, we are on the move heading towards Prelles, the place we were hoping to stay at when we booked a few days ago but it was full.
Not long later, it's time for lunch. We spy a shaded seat in a paddock used for training dogs - any seat will do, but this one is lashed to two large drums and rolls from side to side as we sit on it trying o balance a plate on our knees. Standard lunch of fresh bread and cheese and dried ham - again. The sun creeps over our seat and it's hot - time to move on again. We pass by Prelles at 2.15pm - it would have been way too early to stop so we are pleased we couldn't make a booking at this Chambre d'hôte. Briancon is now in our sights and we see it at the back end of the valley where 5 other gorges meet, and it's where we will meet the GR5 on our way to Mont Blanc. It's a very well travelled GR path from Lake Genever to the Mediterranean along the Alps and we're doing it backwards (walking south is the convention, not north as we are doing).
It's such a lazy afternoon - still 28°C. We pass by another heard of sheep and a few minutes later we are on the edge of Briancon in a suburb called Villar Saint Pancrace. This is where our hotel/gite (called La Ferme de la Tour) is located. We eventually see a sign to it and the host speaks English. The room is just perfect - a large double bed (two singles pushed together), a balcony in the sun to dry our washing, WiFi in the room without having to go downstairs or sit on the steps, but the restaurant is full for tonight, probably because it's saturday night. So we'll be headed up to the pub later for a beer and pizza. Tomorrow is a lazy day - it's only about 12k to Montgenevre - a town i'd love to see as I've read about it so much in the history books - Hannibal in the 218 BC with his elephants, Julius Caesar in 58 BC, Charlemagne 773 A.D., and Napoleon in 1796. So it is quite a famous place.
We have a shower, do the washing and hang it out - it's almost dry in 1hr as the mountain air is so dry, then catch up on emails and diary from the comfort of our bed. 7pm and it's time to head up the road to the pub - it's a real local's pub - a 2 wino's and the bartender chatting in french. There's just us and the two others. We have a beer and a red wine and plan the next part of the trip. The next 3 weeks we'll be traversing almost 3,000 metre passes and staying in man refuges - I doubt they'll have WIFi but we'll see. I have spaced the next highly mountainous stages at about 15k apart and we now have 2 rest days up our sleeves so it's looking good.
Put the maps away and drink more red wine. We must be good customers. We order a pizza and a half carafe of red wine and he brings us a whole bottle. The taste is the same as lunch - ham cheese bread - but it's really nice as we're starving. It's all good as we meander back to our room and hear the loud voices of the groups booked into the restaurant - we have no idea if they are walkers or cyclists or what. We have seen very few other hikers on our walk. By June 16th, it's considered early in the season - don't even think about this kind of trip between July 15th and August 31st - its Europe on holidays - the equivalent of our December 15th to January 31st only worse as everyone goes somewhere.
We arrive back and google away because we can - we've had a good day and a few calculations tell us we're over half way in distance - about 330k when our whole trip will be about 660k - but not half way in time as I have allowed extra days off and shorter distances to cover the next part through the very high alps. Tomorrow is Montgenevre.
The Shortcut - blue line is goat track between 2 orange main roads - Click to see the larger image