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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2899 |
16th April 2012 Hiking - Walking: Point Sublime - Verdon Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Sunny/cloud Max Speed: Distance Covered: Monday 16th April 2012 – walking ***** sunny periods then rain again!!! I got up early and went up to the top of the rock again to take photos of the cloud in the valley – it is sunny up here and white cloud below. He got talking to our neighbour in the Landrover who was also up there. He is a French photographer called A. Christof (will check him out on internet)taking photos for postcards and a book. We had quite a chat considering the guy didn’t speak too much English,we could hear tanks firing on a battleground a few miles away!!! The cloud filled the valley and the view was stunning even if a dodgy climb up!!! Christof later gave us one of his postcards and showed us some walks in the car park :) Mag walked up to the vulture viewing point and saw about 50 soaring over the cliffs towards the gorge. After breakfast we set off for our parking place at Couloir Samson, packed a simple picnic and the torch and set off on the 14km Sentier Martel. It was THE MOST AMAZING WALK EVER!!! It started off with a metal staircase and two long tunnels where you really did need the torch because you couldn’t see a thing. It was a good path but there were potholes you could have come unstuck in without the torch. The path from there was fairly easy, through beautiful woods with good views through the Gorge and the lovely blue/green water in the river below. We did see (and smelt) :( a dead deer which had been scavenged by the vultures!) We met some lovely people on the way including a French couple who had walked from the other end – Chalet de la Maline and left their car there hoping to cadge a lift back at the end. We were surprised to hear that it had only taken them a couple of hours to get to that point because we thought it was a lot further. Our original plan was to walk for 4 hours and then walk back to the van but when we heard we were closer to the end than to go back we decided to take a chance and carry on to la Maline. We stopped for our picnic with a brilliant view up and down the gorge - just after hearing from another friendly walker that the echelles (ladders) were only 5 minutes away. Well we have never seen anything like it these metal staircases climbed nearly 100m, through a ravine, were so,ooooo steep and had 252 steps!!! It was really difficult to walk up them let alone down if you were going the other way. That made up our mind for sure, there was no way Mag was going back down those steps! The scramble down from the top of the staircases was just as steep, rocky and slippery. It was so exciting! The rest of the walk took us over shale land slips, an overhead rope you had to hold onto to get across a particularly rough bit, more staircases, and we met more friendly people including two really nice German guys who had their climbing equipment and hadn’t set out until after 2 p.m.! Madness. By the time you get to just under la Maline you know that the path up is going to be very steep because you can see the Refuge at the top! It was a long drag up and probably the worst part of the walk for me. It was also raining by this point. We had been too hot in glorious sunshine and then back to black clouds and rain:( We heard loud explosions all day and had been told it was the tanks practicing on the military base on the other side of the gorge. We reached the top at la Maline about 5 o’clock, having been walking for 6 hours. We approached a few people to see if they were going back to Point Sublime but no luck. We were getting quite wet sitting under our tree by then and were just about to go and ask the man in refuge if he would ring for a taxi for us (he had already said he would because there is no mobile signal there) when the couple we saw at the half way spot arrived in a friend’s car and were really pleased to see us and give us a lift back – right to the van too! They are staying in Rougon in an apartment and actually live on the Gorges du Tarn near the Millau Bridge so we knew a bit about the area and had a good chat on the way back. It was such a long way – far further than we thought and I reckon a taxi would have cost us about £30. We offered to pay petrol but they were adamant they didn’t want anything. They were really nice :) When we were back in the van and driving back to the Point Sublime from Samson we saw the German climbers so gave them a lift as far as the Point Sublime and were quite sad we couldn’t take them further. We drove back up to Rougon for the night and a very easy tea and ate as the sun set behind the mountain :) but was raining on our van!!! A day relaxing in the sunshine that is forecast for tomorrow :) http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.3129837677540.2137243.101266056 2&type=1 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3245995981425.2139602.1012660562&t ype=3&l=1bf5305e7c |
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