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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2887 |
27th September 2015 Hiking - Walking: Pas de l’Aiguille, Rimas Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered: 6 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Sunday 27th September – Relaxing then double hike! ***** sunny - Pas de l’Aiguille, Rimas – 6 miles – 5 hrs out. We spent a nice final morning at the lake. Did our exercises outside and watched our neighbours head out in their kayaks. We packed up and left around 11. We had to go into the office to pay because the ticket machine didn’t take ‘foreign’ credit cards:) It was 30 euros (about £21) for the three nights so we felt we had got quite a bargain and that is saying something from people who never pay to park anywhere! We drove down to the Barrage to have a look then all the way round to the Pont de Brion which we could see from our bike ride the other day. It goes over the Ebrun river just round the corner from the Himalayan bridge. There was a funny little Hobie pedal boat underneath! We were intending to head for a cirque marked on our map but got distracted by a huge slab of rock bearing an uncanny resemblance to the one in Close Encounters of the third kind! It turned out to be Mt. Aiguille and we followed a Reserve Natural sign to the Pas de l’Aiguille. It was a track to the car park for a hike up to the Pas de l’Aiguille which is also a memorial to the French Resistance members who were trying to guard the Pas against German invasion in the second world war. Sadly 8 were killed when the Germans arrived in 1944 and are buried on a plateau at the top. We parked and had lunch looking at the dramatic scenery then started the very steep hike up. It was supposed to be 1.5km but seemed a lot further and rose over 400m in altitude! We were thrilled to see Ibex on the way up. 5 dotted about on various rocks around the waterfall. We spoke to several French hikers about the ‘bouquatin’ (French for Ibex):) We carried on up and up even steeper rocky paths and met whole families coming down who had camped up there overnight – one little girl looked about 4! We walked across the plateau to the monument and I tidied it up a bit, removing some old scruffy cellophane from the dried flowers. Walked up to the cave where they died fighting then started back down which was a worry because it was all loose rocks and very slippery. Coming back down we were disappointed to see the Ibex had disappeared but around the next corner there was a family group of 10 really close to us including babies! We have never been so close and they didn’t seem at all bothered by us. The young bucks were butting each other’s horns and two even tried to climb up small trees to get the leaves! Amazing, we couldn’t believe it really. We also saw a golden eagle soaring above us and a dipper in the waterfall really high up! It was a brilliant hike and we were away from the van for about 3 hours. We moved the van a bit to find a slightly more level spot and are staying here tonight. Had a cuppa then decided to walk in the other direction. The signpost said Rimas 1.3km so we set off and crossed the dry river bed and walked down through the woods and across some pretty amazing landslides! We found Rimas – it was a signpost in the middle of nowhere! Carried on thinking we might come to the little foot bridge we had seen when we turned round earlier and amazingly we did! We saw a deer in two separate meadows and loved watching them bounce off to the shelter of the woods:) What a day for wildlife! Back to the van just as it got dark. We think we have probably walked about 6 miles today. Only two cars left in the car park and one left quite quickly and we think the other one must be camping up there. Tea was just cooked when the Gas ran out! 60 days this time :) That will have to be a job for the morning as it is dark now. Photo Gallery Here |
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