La marche aiguise la conscience du nombre de vies possibles, de l’infinité des chemins et des expériences que nous aimerions vivre. La lenteur est une clé pour comprendre combien le monde est vaste et inépuisable notre curiosité.
-David le Breton, Marcher la vie : Un art tranquille du bonheur
Every day on a Long Walk brings its own challenges, and its own unique beauty. Today was a particularly challenging day, and a particularly beautiful one, amid the Jura mountains!
Once again we began the day with a climb, from Pontarlier up to the Belvedere du Fer à Cheval, with an amazing view over the Doubs Valley and Fort de Joux. Then we descended to Fort Mahler, at an altitude of 1032 metres; from here we could see Fort de Joux closer up.
On the trail from Fort Mahler down to the village we saw a fox running through a flock of sheep, and I also saw a very large snake right on the trail!
We came to a viewpoint looking back at the fort before descending steeply into the village.
Continuing downhill, we reached the village of La-Cluse-et-Mijoux, where we stopped to drink water and use the washroom at the local sports centre. I made a detour to a clothing donation bin to give away Elaine's old trousers - she has lost so much weight walking in France that they were falling down, and even tightening her belt was not enough to hold them up! But she found a spiffy new pair of walking trousers at the Decathlon in Pontarlier.
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| Elaine's new trousers are colour-coordinated with her backpack! |
We then headed uphill again on a muddy trail through the forest and then across mountain pastures, presenting a variety of barriers to control the movements of the livestock.
On the way into Les Fourgs, we caught up with Hans and Corinne, a Dutch couple we had met earlier in the day, when they were sitting on a log at the side of the trail boiling water on a campstove to make coffee. The five of us stopped at a picnic table to eat our lunches. We are staying in different places today but will be at the same place tomorrow night, so I invited them to my "birthday party". We said goodbye until then and continued through the town of Les Fourgs. The local cheese dairy was closed for lunch, but had a vending machine where I purchased a large chunk of my favourite local cheese, Morbier.
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| Cheese vending machine |
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| Walking through Les Fourgs |
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| Unusual mailbox |
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| Unusual mailbox meets unusual hat |
We continued along the road to Les Hospitaux Vieux, where we stopped at a bakery. We bought quiche for dinner, rolls for breakfast, and a Radler (a shandy) to drink right away! From here it was only a short distance to Les Hospitaux Neufs, where we had booked a room in a chalet - we are now in skiing country - that turned out to be at the top of a hill! Another climb is just what you need at the end of a long day of ups and downs! 😄
As our landlord Xavier was showing us around the chalet, he spotted another pilgrim huffing and puffing his way up the hill. It was Curtis, an American we first met several stages back and encountered again in Besançon, and he had booked the other room in the chalet! So we all had dinner together on the patio, after I'd had a dip in the hot tub, that is! A very satisfactory end to our last full day in France!
Pontarlier - Les Hospitaux Neufs 21.5 km
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