There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
– Beverly Sills (soprano, 1929 - 2007)
My bed at Gîte d'étape le Montbrison was very comfy, and the duvet nice and warm, but once out of bed, there was not much to make me want to spend any longer in this rustic accommodation - not even any heating. I made myself a cup of tea and drank it to keep warm while packing up my things. Then I wished a bon journée to the woman in hot pink who had slept in the other room and got going - as far as the pâtisserie at the bottom of the hill!
After a cup of coffee and a raisin bun, I crossed the bridge over the Gyronde, a 22-kilometre glacial river than flows into the Durance at L'Argentière-la-Bessée, responsible for creating the side valley that I went way out of my way to cross yesterday.
Having climbed about a hundred metres above the river, I found myself on a scenic trail much like yesterday's, rounding the side of the hill and coming out of the trees at a scenic point overlooking the town of L'Argentière-la-Bessée. Just before reaching this point I met a large black dog wearing an orange high-vis harness and a bell around its neck, which began barking but did not frighten me as I could see it was just out for a walk in the woods and had nothing to defend (no sheep, no territory). Its owner called the dog and put it on leash. I asked him if he knew the reason for this scenic detour, and he replied that a landslide - or erosion by the river, I'm not sure exactly what he said - had made the regular route beside the river technically passable, but dangerous: one false step and you could end up in the river. So I was glad I had followed the signage and taken the detour, and that I had budgeted for such surprises in planning my stages: it's all right to put in an additional climb when you're walking 15 kilometres a day, but not so good if you're planning on 30!
After walking 7 kilometres, I took an additional detour into L'Argentière-la-Bessée to pick up a few groceries. I had purchased a baguette from the bakery in Les Vigneaux, but "hiker shall not live by bread alone", and so I stopped by the Aldi supermarket for dinner supplies - there being no other food sources along the trail until my destination in the evening. Unlike our ancestors, we no longer have the knowledge and ability to sustain ourselves by foraging in the forest, and the occasional detour into a town with a supermarket is de rigueur!
L'Argentière-la-Bessée is so named for its silver mines, already active in 1202 when the town was known as Castrum de Argenteria. The town stretches along the right bank of the Durance; in 1941 it was unified with La Bessée, the town on the left bank, to form a single municipality with a compound name (as is the case of many other French towns).
I walked through the town on the sidewalk of the main road, passing through an industrial district, which was pretty scenic as industrial zones go! I met up with the route of the GR path again on the way out of the town, but then came the second surprise of the day: a sign saying that the path was closed due to fire damage, fallen trees and rocks caused by a forest fire this past summer. No problem: I continued walking along the road, which is a part of the well-known Izouard Pass cycling route and has not just one but two cycling lanes, on either side of the road. On Sunday afternoons in summertime, the whole road is reserved for walkers and cyclists only!
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| The view from the road |
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| The red is not autumn leaves, but forest fire damage |
Walking along the road was faster than the footpath through the forest on the hillside would have been, and I soon came to the side road where I was to turn up the hill to my accommodation - the only one open in the area at this time of year, which it had taken me some time and effort to find! The road had a warning sign saying that it was closed to cyclists, and that vehicles should not stop, due to the danger of falling rocks as a result of the forest fire; I presumed this would mean the road was closed to pedestrians too. A quick search on the Internet revealed that there was one more route I could take to get up to Le Chambon, but I thought I'd better check with my host that that route was OK; I figured he ought to know, being a professional hiking guide! He assured me this last route would be fine, and would take me on the route of an old Roman road. Confident in this solution, I sat happily in the sunshine on the river bank tearing chunks off my fresh baguette from the bakery to eat with Morbier - my favourite French cheese (though it's not from this area).
Lunch break over, I crossed back to the right side of the river and headed down the Route de Rame across a flat, grassy expanse between the river and the base of the mountains. This brought me to the site of an abandoned village, Rame, a thriving community in Roman times and during the Middle Ages. It is thought that the village was destroyed by flooding, when a glacial lake at the top of the gorge above it broke through the natural barrier that was responsible for the formation of the lake, flooding the village below. In fact the site of Rame is at the bottom end of the Gouffre de Gourfouran, a narrow gorge dug into the rock by the Biaysse River.
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| This tower is all that remains of Rame |
In the last part of today's walk, I climbed to the top of the cliffs beside the Gourfouran gorge, crossed the Biaysse at Pallon, and continued along the top of the cliffs, following the route of the ancient Roman road. I took a detour to a clifftop viewpoint to peer into the dark depths of the gorge below.
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| View over the grassy floodplain |
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| Bridge over the Biaysse |
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| View from the bridge |
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| The gorge - it's dark down there! |
Quanti imprevisti da affrontare!!
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