France hikes

I tried to sleep in this morning!  The next town is two hours away and is the last grocery stop for three days so I there was no point arriving before they opened at 8.  But of course my eyes were wide open with the birds at 4.45am.   So I had a delightful slow […]

A lovely 6am still start after a rough night with snoring bunkmates and loud neighbours! I climbed the 1000 metres up to Col de Crousette in blissful solitude, interrupted only by five curious sheepdogs who came to check I wasn’t trying to steal a sheep. After the Col there was a challenging path up the

Hiking poles are useful in the mountains for a variety of things – today including being my lip sync mike, my drumsticks and my dancing batons, and maybe lightening catchers  Up and out of the Gite by 6am but I really wasn’t feeling the groove.  My body is holding up ok, although I am having

My mantra for today ‘the worst that could happen is that I will break a few bones, but I probably won’t die!’. I was up at 5.30 and scoffed down some nut bread, jam and coffee, and picked up the best picnic so far on the gr5 – ham baguette, fruit, chocolate and homemade tart

Dear bosses of French paths,  I am not a goat.  I admit I may have the stubborn tendencies of a goat, but I don’t have the balance or the small feet.   So why the hell are you expecting me to walk down a path that was clearly designed for damn goats.  Sort this sh!t

Today was a beast! I thought I would add in some extra mileage by taking the longer tougher variant called the 5b through Italy to make up for some of the distance I lost by skipping the Col du pallet! So I climbed a mighty 2200 metres over four different steep Cols over 41k! It

Up at 5.30 and the lovely folks at the refuge de plan sec had left out an early breakfast for me.    It is a fairly repetitive routine when through hiking!  Get up, eat, down as much coffee as you can and get walking within 30 minutes of waking.  The first hour or two of

Another amazing day in the mountains!  Up at 5.30 for apple cake, cereal and coffee strong enough to put hairs on my chest!   A lovely walk down the valley to the refuge entre deux eaux, through a bit of snow but not much!  Then I headed up the hill traversing a series of tricky

Today was an excellent lesson in going with the flow!   So, I was planning to traverse the Crete des Gittes – a high exposed ridge – but it was covered in clouds!  So I sensibly descended to Chapieux through the most and walked into the nearest main town by road (a boring 15km).  I