Champsaur camping weekend

The night at Lac Fourchu was preceded by two nights "official" camping with Juan near Chabottes in the Champsaur area just south of the Ecrins (see map). It was a compromise between my perennial love of sleeping out under the stars, and Juan's desire for a hot shower at the end of a sweaty walk: a quiet, end-of-season-empty campsite, it was middle ground.

We were last in the Champsaur a couple of years ago and don't know it very well - it's just beyond what we would do as a day trip. But the broad valleys, and less-steep mountains create endless possibilities. We picked a nearby hill, Le Cuchon, just north of the very wild Rouanne valley. And it was a dream of a walk...

  

In the evening we drove to the nearby village of Ancelle for a very good montagnard supper (lamb - what else).

And the following morning drove back to Vaulnaveys. The perfect weekend.

second sleepover at Lac Fourchu

When my friend Meredith saw my Facebook photos of Juan's and my night out on the mountain, recently, she wanted a taste of the same "adventure". So yesterday evening the two of us walked up to Lac Fourchu. 

As we walked up onto the plateau at around 8.30pm the sun was going down. So we had to schlep it fast.

As we got near to where Juan and I had slept previously the strap broke on my sandals (the most comfortable option since my toe fracture). Damn. What now. I managed to gnaw a piece of cord off my rucksack and tied the shoes onto my feet. This was getting ridiculous. 

After lying out our sleeping gear rather nearer to a bog than we would have liked, we were briefly plunged into darkness. Then there was a glimmer on the horizon - a UFO, perhaps? Or the nearby refuge partying? No. The moon... huge and yellow and almost full. The stars dimmed as the landscape was lit up. Meredith barely needed the head torch to read the book I'd lent her. (We were around 4 hours from her usual bed time and I'd banned her from making any more phone calls. Unfortunately there was reception!)

The wind blew on and off all night and the bivvy bag rustled like crazy. It felt as though sleep would never come. But then the next thing I know is Meredith waking me up at 8.45am and telling me she has a meeting and can we be down at Vaulnaveys by 12.30. Shoot. Luckily (?) I find I've forgotten the matches so we short-circuit the luxury coffee breakfast I'd planned and head down, via the little lake next to Lac Fourchu, and then Fourchu itself.

How I would have loved to linger! I've been here an unprecedented four times this summer. It remains, for me, one of the most beautiful areas in the region. But at least we made it back to base on Meredith's schedule. And the string on my sandal held.

building bridges

Last week I was very upset to see that the entrance to the wood across the road from the house, and ergo access to “my” stream (no one else goes there), had been blocked with piles of wood, barbed wire and machinery. It would take some determination to make a way through, not to mention ballsiness, since the owner is a belligerent peasant. A few years ago Juan drew his attention to the fact that, by using an angle grinder during lunchtime, he was in transgression of a communal rule. His response was to physically threaten Juan. One definitely wouldn’t want to be found trespassing, wire cutters in hand.

But I couldn’t believe that I would be unable to appeal to his better nature. So, this morning, when I saw him on the bridge on his tractor I ran to the scene to launch a charm offensive.

“So what are you in such a hurry for?” he asked.

“Ah yes, er, I saw you and there’s a couple of things I’d like to talk about. I guess you’re the owner of this land?”

Bad question. It triggered a tirade about the seventeen-year land-acquisition process he was engaged with; how the filthy swine in the neighbouring house were illegally parking their vehicles there, blocking in his agricultural equipment; and how the only person who could force them to move was the land owner who would then be required to pay/impose a 400€ fine to release the vehicles (I got lost in bureaucracy at this point). I didn’t point out that it served him right, for putting the equipment there (he never uses it, it was just a dog-in-manger ploy to stop people parking). Clearly, the strategy hadn’t worked.

“I’m a responsible citizen”, he vented. “I do everything the right way. I look after my property. And it pisses me off that people leave their rotting vehicles there.”

“I’m completely with you on that. I don’t like the view of them from my kitchen window, either. I’d be more than happy to add my voice to yours, and contact the mayor.”

“The mayor is useless – incapable of lifting a finger.”

“But the problem for me is that I can’t now get to the stream. Do you have any suggestions?”

He seemed to find this hilarious.

“It’s my land. And if I wanted to wander around your garden?”

A different tactic was needed.

“Monsieur, I have a question for you.” I paused to check I had his attention.

“Can you authorize me to go into your wood?”

“Yes, why not.”

“And how am I going to get in?”

More laughter.

“How much space do you need? 50 cm or so?”

“Yes, that would be enough.”
“Well just cut a way through.”

My god. Have I just managed to negotiate access to the stream? I held out my hand and we shake on the “deal”.

And now he is worryingly friendly.

“I live just over there” (the eighteenth-century farmhouse directly across the stream from ours). “I’m going to renovate the barn and create two flats. Would you like to see? How about joining me for an apéro?”

Oh dear, where are we going with this. But what the heck. I’m in the mood to see if my psychotic, anti-social neighbour has a soft side.

“Call the police if I’m not back in half an hour”, I call to my immediate neighbours, as I walk towards his house.

Entering the kitchen I gasp, wishing I had a camera to document the time warp. Ancient pots and pans are hanging from the ceiling, a saddle and riding hats mounted on the wall, faded sixties flowery wallpaper, original tiled floor. We sit down at a long oak table and he offers me a choice of Pastis or a drink that I don’t recognise, akin to Dubonnet. A large bowl of well-pawed crisps, to which I give wide berth, is adjacent.

We re-introduce each other and Michel Geymond gives me a potted life history. How his grandparents made their money from the glove industry at a time when mourning gloves, for a deceased member of the UK royal family (presumably George V, in 1936), created huge market demand. It enabled them to buy the farm and they continued as farmers, supplying the Vizille market with their produce. His grandfather lived with two women: his wife, and her sister who arrived three days after her own marriage had been deemed a failure. The ménage à trois worked well for all!

Geymond was born, and grew up in, the house. He studied metallurgy at one of the French engineering schools, Ecole des Mines de Saint-Étienne. Working subsequently in research, he made his fortune via a patent. This enabled him to buy land and property, including a huge place in Tuscany, now being run as a livery stable. It’s the reason for his occasional absences from the area.

He is clearly an adoring dad, the photos of his medic sons covering the walls. Along with motorbikes.

“One of my passions.”

“And the other one?”

“The mountains. I love going up to the lakes above the Pra Refuge, of Lac du Crozet. To fish.”

“But not horses any more?”

“No. But I won the competition at the Uriage show a few years ago. I rode for eighteen years.”

And now, a peasant but not a peasant, no longer needing to earn or make money, he amuses himself with the walnut plantation on the Vizille road, his lucerne crop at Vif, and the beehives recently installed 100 m up the road from us.

Geymond then took me on a grand tour of the house, now divided into two so that he could let out the other half; the mini flat he uses for himself, across the courtyard; the stables, now a tool space, where the original feeder on the wall; the massive barn with ancient carriage (used by his grandfather to collect his "second wife"), and agricultural equipment that will soon become two flats. One of his sons is project manager – it’s this next generation that has an emotional attachment to the property, not their dad, who would happily have sold up. For him Vaulnaveys-le-Bas is neither town nor country, and he has never felt at ease in the commune. It's not like in his parents' time, when 30 people would gather together to eat, at harvest time. Ironically, I know what he means.

“How nice to know I have such a nice neighbour." Back at the kitchen table the conversation takes an unfortunate turn when he learns that my husband is absent during the week. And there is the predictable cheesy innuendo, which I straighten out immediately.

“No, I love being on my own, thank you…”

A pity. Against all the odds the guy is good company. I try to get back on terra firma:

“I’d love to have a bee hive.”

He finds this cute. And it of course opens the door for him to offer to teach me. Well, why not. On the other hand, help – way too complicated. I’m happy to stick with my 50 cm path into the forest.

a night in the mountains

Last Friday I fulfilled a long-cherished ambition (why did it take so long?): to sleep out at Lac Fourchu. The lake is a favourite with me, and nearly everyone who has visited us in France will have been taken there. A shortish walk up is rewarded by awesome views from the knoll on the east side of the lake across to the Ecrins, Oisans and Grandes Rousses massifs. And the terrain – rolling, boggy, and craggy – allows for off-path walking, and gives a feeling of wilderness that is paradoxically harder to find in the Alps than in the UK uplands. This is because in the Alps, walking routes are largely determined by the paths running up and down the valleys and sometimes over the cols linking them. Walking anywhere else would be impossible because of the sheer steepness of the mountains.

We timed it carefully, Friday being a mega hot day. So we didn't leave the house until after 6pm and it was 7.30pm when we set off from the car park. I wanted to do the walk in an anti-clockwise direction, for the first time. And it was curious how unfamiliar the route was (especially since I had been there barely 2 weeks previously with my friend Kym), and how much steeper the path felt!



The sun was low as we approached the lake and then veered south along the GR that takes you to the Taillefer refuge.

So we had to make a quick decision about where to doss down. Juan wanted to be as high as possible and this fitted with my idea of a sun-rise breakfast. So we agreed on a spot, not too far from the river. Bivvying, rather than camping, had advantages. We had just lain down when a motorcycle stormed by only metres away. Camouflaged by the bivvies in a shallow depression, we were almost out of view. Just as well – camping is technically not allowed.

The stars were magnificent – only marred by the continuous air traffic. And we were well cushioned on the tussocky grass and blueberry bushes.

The following morning I missed sun rise but leapt out of "bed" to take some shots of the early-morning light, the reflections of the Taillefer group mesmerising...

We added a few blueberries to our breakfast cereal...

... then walked on a couple of kilometres to the refuge, for a cup of coffee. From there it seemed a pity not to take advantage of our proximity to the Grand Galbert, a dull mound of a peak that had defeated us twice when we had attempted it on snow shoes some years previously. We were unlikely ever to get nearer than this, so I was keen to swing towards it. You never knew...

Walking up the gully above the refuge (you can just see the refuge - a yurt)

Coming up over the saddle just below the summit we had one of those heart-stopping views. Across the Romanche to Belledonne. One step too many and it would be a humungous free fall down into the valley. Remind me to avoid this route in winter...

Coming down from the Grand Galbert we wove our way through the bogs and streams, cooling off in one tiny trickle.

We didn't see another soul. So it was gratifying, when we found a zillion cars in the car park on our return, to realise that one can be far from the madding crowd, even at this popular cooling-off spot. You just need to avoid the lake!

Lanchatra

The following weekend Juan and I were at the Vallon de Lanchatra, not quite making it to the pasture at the head of the valley. (My fractured toe has not healed well and walking is limited.) On the way back we feasted on the abundant rasps. Yum yum.

a blast from the past

Back to France, and my friend Kym (last seen in 1987) had already arrived at Vaulnaveys, resting up after an excessive cycle tour through the south. We had a great few days doing gentle mountain walks.

two half centuries

A few days later I was at Bradford on Avon for Phil and Stephen’s delayed 50^th birthday celebration at a recently opened, and very good, restaurant. It was a lovely day, seeing the AB branch of the family.

shiatsu circus in the Welsh borders

Well, not really a "circus". But the circular tent, devolved responsibility – where (almost) everyone took turns to lead a session, and a strong sense of team all helped create a wonderful caring-sharing environment. All with the objective of maintaining and developing the interactive style of movement shiatsu promoted by Bill Palmer, whose workshops we’ve attended in previous years. A nourishing and affirming three days. Maybe I'm won't give up shiatsu after all...