Hiking Dude Blog

The real fun begins tomorrow! We're off on that old jet airplane for two weeks of visiting, exploring, and hiking in France. Being the free spirits that we (Hiking Dude, Mrs. Dude, and son) are, we have plane tickets, a rental car, and that's it. No idea where we'll stay even our first night. But, our backpacks are packed (sort of) and we've got a credit card, and Mrs. Dude bought a book about France yesterday, so I think we'll be ok.

This is us on our trip to Switzerland and France seven years ago. I hope this adventure is as fun as that one! I'll blog if we see anything worth reporting :-) and if there's internet. But, it's not like France is a wilderness like, say Montana, Idaho, and Washington.

Speaking of MT, ID, and WA, that's the next big thing for Hiking Dude when we return. Around July 1, I'll be heading to Glacier National Park with my son to find the Pacific Northwest Trail eastern terminus at Chief Mountain. Once we find it, we'll be walking west un the PNT until we either find vampires or run out of land to walk on.

The PNT is NOT the PCT!!! The Pacific Crest Trail runs north-south through CA, OR, and WA while the Pacific Northwest Trail runs east-west through MT, ID, and WA. Plus, the PCT is 2600 miles but the PNT is only 1200 miles. The PNT bounces along just south of the Canadian border until it his Pugent Sound, then crosses the Olympic peninsula (passing Forks, WA - the vampire village) and ends at Cape Alava on the coast.

So, my son and I will take a train to Glacier, hike west, and see what happens. I thought I had cured him of his long distance hiking interest last year in Florida, but I guess not. We're in no hurry this summer but will probably finish around the end of August, if all goes well. Most of the trail is very remote with no cell coverage, so posts will be rare, but we'll do our best.

First hike in France today. We arrived in Geneva, rented a car, and drove South. In the Parc Naturel Regional du Vercors, we found this popular short hike up a creek to the ruins of an ancient mill. It was only a couple miles round trip but was nice after a day (and night) in plane and car.

Still working our way down to southern France, we walked around Die which was a very nice old French village. Narrow streets, lots of small shops, and everything made of old, old, old rock and mortar made for a nice time exploring, followed by a picnic under a huge willow tree.
We arrived at the famous Pont dArc this afternoon and walked from our hotel in the forest down to the river and watched kayakers float past. We will be doing that tomorrow morning. Then we hiked along the road to visit the arch up close along with many kayakers, swimmers, and campers.
The arch is huge and beautiful. It gets something like 1.5 million visitors each year and just look at Google satellite images to see all the kayaks on the river
If you want to see right where we are, Check out my current location on the map.

If you ever get a chance to visit Vallon Pont d'Arc don't pass it by. Our 90 minute kayak trip down the river this morning was great. The company picked us up at the hotel right on the river and drove us to their put in point. After a very short intro to safety, mostly telling us to point downstream, we began our wild float trip. It was actually a very UN wild ride down a lazy river with just a couple dips of rapids thrown in. Lots of beautiful cliffs along the way and not to many other kayakers out yet. We found out that there may be up to 5000 people on the river each day during the busy time of year - which starts in a couple weeks. We floated under the Arc and then took out. After our float, we drove to Narbonne on the Mediterranean Sea and walked along the beach and through the town. Beautiful clear blue water and sky with a huge wind blowing out to sea. We wasted a couple hours and then finished our car ride to Lannemezan where we are staying now with relatives. Check out my current location on the map.

High in the Pyrenees today, we hiked from a small village up to a beautiful bowl formed by the peaks. Many waterfalls feed by melting snow poured down the cliffs to gather into a clear, fresh, cold river. We hiked to the base of the largest waterfall where the torrent created a cloud of spray and a powerful windstorm that drenched anyone to close. If was another gorgeous day and the start was a nice way to chill off halfway through. After hiking back down, we watched a professional bicycle race along the winding mountain road - complete with chase cars, motorcycles, cheering fans, and a helicopter overhead. To see where we hiked, Check out my current location on the map.

As a follow up to yesterday's hike, we did a 15km (9.5miles) loop today. I've discovered all trail in the Pyrenees is either very UP or very DOWN - no flat or gradual. Starting a bit before noon, the trail was continual switchbacks through beautiful forest, high meadow, and rock nearly the entire way. We reached Lac Bleu and had a half hour rest to eat a bit, thinking we were at the top of the loop. As we continued, our route down kept climbing up another 300 feet or so after already climbing about 2400 feet. And this was even steeper than before. The views all along the hike were excellent with new scenes of waterfalls, peaks, and foliage coming one after another. This picture is Lac Bleu which certainly deserves its name - it is a spectacular high alpine lake. It matches the clear skies we had for yet another day in the mountains. Having finally reached our high point, the very steep descent was easier on fatigued muscles but still took 3 hours compared to the 3.75 going up. Along the descent, we saw and heard sheep, cows, goats, and horses grazing in high meadows - all with bells on! I've not seen horse bells before. Check out my current location on the map. and you can see the loop we made.

If you search for - GR trails in France - you will find there are well over 35,000 miles of long distance trails criss crossing the country and connecting to similar trails all across Europe. We got to hike just a couple miles on the GR78 both in a small village and through a forest. We were not planning to hike today, but we arrived at the Gouffre d Esparros three hours before the next opening and decided to take a walk. The gouffre is a underground cavern entered from the top rather than the side like a cave. It was beautiful with tons of Crystal formations and flows of mineral deposits. No pictures were allowed so you'll just have to believe me. It was a nice treat to escape the heat that has settled into the area along with high humidity. Our hike was short and hot. I felt more sweaty than on our very long Lax Bleu trek. The most interesting part was the colorful blazes used to mark the trail and then reading about the trail system after. It looks like more extreme heat and humidity the next couple days, so short walks will probably be the norm. Check out my current location on the map. and you can at least see where the cave is located.

Enjoyed another short morning hike before the intense afternoon heat. This time, we did a nice 5 mile loop through forest around a hill near Capvern led Bains. After lunch at the boulangerie in Capvern, we headed to the Chateau Dr Mauvezin and spent a couple hours exploring the entire castle from bottom to top. Three groups of school children touring the chateau added some excitement. The day was wrapped up with a very special dinner in the midi-Pyrenees town of Arreau at a wonderful restaurant serving palettes (like crepes).

We discovered that the world championship for Beach Ultimate is being held this week in Royan so we drove up here (Check out my current location on the map.) to check it out. USA will probably win all divisions, but it is fun to see the many different country teams playing. Hiking for today consisted of walking up and down the very beautiful beachfront 4 times for a total of about 6 miles. Much easier hiking than the steep Pyrenees mountain trails. The scenery included some wonderful old houses like this one which we decided must have some interesting ghosts living in the attic at least.

The Dune du Pilat is the tallest sand dune in Europe and I climbed to the top and hiked along its ridgeline today. Well, along with a couple hundred other people, but it was still very cool. The Dune is over 100 meters high and contains roughly 60,000,000 cubic meters of sand - and it is moving eastward a couple meters every year. The continual wind is slowly blowing it into the forest which is dieing under the sand. The wind off the ocean makes for refreshing coolness on a hot day and great lift for parasail pilots. The hike was very strenuous in the soft sand but a ton of fun. Check out my current location on the map. Tomorrow, we are back into the mountains foran overnight trek so I may not have coverage to post.