Day Eight Le Roux (1750m) to Les Fonts de Cervières (2035m) via Abries 8.25 miles, 1314m A, 828m D.
We were faced with a problem, the weather forecast suggested a band of appalling weather by late morning. Our shortest and most obvious route to the next refuge was also the most potentially hazardous, involving a long high-altitude traverse, which the Cicerone Guide suggested was to be avoided in bad weather, but in good it would be amazing. Although the weather forecast had been reliably unreliable I decided to take the longer ‘safer’ route.
Awaiting the bus back the way we had come the night before.
We stood and watched as the bus wound its way up and turned around, we hopped on and had a very pleasant journey back to town, stocked up on delectable and set off on the alternative route.
The route took us steeply up the side of the valley before flattening out a couple of hundred feet above the town and traversing along the valley side, gradually climbing until we turned into the much narrower and rather prettier side valley. It was here that we were amazed to find crocuses peeking through the short grass, cream coloured, I don’t know whether they had missed out on Spring, or were just rather eager for Autumn.
The route along the side of the valley took us past derelict buildings from mining days, a few of which were being turned into rather nice houses, and being in a Parc National were clearly being done to fit the scene.
Approaching a partially restored mining hamlet.
As we traversed upwards the sound of the river far below was overlain by the sound of running water close at hand, there was a newl drinking trough hollowed from a log, with the overflow spouting forth onto the track and running off downhill. The walk had been easy but this was to good a stopping point, and besides I’d bought two wonderful looking peaches that morning, so they were duly munched and slurped, or whatever it is that one does with warm ripe fruits, oh and another piece of Mango Torq bar.
Our gentle climb took us to where the river entered the gorge above which we had walked. We eventually met and crossed the river, quieter here as it ran across a pine-tree scattered meadow rather than the steep waterfall-filled gorge that ran below.
Things became more serious as the path took to the side of the mountain in a series of steep inclines that sapped the energy and made stopping for water a more frequent and desperateexperience. It was hot and the trees were left far below, the sky cloudless and the only shade was that fleeting shadow as eagle or corvid passed overhead.
Eventually the path became less steep and it was here nestling by a tiny stream that flowed with that wonderful ockle-cockle sound that only a small stream can make, that wildflower number 212 sat. For some reason I was thrilled, it was just one cowslip, but in full yellow stand-tall perfection. I called to Favourite Wife, but she was hot and determined, and this lady was not for a u-turn to view yet another flower that Boring Husband had found, that she’d seen in profusion on the chalk down that lay beyond our home.
Somehow the stream had crept up on us again, or was it another? Anyhow we followed it upwards until all of a sudden everything changed, there was a lake, there were people quietly doing picnics, lying quietly exhausted in the sun.
A peaceful scene you might imagine – not for long. With a cry of delight Favourite Wife dropped everything, poles, sack and clothes and rummaged around in Osprey. She wriggled behind her fatoulah towel (lightweight and wonderfully quick drying – towel and wife alike) and came out bikini clad, she hurled herself into the lake with an even louder cry as skin registered contact with snow fed lake. She is officially mad!
Favourite Wife was by now a tad cold so rather than stop for nosh we continued up towards the col several hundred feet and a couple of snow patches above us. Perhaps the most lasting memory of the Tour d’Queyras was finding a spring that flowed from under a very large boulder, not a gentle flow, a hard fist sized rounded flow of ice-cold water that looked like polished stainless steel and tasted like the water in Heaven will taste. Assuming that there is water in Heaven instead of just champagne!
I don’t know what it is about cols, they seem to accumulate walkers, runners, trekkers, mad-cyclists (do we mention overtight lycra?) and others, like flotsam that wraps itself around a post in a flooded river. You see but few of them on the way up, or down, yet there they are sitting around looking pleased with themselves, taking selfies, eating energy bars like they’re trying to finish a box-full by sunset, and generally just hanging around.
Approaching Le Col de Petit Malrif 2866m
According to the post on top Le Col de Petit Malrif 2866m really was pretty much the half-way point of the day’s trek, Abriès was 3hr 25 mins, and Aiguilles 3hr 15 mins. We looked back, a thousand feet below us lay the Lac de Grand Laus into whose mirror like surface Mad Favourite Wife had plunged (delicately dived) sending tidal waves crashing on the opposite shore. As the eyes lifted to the horizon there lay a saw-tooth multitude of peaks. Clouds were already accumulating as the heat upon the hills started turbulence and the birth of thunderstorm cells.
The route ahead is described in the Cicerone Guide as being reminiscent of a typical upper mountain valley in Britain, and I would agree. The path runs for much of the route close to a busy little stream, growing in size with each tributary.
Part way down this meandering track it is as if a couple of youthful giants had tried to block the stream with huge boulders, but they forgot the small stuff, and failed to stop the water flowing on through, no pool had built behind. I guess it was a terminal moraine but either way it looked very out of place.
Les Fonts de Cervières
Ahead of us lay the main valley, the head was pretty much as the glacier had left it, flat and wide for some half mile or so, beyond which the river had cut a gorge to the lower levels. The refuge sat amongst a group of wooden buildings on one side of this upper part of the valley, and despite it being a Monday there was a bevy of cars which had spewed forth an unpleasantly large number of people into what should have been a quiet and peaceful scene.
Our host was a marvellous old gentleman who deserves much respect having over the years restored or was restoring all the buildings in the hamlet. He did however have problems with Les Anglais – a rare species who should be treated with caution; we were put in a dormitory all by ourselves and placed at a separate table away from the long table at which the others sat.
Our new best friends Emmanuel and Muriel grabbed us and our table and added us to the end of theirs. Much banter ensued, with Lawrence and Stephane at the far end. Stephane et moi share a propensity for mopping out every last morsel, so much laughter ensued as we set out to prove the other greedier than ourselves.