French Alps / GR 58 – day 12

Col Girardin – Ceillac

18.7.2024 Thursday

→ 34,4 km ↑ 2096 m – total 299,8 km

Alarm’s at 6:15am. We don’t want to get up. We hear sheep coming closer. At 6:30am I open the tent door — the sheep are about 300 m away. There’s a dog on the edge of the flock that doesn’t look too friendly if you’re standing in the middle of it. We pack up super fast and start our watches at 6:53am. We go down a bit to some water source and brush our teeth. Then we walk another kilometer and have breakfast in the sun, baguette with fish in tomato sauce. We have a big descent ahead, 500 meters over 1.8 km. The map marks it as a dotted line (the hardest difficulty), and Jozef doesn’t really want to take it. But the trail’s clearly well-used, so I convince him to try it. It turns out to be totally fine.

The difficulty rating is probably because after rain, loose rock washes onto the trail and you have to find a new way through pretty steep terrain. We’re down on the asphalt road fast.

We pass through a small settlement and top up water. Almost every village like this has a community bread oven too. After 3 km we start a very steep climb to Col des Houërs, over 1000 meters in 5 km. We start hard, switchbacks, very steep, through forest. After 500 meters it opens up a bit. Walking’s easier when you have views.

It’s getting pretty hot. I’m wearing shorts, a sports bra, and my long-sleeve wind jacket for sun protection. The wind jacket already smells pretty bad, so I rinse it in a stream and put it back on — at least it feels nicely cool. Jozef washes a towel meanwhile. We take breaks fairly often, either for a snack or for water. We don’t carry much, since water’s everywhere here, and there’s even a great waterfall. Gradually the grass disappears and we’re climbing gravel instead.

We also go check out Lac Vert. It sits at 2700 m and there’s still a lot of snow around it. It has a beautiful blue-green color, with snow floating on the surface, and someone’s fishing there.

We can’t stop wondering at it. Only 200 meters left to the pass. The path crosses snowfields.

At the pass we meet a couple in their seventies. I look at them with real admiration for managing this, and I haven’t even seen what’s on the other side yet. I hear Jozef, standing at the edge, looking down, saying “uh oh.” I go over and say the same thing myself. Below us there’s a bit of gravel, then about a kilometer of snowfield. We slowly start heading down. Someone runs past us from behind and, instead of taking the switchbacks, heads straight down at a run. They seem to know what they’re doing. They reach the snowfield, and one sits on their backside while the other half slides, half runs. Since it works so well for them, we try it too.

It’s fun, but within 30 seconds my butt is soaked. I put my insulated shorts on top, and it works much better with those. What a fast way down! Our shoes and shorts are both soaked. The snowfield turns right into green grass again. The trail’s nice now, so we jog a bit here and there. The lower we go, the more people we meet. It’s really hot down in the valley, so we don’t push ourselves too hard. We take a break by a shelter, eating baguette with some canned meat and cheese. I filter water and we drink an electrolyte mix. I planned a big push today, and Jozef doubts we’ll make it in time. We think about hitchhiking from the hut, but I have no doubts and we continue. The path through the valley is brutal, though I really wouldn’t want to be here in the rain. It’s pretty wrecked from flooding here. We start climbing 900 meters over almost 6 km, so a bit gentler than our first climb. This side of the mountain is completely dry, all rocks, which makes the heat even worse.

We drink water constantly, and we don’t have much left. There should be a stream in 1.3 km, so I put my umbrella up, at least to keep the sun off my head. The stream’s dry and we have no water. Luckily, after another kilometer we find a very thin stream. I filter about four liters, we each drink a liter right away, and Jozef pours a cup over himself. We continue, it’s very exhausting, but at least there’s grass here now.

Jozef’s said “what a nightmare” about 20 times by now. He has his bad days too, not just me. If we’d known what was up here, we’d definitely have hitchhiked. We finally grind our way up to the pass.

We try to jog downhill, but the terrain often won’t let us. We’re out of water again and we’re probably a bit dehydrated. We’re not enjoying this at all and just want to be down already. We check the map and change our route, since the signpost still says three hours to Ceillac, even though it’s only 7 km away now. We go down an awful section near a rock face, where there are about 20 climbers.

Luckily there’s a well-worn path down to the forest road, so we take that. We even run a bit, wanting this behind us.

We stop worrying about water. Finally, after 6pm, we’re down at the settlement of L’Ubac de l’Aval. I top up water by a house and we start hitchhiking. The 5th car stops. Within 10 minutes a woman drops us off in Ceillac right by the grocery store. I text Pierre, who’s camping nearby, to say we’re in town. We figure we’ll go eat, so we just buy some snacks for dinner and a beer. Then, with Pierre too, we head to the campsite. Great price, €10.60 for two people and a tent. A 4-minute shower costs one euro. Jozef pitches the tent while I go shower. 4 minutes is a really long time, half of that would’ve been plenty. I left my shoes and socks by the door, and now about 30 flies are sitting on them. The guys are already having a beer, so I join in. Pierre’s a genuinely interesting person — he spent a year in Australia, living in his car and traveling the whole country. He’s done Corsica, La Réunion, and does mountain climbs too (Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa). He’s already eaten, if only we’d known, we’d have cooked dinner at the campsite too. So we go eat out instead, get burgers with a small beer each. I go pay and nearly fall over at the price of the beer, €7 for 33cl. Well, first and last beer we’re having at a restaurant. We head back to the campsite, where we still have a few beers left. We go to bed at 11pm. In the evening Jozef and I agree there’s not much chance of any epic hiking tomorrow, so we turn off the alarms, at least we’ll get some proper sleep.