Hike to the Fort St. Eynard-Oct. 26

For the first time this fall we did a hike that did not require a bus ride to the starting point. We walked out of our apartment at about 8am, still a bit dark and cool.

We were expecting foggy conditions for the morning and sure enough the first 4 hours of our hike looked like the above. Every time we looked down at the valley below it was just a big whitish-grey area of nothingness. By noon, when we had almost reached our destination, the St. Eynard Fort, the sun broke through the fog.

The Fort, built in the early 19th century to protect Grenoble from neighboring countries, was closed to visitors. We parked in front of the doors and had our lunch.

At this time of year, this is what the mountains look like: a combination of fall-colored trees with snow covered mountains further behind.

The Fort was at about 1300 meters; not as high as most of our other hikes. What was different though was that we started hiking from Grenoble, which is at about 200 meters. We still got our share of climbing, mostly switchbacks and not steep rock climbing.

Because of the fog we did not get this view of the Fort on our way up. So when coming down the mountain, we turned around and saw where we had just had lunch--at the top.

Are we tired? Yes! But it is a good feeling because we are not sore.