October 4 Hike--La Molière

Today's hike was in the Vercors, a mountain range that is less mountainous, if that makes sense. So we did less climbing (still to 17oo meters, starting at 800 meters), but much more walking; about 20 km we thought. The cows are still in the mountain pastures and probably by next week they will all get led down to the valley before the snow begins to fall.


Many hiking trails offer Gîtes or Refuges, rustic places to stay overnight which may or may not provide meals. The sign above indicates that there is one further down the path.

A tinkling of bells was in the background as we crossed the plateau. As we got closer to this cow, I think he must be quite deaf because his large bell was very loud and the noise was constant as he pulled up grass/weeds.

A large tree had fallen over beside our path. The roots are very shallow because they have simply grown in between the crevices of the white rock bed. The white rocks usually turn grey/black over time which indicates that the tree must have fallen over quite recently. The rocks look like the tops of molars. Sections of our hike was walking on this kind of rock formation.

Since we covered a lot of territory, we took a bus back home from the next village in the valley. This is a nice way to do it because then you don't double back on the path you took up. We had very warm temperatures again, even up in the mountains. This weekend we are supposed to get a cool down, with snow predicted at 1500m. We will then need to chose hikes that are not as high in altitude, of which there are plenty!