Adventures in the south of France: April-May 2008

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mattisnotfrench
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Adventures in the south of France: April-May 2008

Post by mattisnotfrench » June 18th, 2008, 6:23 am

Well, there's no way I'm topping that report just posted about a week in the Grand Canyon, but I'll give it my best shot.

First an introduction for those not in the know: I'm a transplanted Portlander currently living in a small town in southern France. I live in the Ardèche, one of the most rural departments in France. There's no train service and not much bus service. My town is the department (think a cross between a county and a state) capital and is a bustling city of 9,000. Think Sweet Home with government offices! The Ardèche is a cross between the wild volcanic scenery of the Massif Central (central France) and the low hills and narrow canyons of Provence. In other words, it's incredibly beautiful. I've been working as an English teacher here since September, with my job ending next week, actually. There isn't a lot to do here in town (though far, far more than there would be in any American town of the same size) so I spent most of my free time hiking in the surrounding countryside. Occasionally I take trips out of my department into another part of France either for hiking (Grenoble), a concert (Nimes this past weekend to see Radiohead) or pure tourism (Montpellier).

I've been wanting to post this ever since I got back from one of my pure tourism trips, a weekend in Barcelona, at the beginning of June. I was, of course, waiting on the new board.

Now, I've done A LOT of hiking since I last checked in here, all of it with increasingly beautiful results. I discovered a beautiful town in the Ardèche Mountains that is easy enough to get to between bus and foot; I did a short hike around the town of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Gorges of the Herault River, north of the city of Montpellier. I finally made it to the famous Gorges of the Ardèche River, only to discover how tacky touristy spots can be. I also returned to some old favorites and managed to find more beauty hidden in spots I'd been to many times before. I'm not going to write a novel here, but be warned-this is going to be LONG and with LOTS of pictures. And this are just the highlights and best hikes I've done.

April 04: Jaujac
By early April I was getting bored of my hiking options in the near-Privas area so I set about really exploring the Ardèche for the first time. One of my boss' coworkers suggested the village of Jaujac, about 4 miles from Lalevade d'Ardèche, where the regional buses terminate their route. I had to walk the road to get there, but I'm classifying this as a hike because in all fairness, I *DID* do some hiking once I got there. Plus, it was absolutely gorgeous!

The village is set above the Lignon river, whose canyon divides the town in two, with the older part of town on the hillside and the newer part in the flatter, eastern half. The village itself is lovely, set in a gorgeous location and maintaining the feel of a high mountain village.

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And from the other side of the river, looking up (thanks Autostitch!):

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And finally, looking down on the whole village and towards the east (once again, thanks Autostich!):

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I took the opportunity to hike down to the river along the trail that runs through town, discovering the manmade canal and waterfall just upstream, and then the very, very old bridge just downstream.

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Unfortunately, hiking in on the road means hiking out on the road. At least the road out was beautiful!

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Because the department bus back to Privas only runs once in the afternoon, I had to leave Jaujac around 2PM to get back in time to catch the 4PM bus home. I would return though!


April 12: Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
I was planning on going into the Swiss Alps over Spring Break but a good, hard look at my finances told me that wouldn't be a good idea. The Pyrenees looked equally attractive, but they aren't easy to get to from here-at least not the part of the Pyrenees I wanted to visit (upwards of 6 hours on the train with at least three connecting stops, and hella expensive). After some research, I decided to head down to Montpellier instead. It's the #1 university town in France, it's cheap and best of all, it's relatively close (an hour on the bus, 75 minutes on the TGV). I checked out a couple of hiking guides to the Montpellier area and went about researching places to go in the Montpellier area that were accessible by public transportation. I settled on Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, an incredibly beautiful village in the mountains north of Montpellier.

It was a Saturday morning as I headed off first to Gignac for the morning, a town about 6 miles south of Saint-Guilhem. The only bus to Saint-Guilhem left Montpellier at noon, but I wanted to spend the morning out of the city. Gignac was pretty, very pretty...and full of cats. This was where I ate lunch, with a closeup of the statue in that little square:

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I lunched there, then caught the bus to Saint-Guilhem. Unlike everyone else on the bus though, I got off at the famous Pont du Diable (one of seemingly dozens in France) to photograph the gorges of the Herault River. From there I walked up the road the 3km to Saint-Guilhem.

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Weeping gardens...one of the stranger things I've ever seen. One pool hanging above another.

There was also neat 800 year old ruins of a mill:

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Saint-Guilhem was insanely beautiful, with old buildings, archways and an abbey that allegedly has a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

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The creek that runs through town was gorgeous as well:

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I found a trail at the edge of the village and set off into the mountains for about an hour, stopping to marvel at the Cirque de l'Infernet that beckoned from the west.

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I decided to turn around and hike up into the cirque from the bottom. The trailhead beckons:

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The way there was a treat, with olive orchards and views up to the cliffs around:

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Eventually I reached the point of no return, where I would have to start climbing. The cliffs almost completely blocked out the sky, reminding me of the description of a place I'd really like to go, Nooksack Cirque in Washington:

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While it didn't look that difficult, I was running short on time-the bus out of Saint-Guilhem departed at 5PM! It was time to scurry back to the village. When I got there, I couldn't resist taking off on another trail, a bit up towards the ruins of a castle that once looked over the Saint-Guilhem area...

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You can see the same ruins in my picture of the abbey in the village.

Alas, it was time to head back to Montpellier. I won't bore you with pictures of Montpellier itself, but I did take another neat side trip during that weekend, to the city of Sète along the Mediterranean coast. There I found a neat little isolated beach.

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That was a fun weekend vacation.


April 26: Les Fonds du Mézayon
My spring vacation actually lasted close to three weeks. This was the last weekend, and the first time in almost two weeks it was sunny outside. I'd been eying the canyon of the Mézayon River north of town for a bushwhacking trip for a long time, but with rainy weather the water level was too high to safely do it. Finally, the weather calmed down after about 9 straight days of rain and receded enough to make a run at the river bottom.

The bushwhack wasn't very difficult. There was a trail almost to the bottom of the canyon, a drop of 200 feet or so. Nothing like some of you are used to! Once at the bottom of the canyon, I had to walk in the river most of the way as the water level was still higher than normal. The canyon was beautiful!

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Soon I came to a falls. A very short falls.

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Any thoughts I had of continuing upstream were tempered by the depth of the pool and the height of the rocks around it. There looked to be ways around the falls, sure; however, when bushwhacking alone in places like this, I'm not going to take ANY chances when something looks iffy. Even though I'd left a note on my door saying where I was going, nobody would come looking for me for at least 3 days if I were to get hurt, as there just isn't anybody here that sees me everyday that would think enough to worry. I don't have a cell phone here either to phone for help. Looking at the topography, I also realized that there weren't going to be any tall falls upstream. I decided to turn around. It was a very beautiful area, though. I probably won't have the time to return there, but it was a fun bushwhack.


May 09: Vallon Pont-d'Arc and the Gorges of the Ardèche
The biggest tourist attraction in the Ardèche is the famous Gorges of the Ardèche, one of the most beautiful places in a very beautiful country. Unfortunately, with beauty and easy access comes hordes of tourists. My bus arrived in the town of Vallon Pont d'Arc and all I could see in every direction was trendy boutiques and raft rental outfitters. Crazy! I walked the 3 miles down the road to the famous Pont d'Arc, a natural rock arch over the Ardèche River. Unfortunately, instead of the quiet picnic spot I was hoping for, I got the beach on a busy weekend. I should have known better. The Pont d'Arc was still amazing:

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However, I wanted out of there when kids started to circle around my blanket and rafters pulled out their beers on the beach. Ack!

I headed back up to the road, hoping to find a trail shortly downstream. What I found instead was 2km straight of PRIVATE campgrounds, because public campgrounds as we know them in Oregon just don't exist in France. Of course, a private campground means no river access to the public. Naturally, you can't even see the river from the road I was walking along.

I was getting mighty frustrated until I finally found a trail. By this point I only had realistically one hour to hike before needing to turn around in order to make the bus out of town. I practically ran up the trail to see as much as I could. What I did see was gorgeous!

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I even got to walk under another weeping wall...

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Unfortunately, I had to hightail it the 5 miles back to Vallon Pont d'Arc to catch the bus. I snapped a few last pictures of the Pont d'Arc on my way back. Note the people on top of the arch!

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Naturally, I made it back with time to spare. Unfortunately, the bus didn't. I had misread the bus schedule! Being a holiday weekend (Pentecost), the return bus didn't run. I hightailed it to the regional bus station on the other side of town and managed to catch the last bus headed back to Valence, way out of my way-but the only way I could get back to Privas that night. I faced a 4 and 1/2 hour bus ride home.

Lame.

The next time I go to Vallon Pont d'Arc I'm renting a car and I'm going to find the most out of the way place to legally camp (camping where you want is illegal in France; you have to camp in designated spots or face a stiff penalty if caught). It will probably be awhile, no matter how beautiful it is.


May 18: Verdus redux
Those who read my previous trip report might remember the Roman aqueduct I found in the hills outside of my town, Privas. I've been back several times since to explore, always finding something new to appreciate. Well, one of my best friends came to visit for the second half of May, so of course, we had to go back.

We started by hiking to the aqueduct and the waterfall pouring out of the rocks right behind it. I didn't bother taking many pictures this time since I've been up there 7-8 times now, so here's a picture from a previous trip:

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Then we bushwhacked up to the dry falls just upstream:

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The creek is diverted about a mile upstream into the rocks, emerging just below the dry falls in the wet falls you see in that picture shooting out of the rock.

And then hiked downstream as far as we could go without being a nuisance to the homeowners just downstream. I was finally able to photograph the lowest falls on the Verdus:

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With plenty of time on a lazy Sunday, we decided to head on over to the other fork of the creek to check out the other aqueduct I found the last time I was there in March. This side trip proved to be utterly fascinating!

First of all was this lovely flower:

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We found the other aqueduct easy enough, but unfortunately, there was no walking out on it. Instead, we found our way to the bottom:

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Just behind it was one of the more impressive waterfalls in the area; it wasn't all the tall, but it was very beautiful!

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Downstream a bit the canyon tightened and made further travel downstream impossible; at some point somebody else realized this and built a concrete bridge over the creek just above this falls, though the bridge seemed to go nowhere:

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We weren't going to test that bridge either, especially given the soft-looking spot in the middle. It was time to go home, or in other words, it was time to quit while we were ahead.

May 23: Jaujac Part II
I wanted to take Kyle somewhere far out into the Ardèche, hoping for someplace deep in the mountains. Lack of reliable bus service made this more or less impossible, so I settled on a return trip to Jaujac. This time we took the shorter walk into town, only 6km (3.6 miles) from Lalevade d'Ardèche (my previous trip there I actually walked 11km to get there). We made it into town at around 10AM, had a coffee, and then set out immediately for the old bridge:

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We decided to hike upstream, then bushwhack a bit back into the side canyon beside the bridge, a pretty little canyon where Kyle decided to test his shoes in the creek:

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With a very pretty flower (a side note: the flowers in this area are exquisite! More on that in my next TR):

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Afterwards, we headed back into town and up into the oldest part of town for our picnic, with the now-familiar vantage point our picnic spot:

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After eating, we set on up a path that turned into a marked trail heading out of town towards the Massif du Tanargue, the mountains that overlook Jaujac. The scene was spectacular:

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The trail ended at a road headed up into the mountains, at which point we jumped on down into the canyon below the road, bushwhacking our way to stream level (this is the same stream as passes under the old bridge downstream). There, we found a very old bridge almost completely grown over!

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Man do I love France. Unfortunately, I fell into the stream while bushwhacking our way back out. Wet or no, our time in Jaujac was approaching an end. We walked the road out back into town, through thick forest:

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Road walking can be fun if the scenery is worth it, and around Jaujac, it most definitely is.

In only 15 or so minutes, we arrived at an overlook of the Lignon canyon with the old bridge on one side and the Lignon's manmade waterfall on the other. Both are just out of sight in this picture but you get an excellent view of the amazing basalt formations along the Lignon, along with the excellent blue waters:

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Looking off to the left was the Tanargue and another trail headed off into the mountains, which we ignored, having instead chosen to do some bushwhacking.

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I really want to hike to the top of that Massif! Those mountains look far, far taller than they actually are. In reality, they are about 4,000 feet tall. Amazing!

We got back to town and I snapped some more pictures of sites both familiar and new:

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Alas, time flies when you are having fun. It was time to head back to Lalevade. I vowed to return a third time, which, incidentally, is in the works for this weekend.

The following weekend we went to Barcelona, but did no hiking. All of a sudden, I realized April had turned into May and into June! Time flies when you are having fun, even if sometimes you happen to be bored out of your wits. My last few months here have flown by! Now it's June 18 and my work contract expires in 12 days. I leave Privas two weeks from today. Amazing!

I still have another trip report to post, but you won't see it until I'm back in the USA. I've done a couple hikes since returning from Barcelona, but the bulk of that report will focus on what I have coming up. This weekend I'm going off on a pseudo-backpacking trip to the Cascade du Ray-Pic, the Ardèche's tallest and most famous waterfall, coupled with a return to Jaujac to check out a few things I missed the first two times. I say pseudo-backpacking because the two spots will be connected using the department's sporadic public bus service. Then, next weekend (June 27-29) I'm off to Grenoble, the capital of the French Alps, in order to do some real Alpine hiking for the first time ever and to meet up with another close friend. To top it all off, after I leave Privas I'm spending a week in Ireland before flying back to the USA. I have a good Irish friend whose family lives on the west Irish coast, which I understand is impossibly beautiful. I'm so stoked for these trips I can hardly wait.

And hey, returning to Portland isn't exactly chopped liver. I can hardly believe I'll be back in the Rose City in a month!

Like I said-time flies when you're having fun.
Author of Extraordinary Oregon!, PDX Hiking 365, 101 Hikes in the Majestic Mount Jefferson Region, and Off the Beaten Trail. Website: www.offthebeatentrailpdx.com

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Grannyhiker
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Re: Adventures in the south of France: April-May 2008

Post by Grannyhiker » June 18th, 2008, 12:14 pm

Thanks for the report, Matt! I just wish the US$ weren't in such bad shape so I could get back over there! Your reports will have to be the next best thing. Have a wonderful time for the rest of your sojourn!

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Don Nelsen
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Re: Adventures in the south of France: April-May 2008

Post by Don Nelsen » June 18th, 2008, 4:03 pm

Hi Matt,

Wonderful pics and a great report - thanks for your efforts to show us this neat area. Who knew France was so beautiful!?

- Don
"Everything works in the planning stage" - Kelly

"If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do" - Warren Miller

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fettster
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Re: Adventures in the south of France: April-May 2008

Post by fettster » June 18th, 2008, 8:17 pm

Wow, there is so much to see there! I think I would enjoy walking the cities and towns as much as going on some of those hikes. The Herault River sure is picturesque. Nice photos there.

Do you find hiking and backpacking as popular there as it is here? Do they have many stores equivalent to an REI?

I don't think you're going to have any issues getting back on the trails quickly after your return. Thanks for the effort in posting this compilation report.

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