Plateau de Sault Calling Revisited

This is one of an occasional series from our days living in the Ariège-Pyrenees. We returned to the UK pretty much exactly 12 years ago. As we’re feeling nostalgic, please indulge me if I spend a few posts over the next few weeks revisiting the Good Old Days. Even though this post is Old News, I hope Jo will consider it could qualify as a Monday Walk.

Plateau de Sault Calling

March 17th 2012

Down here in the foothills of the Pyrénées, nobody’s interested in how far you walk as you stride up the mountainside. It’s all about the DNV (dénivelé, or number of metres you’ve climbed – and remember a hillside can go down as well as up: coming up again after a descent starts the DNV counter all over again). On Thursday, we did 791 metres. That’s 2959 feet in real money. Our mileage was less impressive: 19 km. or 11.8 miles – in the circumstances pretty damn’ good.

But we didn’t know the statistics till we’d finished. We were far too busy having a very special walk.

A signpost and waymarks

To reach our departure point, you leave Belésta via a switchback forested road, over the Col de la Croix des Morts, and emerge onto a high and slightly bleak plateau. This is the Plateau de Sault, home of the region’s potato growers. We stopped at an insignificant track signposted Langrail and parked the cars. As we got our boots on, we met another walker on a brief holiday from his home in Durban for a good long solitary hike (‘Durban? Where do you suppose he meant? Durban-sur-Arize in the Ariège? The one in the Aude? South Africa even?’). He was the last person we met all day.

It was the 14^th March. There were large patches of snow all along our route. Yet we wore tee shirts all day and became lightly bronzed in the hot sun as we crunched through that still hard-crusted snow.

Through the forests we could see the peaks of our more local mountains: Maguy, born and bred round here taught us how to recognise each one.

Then, quite unexpectedly, we emerged into a splendid expanse of pasture interspersed with areas of snow. In every direction, there was a distant fringe of mountains: our day-to day familiar slopes, the more distant and higher peaks of the Hautes Pyrénées,and behind us, bereft of snow, those of the Aude and Pyrénées Orientales.

It was a really special pleasure to tramp across this apparently unending pasture, enjoying views of our constant neighbour Montségur, as well as the small towns and villages where we all live, and much further away, the Montagne Noir, with the sky clear and blue above us.

A bit of snow to tramp through – then a lunch spot by a mountain refuge.

It kept us happy till lunchtime. We’d arrived at a refuge by then, thoughtfully provided with a table and benches in the sunshine. After the picnic, we left our rucksacks with Gilbert, the honorary man in the group and went off to investigate the Belvédère, the local viewpoint. Craggily folded rocks plunged down deep towards the Gorges de la Frau and still we had our views of Montségur. We were impressed.

Views from the Belvédère

Our route for the day was a simple there-and-back. But the views were quite different, looking towards more eastern slopes so we didn’t feel at all short changed that we were retreading our path. And most of the return was downwards too. Which was helpful. When you’ve climbed 2000 feet or more, it can get quite tiring as the day nears its end. Lucky that there was cake and coffee to look forward to, provided this week by Gilbert..

Nearly back for that all-important coffee and cake.

Snowshoeing x Two

I’m continuing my monthly habit of re-blogging a post from our days in France. Now that daily life is on hold to a large extent, new material may be in short supply quite soon.

This time I’m more or less amalgamating two posts from February and March 2013, my early experiences of snow-shoeing. I had a love-hate relationship with this sport. I loved the peace, and the opportunity to explore pristine snowscapes. But my goodness, it’s taxing.

Here I am in February – the 17th to be exact….

Snow shoes at Scaramus

It’s 7 o’clock. I can’t see me having a late night. We’ve had a day of ‘raquettes’ – snow shoes. Gosh it’s exhausting. You strap great oval saucers of plastic, webbing, and toothed metal to your feet and spend some minutes feeling like an ungainly baby taking its first uncertain footsteps across the endless wastes of the living room carpet.

Here I am, modelling my raquettes – snowshoes.

But equilibrium returns, and without these cumbersome contraptions, how else would you walk across the undulating white snowfields of the Plateau de Sault, with views of snow-sculpted hillsides nearby, jagged snow-crusted peaks beyond? How else could you enjoy the sound of the satisfying crunch and crack as feet break through the crisp crust of the surface snow. Thank goodness for that icy layer. We found our 5’ long batons, plunged deep below the surface, wouldn’t touch the frozen ground beneath.

And with a bright blue sky, a hot sun enabling us to walk wearing T shirts and summer hats, what better way to spend a February Sunday?

That’s the road we arrived on – signs half buried.

We set forth.

The high peaks of the Pyrenees in the distance.

Ever onward.

The mountains glimpsed through the trees.

More pristine snow.

Our lunch spot. Time for home-cured sausage, cakes ‘maison’ and wine.

Here we all are!

The final stretch.

But by March 4th, I had a surprisingly different story to report….

Snow Shoes II, The Sequel

We walkers of Laroque got our snowshoes out again today (well, in my case, I borrowed some), and went for a much more local sortie, just above Montferrier and en route for the local skiers’ playground, Mont d’Olmes.

How different from our last walk. Instead of wide open snowfields with distant views, we had woodland walking and bright sunlight casting blue shadows across our path.

Instead of gentle slopes rising and falling before us, we had an upward slog; unremitting, tough. Micheline and I, discouraged and tired, failed to reach the top, and missed the prize: a frozen lake with snow-clad views in every direction. Most of the party stayed with us and kept us company. Though our views were less exciting than those of the intrepid climbers, our picnic was the better one. We low-achievers had wine, home-made cakes and hot coffee with us to supplement our bread and cheese.

And the journey down was completed in record time. We arrived home as our gardens were gently baking in the last of the hot afternoon sun. More of the same is forecast for several days: there won’t be much snow left this time next week.

Sunlight through the trees.

Walking through the forest.

The walk continues.

Wide open spaces once more.

Glistening snow.

Whose prints are these?

White snow, blue sky.

Tree shadow.

More tree shadow.

Buried information board. The snow really is that deep.

We should be looking up at this signboard, not down.

Lunch spot.

Snow shoes at Scaramus revisited

I wrote this post six years ago, when we still lived in France. Winters were winters there, as what follows testifies …. though there too, they’re no longer the affairs they once were when our Ariègeois friends were small, when schoolchildren marched to school down head-high channels excavated into the snow. This winter here in England, we’ve celebrated the occasional crisp frost, and a couple of days of snow, quickly melted.

This is the Real Thing.

Scaramus, Plateau de Sault, Aude: February 17th, 2013

It’s only 7 o’clock, but I can’t see me having a late night. We’ve had a day of ‘raquettes’ – snow shoes. Gosh it’s exhausting. You strap great oval saucers of plastic, webbing, and toothed metal to your feet and spend some minutes feeling like an ungainly baby taking its first uncertain footsteps across the endless wastes of the living room carpet.

Booted and spurred.

But equilibrium returns, and without these cumbersome contraptions, how else would you walk across the undulating white snowfields of the Plateau de Sault, with views of snow-sculpted hillsides nearby, jagged snow-crusted peaks beyond? How else could you enjoy the sound of the satisfying crunch and crack as feet break through the crisp crust of the surface snow? Thank goodness for that icy layer. We found our 5’ long batons, plunged deep below the surface, wouldn’t touch the frozen ground beneath.