Hiking
Hiking the Calanques underneath the Massif of Mt. Puget (564 m.) between Marseille and Cassis isn’t a lot of altitude and it’s not a huge distance. The scale of the rocks is big enough but the problems are the sun (and maybe the wind) and the loose limestone. The closeness of the sea, giving the impression that should one slip, the result would be an inevitable slide through seriously sharp scree and over a vertical cliff in to the dark turquoise Mediterranean. The cliffs being but 400m. is scant consolidation... it’s possible to drown in a puddle just a few inches deep etc. Cap Canaille is 394 m. (the orange cliff in the distance) and the Col de La Candelle that I was hiking is 433 m.
But this precarious but very solid terrain between cliff and sea is home to a wide variety of plants and trees, many apparently thriving on solid rock in blatant botanical improbability. The paths lead from view to view with, as coast paths do, the implicit understanding that the sea remains on the same hand. The daring heights and improbable passes thrill as much as the variation in vegetation with altitude.
The climbs, looking innocuous but actually many tens of metres of altitude and leading to a different botanical zone, beguile with their apparent simplicity only to ensnare with multiple successive pitches requiring true three point scrambling.
Looking back in a “did I do that?” manner was yet again thrilling. The South Downs path was never like this and the scrambles in the Avon Gorge in Bristol that I learnt scrambling on as a child are now fenced off and labelled dangerous. Full four times those scrambles counts in the Calanques a mere dashing of the line on the map. Something to be expected along the route of a grande randonnée. Not that I’d enjoy it more heavily laden than with a day pack.
Calanques are very Marseille: not glacial valleys that became flooded like the fjords but tortured and uplifted rock that was once sea bed.
And the final convenience of the Calanques is the bus ride home and dinner in a restaurant with a fine jazz saxophonist and xylophonist busking nearby...
A walk to Osterley today via the Piccadilly Line with my friend Duncan. We first met for hiking weekends in The Lake District when he lived in Penrith and worked for Border TV and I for LWT, then known as London Weekend Television.
A bit of the Grand Union canal near the M4 motorway and Osterley House (National Trust property so open to the public).
All close to Heathrow airport and within sight of the arches of Wembley stadium but surprisingly rural. And good value for a £1.50 tube fare and less than 20 minutes each way from home!
I’ve been up in the mountains these past few days and reached the summit of Mt. Thabor (3178 m.) in the High Alps of Provence, not far from Briancon and the road to the Col du Galibier. This was the biggest hike I’ve attempted since the 1990s when Arlen and I backpacked and hiked up Square Top mountain (13,794 ft. / 4204 m.) above the Green River in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming.
I took four nights out: one night in a CAF hut up and a night on the way down, plus staying in the Refuge Mont Thabor hut at 2520 m. to be sure to get to the summit of Mt. Thabor early enough in the day before the clouds gather around the high peaks.
Fine granite underneath crumbling limestone. The arrows show the summit of Mt. Thabor and the views are of the Écrins: the Meije (3,984 m.) and the Barre des Écrins (4,102 m.), which need ropes and ice equipment so I won't be up those any time soon.
This area has changed nationality several times between Savoy (Savoie), Italy and now France. The varied culture in the CAF (Club Alpin Français) huts and a number of antique frontier boundary posts reflect the many changes.
Postcard from a walk last weekend with GOC to celebrate the club's fortieth birthday. Whilst I have been a member for, I think 35 years, I have not been a regular participant in recent years. This was not an energetic walk and there were a number of stops for various cakes contributed by us all, mine was a small Dundee cake. You'll see that the weather was kind at least during the walk. A number of similar walks have been organised by the different groups within GOC celebrating the birthday.
I'm not a founder member of GOC and no I wasn't the longest standing member there today. Several people were from the original East Kent group which was organising walks even before the founding meeting of GOC at 1974 Gay Pride in London. We shared several moments of recollection of another world!
