This year’s holiday we headed for the French Alps. To start – getting used to the paths going up, on a higher than normal altitude – we hired an appartment near Chorges, above the Lac de Selle-Porcon. We stayed here for one week, and the next two were intended to walk the GR56 route around Barcelonette: the Tour de l’ Ubaye.
It turned out to be different – by requirement.
Normally, temperatures would be well above 20 C, dry and sunny normally, and all snow would have disappeared up to 3000m or thereabouts. This time however, things were different. There has been a lot of snow last winter – much more than normal, and spring has been cold, dark and wet – meaning that on higher grounds, above 1800-2000 m, it would snow, no rain.
The first week we did encounter the problems we could face in our tour: Snowfields that could not be crossed without special equipment; propably rain, thunderstorms and cold weather. Nevertheless, we got as high as we could on Charbierres, and conquered the summits of Pic de Morgon and Piolit. We visisted the towns of Gap and Embrun, the abbey of Boscodon and the barrage de Selle Porcon.
The second week we left for a camping site at la Fresqiere, about 10 km west of Barcelonette. To our luck, the hostess was Belgian and could help us in Dutch. She informed what huts were available: The first one was, the secons could not be reachjed by phone, and the third one was closed as a result of bad weather: a lightning strike had resulted in severe damage: no power, no water – and the hust was closed for the time being. But worse: it was virtaully impossible to get around on higher passes without equipment, according the host.
So we had to abandon our plans.
To our luck, the hostess did have nice walks that covered past of the route that we could do. And we did some, but the weather got worse: cold and wet, so in a few days we decided to break our holiday, get to Houffalize in the Belgian Ardennes for a few days and than head beack home.
All walks in the countryside have been tracked, and a lot of images taken. You can access them here. The index page also holds a link to the tracks. Both have been ordered by day.