Sunday, September 24, 2006

Day 22 St. Dalmas-Valdemore to Utelle

Interesting 8 hour day covering the 16 miles and just under 3000ft of elevation in around 6 hours of walking.
Spent most of the day with my head (and body) in thick cloud with visibility only at 5 metres or so, great for vertigo sufferers as most of morning was walking along a ridge.
I met by first party of VTT (mountain bikers) also in the morning, fortunately on their way up. One of my little fears is meeting up with them when they are bombing down.
At Les Granges it turned into a lovely forest stroll complete with mushroom pickers.
Imagine my surprise on turning a corner to be confronted with Bréche du Brec an impressive lump of limestone with a 500ft climb along ledges with those vertical drops I so hate. The path twists and turns across flimsy bridges etc eventually dropping 2200ft into Utelle. Utelle had a full blown street party complete with accordion and choir happening. Eventually I found someone who took me to the Gíte's guardian to extract the key. However, no food tonight I weasled a baguette and fromage from the bar but it looks like the grand opening of the sardine tin later.
Tomorrow is about 2000ft of climbing and then toes in the med :-)

Changed my flight so that will be in Stansted on Wed lunchtime.

Sent from Geoff's Treo650

1 Comments:

Ellee said...

Geoff, You must be famished after all that walking, yet your only meal is some bread and cheese and a tin of sardines! I wonder how much weight you have lost too, you'll be skin and bone.

I'm looking forward to seeing you back safe and sound. It seems like you have had a great adventure, your French should have improved tremendously too.

6:07 PM  

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home

Listed on BlogShares