Today was 15 miles walked and 2,700′ climbed. Our 6 day totals are: 82 miles walked and 10,300′ climbed. Tomorrow will be a rest day.
On arriving yesterday into Yenne, we did our usual routine; find a store (that’s open), shop for food for the next morning and lunch, go to our hotel, B&B, or Gite, shower, wash clothes, route plan for the next day, update the blog, then dinner. After dinner, we try to take a walk to identify where the trail starts the next day. It’s our routine.
So, on our after dinner walk, we got to the next day’s route marker, we found this sign:
Here’s the translation: Hey, Pilgrim! We’ve closed your trail for the 12 kilometers because of FIRE danger. But don’t worry, the map on the bottom of the page shows you an alternate route!
If you look very carefully at the route they show a route: and if you can figure where the trail is … you’re better than us!
Next thought: What if we claimed we don’t speak French and do the original trail, anyways? Darn, their sign is also in English! Okay, where is this “alternate”?
Bill remembered that, in our guidebook, they show a “variant”. On the photo below, the variant is the GREEN line, versus the ORANGE line for the original.
Okay, not easy to read, but … at least it means that there’s a MARKED variant trail somewhere for us to find! Now, where to find the start of that variant?
Once again, that guidebook that Bill was discrediting came to the rescue! On the “resources” page, they state the the variant starts on the “corner opposite the Fer du Rhone hotel”. Hey, that’s where we’re staying! A quick trip outside and we see the variant marking. BINGO! We’re on our way.
Rain: The issue with Fire danger is that Central Europe has had a dry summer. Typically, it’ll rain here every 5 – 7 days, then get hot, then rain, etc. This summer, the “rain” part was missing. As a result, there were several fires in Spain and Western France. As a precaution, some areas restricted access to minimize risks, like our current location.
Well, about 3 weeks ago the rain returned. Since we’ve been here, we’ve had 3 GOOD downpours. All that should mean that the risks are lower and the closed areas, reopened. Not so. Particularly since there’s only a couple of Pilgrims per day doing this trek. Hardly worth removing a whole bunch of signs. So, the detour remained!
Now, the walk was beautiful … as always:
Two noteworthy items. While hiking up a long, steep road, we saw this painted on the road:
If you follow Pro cycling, you would know that the current world champion is a Frenchman named Julian Alaphilippe. His adoring French fans call him “Loulou”! So, this writing on the road (very common practice by fans of cycling) was put there to encourage Loulou, who must have been racing there! Cool!
Next, we finally saw a Pilgrim who was moving slower than us …
All for now. Tomorrow is a planned rest day for us. Stay well.
My first and most important question is, are you ever going to go downhill?! Or do you just keep going up and up and up? glad you have all those alternative maps with you. You say you’ve had three downpours. Was that while you were walking? I had to go back again and look at your picture before I realized what you were talking about with this slower than you a.k.a. slug on the trail! Glad you’ll be taking a rest day. Miss and love you both
Hi Willow! Yes, we do go downhill also. I report the climbs because it relates to the challenge of the day, but in fact, the downhills have actually been more difficult (more on that, in a future post). Most all of the rain has been during non- hiking times, so we’ve been lucky so far. And yeah, this slug was the only pilgrim we’ve met that we actually passed! 🙄. Thanks for staying in touch!
Lots of detours, but sounds like it’s all part of the adventure.
Enjoy your rest day! Love you both.
Thanks, Rebekah. Hope all are healthy and doing well at home. Love, Dad and Diane