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Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
Apologies for not posting more frequently; as feared, we have entered a region of minimal connectivity.
Today we had a lovely hike, marred only a little by a couple of showers (although the last one, at least for Russell and Sally, was a little hefty). But I get ahead of myself.
We left early, before 8, heading for lunch at the Refuge du Plan de la Lai, which the long-haired, laid-back dudes at the Col du Bonhomme assured me was at least 3 hours away. 90 minutes later I was working at convincing the Gardien of Plan de la Lai to make us a couple of sandwiches with the last of his bread for a later picnic: we had arrived there not only ahead of the freaks' predictions, but also of the daily bread delivery.
One success later we continued on our way. Some time after the first of the aforementioned showers we had lunch and I described the upcoming path to Russ and Sally: we go round this shoulder, I said, then climb to a pass next to a massive rock monolith that local legend says was kicked out of a ridge over there (and with this I glanced to the northwest and pointed to a ridge with a conspicuous notch) by a giant called Gargantua.
General disbelief.
Russ said, you just made that up and you got lucky that there was a notch in that ridge. I said that I hadn't and although I was lucky that I could see the ridge at that moment, I nevertheless knew where to look. We haven't followed up on the conversation, but I can reveal to you now that it was in fact not made up, and that Rabelais later used this tale and others from the Savoie in his ground-breaking work, Gargantua and Pantagruel. But that is perhaps a little too much literary one-upmanship for this blog. Grin.
We continued on. About an hour later we stopped for a rest at the beginning of the 700m climb to the Col du Bresson. The day was in one of its sunny phases and Russell and Sally were inclined to tarry and enjoy it. I told them that I mistrusted any day that had already rained on me, and that I was going to push on. I explained how to get to the refuge after the pass and assured them that I would wait there if the signposting was unclear.
By the time I got to the pass the skies were once more dark with heavy clouds and, since the signposting was clear, I started the 500m descent. Almost immediately the first few drops fell, so I sped up, using what Sally calls my "gazelle" moves (or at least, that's what she says on a good day; on a bad day she calls me Gollum). Each time I slowed down, the raindrops started again, and so I went down in 30 minutes what should have taken an hour, arriving just 5 minutes ahead of a torrential thundershower.
Fortunately Russ and Sally arrived in a good mood: the short shower hadn't troubled them overmuch. We then had a very nice evening, with a couple of (unconnected) French hikers, a couple of bottles of strong red wine, and an extremely tasty traditional Savoyard dish (whose name escapes me at the moment, but which contained pasta, lots of cheese, onions, and mushrooms).
The only fly in the evening ointment was my discovery after dinner that the toilet was of that rather unpleasant type known in England as "Turkish toilets": no seat, just a couple of places to put your feet while crouching over a hole. I commented to the Frenchman that it had been a long time since I had seen one of these... and that I had not missed them. Yuck.
