A double-crossing of the Luberon

Trying to stay in shape, or maybe get in shape, for my upcoming Appenzell hike, I crossed the nearby Luberon mountain from Oppède le Vieux to the entrance of the Regalon gorge... and then turned around and hiked back.  In total, about 5.75 hours of hiking, 1040m up (and down), and 22km, across very rough and stony terrain (which made it considerably more tiring than the same distance etc. would have been on most Alpine trails I've hiked).

From a fitness perspective, the results were mixed:  my legs feel fine today, so that's ok, but I ran out of steam on the second climb yesterday.  Still, overall I did the hike in about 70% of the DAV estimate... and the heat (it was 29C) undoubtably played somewhat of a role in my dog-like panting when coming back up in the mid-afternoon.  On the other hand, the hike in Appenzell will start at 800m and go up to 2500m... whereas the highest spot I reached on the Luberon was 706m.  And there's a lot less oxygen at 2500m than there is at 700m.  So, we'll see.

Beautiful hike, though.  Here are some pictures.  First the view from the top looking south towards a beautiful promontory:

Then the view down from the promontory to the Regalon gorge (that crack in the distance near the lake):

And now a bunch of photos taken in the gorge itself.  Here's the dramatic entrance:

Starts off wide:

Goes through a cave, or I guess I should probably call it a tunnel:

Then things got a little tight:

And stayed that way for a bit:

In the photo below, those are boulders that got stuck when they fell into the gorge:

At times there was some scrambling required:

 And sometimes I had to scramble at an angle:

And here's the end of the gorge:

Finally, here is yours truly, back up on the promontory after the second climb (and looking sweaty but pleased with himself!):

Back to Bavaria in a couple of days, some acclimatization hikes in the Bavarian Alps, and then it will be off to Switzerland on the 11th of July.  I'll blog the trip, of course....