Author: Dragon

This morning, we awoke to a chorus of birds, in the small mountain village of Murat, having spent a night at a local guest house.

After packing up, we walked up the street and found a patisserie with fresh croissants and au du chocolat, and a cafe with great coffee and nice outdoor tables to sit and eat and watch the world go by. All of this for about 4 euros (1 USD is 0.85 Euro) which, I was told, was expensive compared to the non-tourist villages that we will soon visit.

Upon dropping off the keys to the room, we set off on our adventure along the Tour du Massif Cantalien. This was to be my hiking partner and I’s shakedown hike for a thru-hike of le Haute Randonnee Pyreneene (the high route of the Pyrenees), where we will soon be headed. The trail follows the rim of an ancient super volcano, the largest in all of Europe. It was the idea of our friend from the UK to do this hike, as she is trying to climb forty volcanoes by age 40! The three of us finished our coffee, said our goodbyes to civilization, and started walking.

The winding streets of Murat slowly meandered up to a marked GR trail (Grand Randonnee) which led out of town and up towards the mountain ridge.

We passed a farmer who owned a chateau we passed later; his advice was to watch out for cows, and for storms up high. See, the Monts du Cantal (aka Volcans d’Auvergne) rise nearly 3,000 feet above the surrounding valleys, and they are the dominant weather producers of the area, sucking in cold and warm air of differing pressures to make perfect storms. If only we had known how right the farmer was!

In any case, we continued on up the trail and found ourselves quickly above the treeline and on into sweeping panoramic views of the French countryside.

As we continued on our way, we passed the ruins of old farmhouses and cabins nestled in the high mountains, inhabited, perhaps, by the herds of bell-toting cows and sheep. The farm animals, paired with the fertile volcanic soil, made for an extravagant display of wildflowers, and grass so green that any southerner would be proud to have a lawn of it.

We saw no one almost all day, despite that this was one of the most spectacularly magnificent trails that I have ever seen. This goes to show just how hard and strenuous was the hike up to the Bec de L`aigle (beak of the eagle), our target summit for the day. Along the way, we stopped and had lunch, mostly coffee, granola, nuts, and some hiker bars (snickers, mmm).

As we came nearer to the top, we began to see the signs of thunderstorms. Massive, dark thunder clouds began to fill the sky, and a few of them opened up on us with rain and hail. Nevertheless, we donned our rain gear and carried on.

During the summit of the eagle’s beak, we saw lightning strike multiple peaks in the distance, sometimes 7 strikes at once. Worried of meeting a similar fate as those mountains, we quickly summited, absorbed the magnifique vistas, took our photos, and began the descent to the Teton De Venus, and then Puy Battailouse.

As evening rolled in, the rain grew harder, the winds stronger, and the temperature dropped rapidly. We decided we should make our way to the alpine refuge just down the trail (there was no flat ground anywhere else), to ask if we could bivouac in their field. Upon their approval (I was able to use broken french and gestures to communicate well enough) we moved to set up the tent.

But the weather changed for the worst. The storm winds, now howling down the mountainside, blew my hat and glasses off my face, and nearly carried the tent right off the cliff. The thunder and lightning were cacophonous, the rain, a downpour.

It was clear then, that no ultralight tent could possibly weather this storm–the wind was barreling towards us down the slope, pushing the tent poles almost to the ground with the sail-like rain fly. The tent stakes could not grip the wet volcanic soil, and a few of them popped loose.

In need of a moment of respite, I climbed inside the rainfly-only setup we had constructed and held on for dear life to the poles and rainfly, my back to the wind. “The poles are going to break! We can’t lose the tent! ” yelled my hiking partner.

And then… tune in later for the exciting conclusion!

June 23, 2018

Hello world,

I write to you from the guest bedroom of our house-sit in Langley, Slough, in the UK, half an hour west of London by train.

I do so in hopes of becoming more profound at writing, by documenting some inspiring tales of adventure and cameradery. The coming months will sew a saga (hopefully one worth telling) set in the most remote corners of the montane European wilderness, where many dream of going, but few ever reach.

I am accompanied with a friend who I met traveling the west coast in January 2017, over a pasta dinner at the renowned Green Tortoise Hostel in San Francisco. We later spent time together during my 7 months in Oregon, hiking the Trail of Ten Falls and Mt. Jefferson Park.

It’s one of those run ins where you feel the universe colluded for the two of you to meet and complete some task together, and all you can do is smile and nod to the universe for its decision and look forward to whatever the future may hold, knowing that previous such reflections of fate led to some of the most fulfilling and memorable experiences.

Along the way, we will encounter hardships, known and unknown; we will have drinks with old friends and come to know new ones; we will push our human shells to their physical and psychological limits;  we will come to know ourselves and our kind better; we will come to know the delicate, fragile balance between life and death, and make clearer our lot on this turbulent, beautiful sphere of rock and water that we call Earth (Home), as we hurtle around the sun like electricity spirals around an atom in transit. We will submit ourselves to the serendipity of the pilgrimage and seek out the joy in whichever place we find ourselves in.

Ah yea, the pilgrimage. Here’s the plan:

We’re in the UK until July 2nd (11 days). This gives us time to stock up on any gear we need, and test out our kits. We are house sitting for Basil and Natasha, a lovely pair who are spending a week in the Lake District National Park, and who needed someone to watch their kitties, Bluebell and Francis.

July 2nd, we catch the afternoon train to Paris. We have 24 hours to arrange French cell service and acquire camping supplies not allowed on the Eurostar, while also taking in some of the sights of the city of splendor. July 3rd, we will meet a friend at Gare du Nord station, and we will ride to Murat, the gateway to the Monts du Cantal Region, the glaciated, eroded remains of the largest supervolcano in Europe. We will do a healthy 35 mile shakedown hike along the crest of the old lava fields, ranging from 500 to 1,800 meters.

July 8th, we will ride all day from Le Lioran, a ski resort in the volcano’s mouth, to Hendaye on the Atlantic, the start of the Haute Randonnee Pyreneene. There, we will traverse 900km along the crest of the Pyrenees, spending extra time in the spectacular “haute pyrenees” (high pyrenees), where much of the glacial peaks exceed the “magical” 3,000m mark.

If we survive that, we will celebrate our lives in Barcelona for a day, and then catch the train to Geneva, the start of the Grand Randonnee Five, the Grand Traverse of the Alps. 700km of beautiful Swiss, Italian, and French mountains await. The trail ends in Menton, a few minutes from Niece, where we will soak our feet in the mediterranean, grab a beer, and catch a train back to Paris, then London, and THEN… We will fly to Auckland, NZ, where who knows what awaits. It will be a memorable and fantastic journey, and I can only imagine the resplendence of nature that awaits.

Stay tuned.