The Long Way Around

Today's randonnée takes us right to the North edge of our map, but not beyond it, because thar be dragons.  ;)   Just kidding.  The only real firebreathing was done by me, in trying to stitch two maps together using MS Paint.  Actually, you can see what happens when we go off the map by reading about our previous hike to Chambost-Allières (see "Off the map!").  It turns out thar be Vietnamese food and great croissants.

I digress.  For today's randonnée, we plan to explore a forested mountain area we have not yet visited. First, we will travel North to "Les Voûtes" (the Vault), then wind our way slowly downhill through the forest, and hopefully see a mountain spring (we are guessing that is what the star marked "Source" refers to on the map, because it is placed at the beginning of Ruisseau du Pully). The end of our hike will drop us through La Chapelle, Chamelet, and back to the gite, the same as our last hike (see "Just another day").

  

We head North up Rue Le Cocon, to the "other" Rue Le Cocon (pictured far right) which takes us West to the Le Cocon signpost, and then Northward again to Places Cocon (remember this headache from "Off the map!"? lol.) With the exception of the confusing intersection of Le Cocon and Le Cocon, it's all actually very well-marked.

At Places Cocon, we are disconcerted to see smoke still emanating from the pile of ashes left from where a farmer was burning brush on our last pass through here... 5 days ago!   Instead of continuing North up the "yellow brick path" at Places Cocon, we turn West along the road ("highway" D116) to get to Les Voûtes.

The road is clear and open, and to our surprise, the grassy shoulder of the road has been recently mowed.  The view at this altitude seems like it should be impressive, but really, all we see is forest.

There is a fork in the road about 500m before Les Voûtes, and we leave the highway behind. A sharp-eyed hiker would notice the pair of Xs on the telephone posts (one white, one yellow), indicating to walkers that this is the incorrect path.  This makes zero sense, since the map clearly marks this as the route, and we quickly run into the Les Voûtes signpost as we travel onward.

Travelling straight onward from Les Voûtes (i.e. the path I am standing on in the photo) would keep us out of the forest, so we follow the arrow for "La Chapelle" (the other path, leading off to the left in the photo).  As the path curves to the left, I take in the strange view to the right:  it seems like all the trees have been planted in straight lines down the hill.  My mind flashes back to my grandpa's spruce tree farm, and I conclude this must be a man-made forest. (I google it and find out that this area had been almost completely deforested at one point, and a major reforestation project was undertaken in the 1970s to replace the lost native trees with coniferous trees.  I now cannot seem to locate the source of that info.  I will keep trying to find the link, and will post it when I find it).

*** UPDATE:  I found the source of my info!  It wasn't google after all.  It was a book left in our gite called "les couleurs du Beaujolais: le Rhone."  Plus, I was 100 years off in my timing.  Oops. So now I can correct myself: "Up until the Middle Ages, the hills of the Beaujolais region were covered with beech and chestnut forests. Thereafter, however, much of the land was rapidly deforested and replanted with vines.  In 1860 a reforestation program was launched and resinous trees were gradually planted on the higher hills. Scots pines, fir trees, and especially Douglas pines from California... were planted along with the indigenous spruce and larch trees" (p 113).

Unfortunately, while I am snapping a photo of the trees on the right, Colin calls: "Did you see that?!  Amazing!!!"  Apparently, a huge raptor, very likely a Common Buzzard, was sitting on the path ahead of us (i.e. on the left), munching on a little snack.  I had missed it.

I enjoy the scent of fir on the air as we follow the path downward into a little valley, where it drops us into an intersection with three obvious paths, and two additional paths shown on googlemaps that take us a while to identify (the fourth is the grass path to the far right of the photo, the fifth is not shown in the photo, but runs into the bush on the near left corner).  We determine that we are at the 5-point intersection due east from Places Cocon.  The map hints at a direct walking route from the signpost at Places Cocon, but googlemaps shows that "path" to be Ruisseau de Muzy (a creek).

Taking the rightmost grassy path would take up back up towards Les Voûtes, the rightmost gravel path would take us along the Ruisseau Muzy due West, skirting the forest on the North side.  We take the other gravel path, heading uphill towards "La Source."

We keep expecting to find La Source, but with all the switchbacks, we are getting confused as to where on the trail we actually are. We finally get to the junction where we think La Source SHOULD be, but we don't see anything.  The yellow signpost is no help, simply indicating "Les Voûtes" behind us and "La Chapelle" ahead of us (both trails of the fork shown below will eventually lead to La Chapelle).  We decide that this is probably not La Source's junction.  We try to guess which road will give us the best chance at finding La Source.  I seem to remember that the map showed a viewpoint at La Source (which I find out later is incorrect), so I suggest the upper trail.

We reach the apex of the trail, there is a half-hearted view and a strange bridge over nothing.  I decide to take a photo, in case this turns out to be La Source.  It's not, by the way.  It turns out La Source was somewhere near the last junction (pictured above).

As little farther on, we reach an unexpected fence marked "Rhone Sapeurs-Pompiers: Ecole Départmentale, Terrain de Formation a la Conduite Opérationelle,"  which I think translates to something like "Rhone Firemen-training School."  If La Source is beyond the gate, we have no hope of finding it.

We take the only other path out from the gate, which leads along a grassy field overlooking the "firemen training grounds."  We can see a mess of criss-crossing trails that we assume they use to practice maneuvers.

Of course, while I am taking a photo of that, I hear: "Hey, do you see THAT?!"  Fortunately, this time I am quick enough to spot the baby deer frozen on the path ahead of us.  I have time to snap a quick photo before it takes off full-speed down the path and disappears somewhere to the left.

The path runs lush and green before it suddenly turns to pavement and we reach "civilization," which is unquestionably announced by a fighter jet overhead, and a text message from my friend Nihan in Vancouver.  I send her a "good morning" selfie (4pm here is 7am in Vancouver).

The rest of the route through La Chapelle and Chamelet is uneventful today, and much less exciting than last time, so if you missed this leg of the journey before, you can see my previous post: "Just another day in Chamelet."