Two is One and One is None

After the mental and physical exertion involved with our big climb the other day, we enjoyed a real ‘holiday morning’ at nearby Mt Dauphin. The old fort town is in walking distance of our chalet, so after waking up naturally, we threw on some clothes, walked over in the cool of the day and got established on the shady terrace of Le Glacier Bleu cafe on in the town square. They’d just opened and the whole village was peacefully quiet. With coffee and croissants and no rush to be anywhere or do anything, we enjoyed a wonderful few hours shooting the breeze together and watching the village wake up.

The following day, we’d planned to climb in the Guil Gorge, which is steep sided and shady. I had a strange feeling while planning that it might not be our thing, but we went to see anyway. I heard a great phrase a few years ago that when it comes to planning having ‘two is one and one is none’, meaning that it’s always worth having a plan B, in case your Plan A falls through.

The Guil Gorge is spectacular, but in the cool of the morning, it felt intimidating with the roar of the rapids and the shadowy cliffs above. Having translated the guidebook, it read that there had been some rock fall in the area. Even where we parked the car up, the layby was littered with freshly fallen rocks, which didn’t really inspire confidence. To get to the cliffs, you have to clip onto a wire and pull yourself across the rapids above the river level on a Tyrolean traverse (just visible in the photo above). It looked super exciting, except for the fact that fresh rockfalls had wiped away the path and possibly one of the wires? Even the layby we stood in had several car sized boulders and fresh rubble that looked like they’d been recently deposited there from somewhere up above. Although the climbs looked okay on the other river bank, we both got the feeling that this wasn’t a place to hang about, so returned to the car and moved onto Plan B!

Walking past features like this, gives an indication of somewhere not ideal to be leaving your car parked!

It wasn’t far to drive up to Ceillac and as we still had time on our side, the cool of the morning prevailed as we sampled some of the single pitch routes near the ridge we’d climbed last week.

By midday, the sun was on us we retreated to the town, which we hadn’t actually been in yet. We found a suitably typical French ‘Tabac’ bar and had a drink – part commiseration of not doing the big gorge routes, and part congratulation for having a plan B to move onto!

As we strolled the streets, we found that there was a fete on today! A kite festival to be precise…

Once we’d seen the sights and were starting to overheat, we set off further up the valley to a little swimming spot we’d found out about. We weren’t expecting much, but it turned out to be idyllic!