CIRQUE de la SOLITUDE!
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To do justice to the stage most of the images are a bit larger than on the earlier
pages. I hope you will see why I've made the exception in this case.
This day is all about the (in)famous Cirque de la Solitude. Now that I've said that, as I sit here revisiting the day I am stuck for words. Maybe an extract from Paddy Dillon's guidebook might get me fired up again. His first sentence is really rather hyperbolic: "This is the day that many walkers on the GR20 dread".
I don't really get this. Why would you be doing the GR - or at least this stage - if you are in dread, unless Dillon is referring to the archaic meaning of "to hold in respectful awe"? It seems to me that going hiking should be about appreciating the beauty of nature, perhaps along with challenging oneself physical and sharing the adventure with others when it suits.
This is certainly a challenging stage, and we were excited about it. It is physically challenging but also goes through some terrain that is both beautiful and awesome. Our friend Michel walked the GR20 last year. His mantra for the Cirque de la Solitude is "start early, start early and start early", mostly so that you minimise the risk of having other people knock rocks down on you and to try to avoid getting stuck behind slower hikers on the chained sections.
Another good reason for making an early start this day was that the forecast was just a little dodgy. It suggested that there could be some rain later so we really wanted to get through the cirque good and early to minimise the chance of having to deal with wet and slippery rock.
In his guide Dillon goes on to say "While there is no doubt that the Cirque demands respect, and needs to be treated with care and caution, the difficulties of the traverse tend to be overstated. it is true that if all the helpful chains were removed, it would indeed be a rock climb, but only of a moderate grade. With all the chains, and even a short metal ladder, it is no more arduous than any of the scrambles endured so far, just more sustained." What I think he does underplay a bit is the descent from the cirque to the Auberge U Vallone, but more about that later.
Here are the stats for the day's hike ...
- Distance: 9 km
- Total ascent: 1000 m
- Total descent: 1000 m
- Time: 6 1/2 hours
... and what the route looks like on the map:
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| The pen scribble is our stop |
Before I go any further with my take on the day, I'd like to insert a wonderful Youtube video by Sam Dolman. He walked the GR20 in June this year and passed through the cirque when there was still a bit of snow at the entrance, on the descent and higher up at the exit, making it quite a lot more challenging and exciting than what we experienced on the 6th of September. I'll understand if you can't be bothered reading the rest of this post or looking at my pictures after seeing the artistry Sam has put into this video. Without further ado, here it is ...
Okay, if you're still reading after watching that great little video then I must be doing something right! With a pretty big day ahead of us, and Michel's words ringing in our heads we set off just as it was starting to get light. We could see the headlamps of a few other hikers over at the refuge but there wasn't any sign of anybody ahead of us on the track, which we were pretty happy about. If you had a close look at the map above you might have concluded that the day starts with a long, gradual ascent. Well you would have been right. In fact the route goes initially up along a cleared ski run before ducking into some nice forest for a kilometre or so and then emerges onto open ground covered in rock and low shrubs.
Knowing we had 1000 metres of vertical gain ahead of us we adopted a good and steady pace, which was easy to maintain on the even gradient and good track. In the picture below we have emerged from the forest after about twenty minutes of walking and are looking up towards the head of the valley. The route climbs right up the one long valley before arriving at a small high cirque and is farther than it looks ...
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| These are the last of the trees before reaching the bocca |
About a quarter of an hour later the light was starting to become reasonable for photos and I took this image of the low peaks flanking the valley to the northwest. Although it's a bit hard to capture, the stillness of the early morning, the textures of the rock and vegetation and the quality of light combined to create a beautiful, calming atmosphere. If you look closely you can make out a neat little spire poking up like a totem pole just left of centre ...
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| Portrait of a morning |
Looking back down the hill at this point in time (7:03 a.m.) gave a sense of progress. The trail snakes off down the scrub-covered slopes towards the valley below. Haut Asco is tucked behind the toe of the ridge coming in from the right ...
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| Leaving behind the lowlands
... and in another quarter of an hour we are nearly at the head of the valley. At this stage we realised that there were people visible along the track below, at about the spot where I took the previous photo. There are actually four hikers in the photo but you probably won't be able to pick them out ...
We were soon at an idyllic, sheltered area just near a big rock wall that looked like it had potential for some great technical rock climbing. (It was too deep in shade to get any reasonable sort of photograph.) It also looked like a great place to camp, and the parks people had posted a sign reminding hikers that camping was not allowed ...
Despite the sign, there was evidence that people had camped, and fairly recently too. Soon, we were in a chaotic, rocky landscape ...
.. the cirque below the ridge and bocca that leads to the Cirque de la Solitude. The route goes pretty much straight ahead. (If you expand the photo you will see a few of the GR markers.) This bit of the route was steeper and involved a lot of easy scrambling amidst the traversing. It was quite good fun and built up our anticipation of what lay ahead in the main agenda over the ridge. It's now 7:43 and we are pleased with the progress we've made in the hour and a half or so that we've been on the route.
Another ten minutes or so had us up on al little platform just below the top of the cirque. Time to catch our breath for a minute and appreciate the sun just starting to warm the peaks on the shoulder of the valley we are leaving behind ...
Less than twenty minutes later we arrive at the entrance to the Cirque de la Solitude, the Bocca Temasginesca at 2183 metres, some 760 metres above where we started the day ...
We were a little surprised to come across an British couple just starting the cirque themselves, as we hadn't noticed any sign of them as we'd been climbing up towards the head of the valley and the entrance to the cirque. I took the following photo of Di climbing down towards them less than three minutes after the one above. If you look closely, you can see the fixed chains even at this early stage ...
If you're confident and have a bit of experience on this sort of terrain - and you want to move quickly - it's best not to use the chains except for the most precarious moves. Yes, the chains provide a sense of security as they are nice and bulky to grab on to, but they are only as good as the rock to which they are fixed anyway. The big problem with the chains in terms of maintaining stability and moving fluently is that, unlike the rock to which they are fixed, they swing around as you weight them. We've done a bit of this sort of thing before and really enjoyed the variation of moving on the steep and rocky terrain. In the next photo we've passed the two Brits and are looking back up the chains past them and towards the entrance to the cirque ...
The rock generally was really solid and felt great to latch on to, and the setting was pretty atmospheric. The next photo of Di downclimbing is perhaps my favourite of the whole trip ...
A little farther down there was a wonderful, solid - if somewhat steep and irregular - natural staircase, complete with handrail ...
Just before the end of the descent and before the route traverses across towards the escape from the cirque, where just enough sun and water created the right conditions we were surprised by these lovely foxgloves ...
By the time we reached the level at which the traverse across the cirque began we'd been on the go for just under two and a half hours and decided to have a quick snack before pressing onwards. We didn't want to linger as we knew we still had to get up and out the other side. In the next photo Di is back underway and on the path leading across the cirque. If you expand the photo to full size you should be able to see a GR marker just behind Di's left foot and a couple more along the traverse line ...
We are headed towards the huge rock tower dominating the landscape as the route escapes the cirque just this side of the that tower via a long series of chains. Most of the vegetation you can see in the photo above consists of tough, thorny shrubs but in a few cool damp niches ferns shelter ...
You would probably like to see some detail of the chains leading out of the cirque. Sorry. We were too busy getting out of the cirque as quickly as we could to stop for photos. The reason: just as we were approaching the chains we discovered a large group of about a dozen hikers on a guided trip laboriously descending the chains. The rock was dry and the terrain not difficult, so we opted to climb the face about 10 metres to the left of the chains rather than have to wait until they all came down.
This proved to be an excellent move on two counts. Firstly, behind the first group were another two groups being guided through the cirque. They were moving very slowly and we would have been held up for a very long time. Secondly, - and thankfully - we were out of the firing line. When we were about two-thirds of the way up the ascent out of the cirque a young lass knocked loose a rock about the size of a soccer ball. To her credit, she did call out - but not with the urgency the situation dictated. The rock bounced and narrowly missed the head of another young woman about fifteen metres lower. Shortly afterwards we were right out of the bottleneck and glad of it.
After reaching a bit of a shelf, to our surprise the route continued to climb and then traverse. In the next photo we are well out of the confines of the lower cirque looking back towards the impressive rock tower that dominates the cirque as you traverse towards it. Di has managed to just sneak into the right hand edge of the photo ...
Looking back down another five minutes later and four hikers that we passed when we went around the chains have come into view ...
Here's a zoomed in shot of them in case you couldn't make them out. There are three hikers in the bottom right of the photo and another dressed in red looking back down into the cirque (I wanted to include this so you get a bit of a sense of the scale.) ...
Just over ten minutes later we reached the Bocca Minuta at 2218 metres and had a bit of a pause before starting down the other side. Very quickly we were into quite different terrain. It was still very rocky but this time we were descending slabs, not unlike the long series of slabs that we ascended on day two in the Spasmati Gorge.
The route descends quite steeply, almost exclusively on solid rock pretty much all the way to the Refuge de Tighjettu which is over 500 metres below the Bocca Minuta. After the 1000 metres of ascent to the Cirque de la Solitude then up out if it, along with the nervous energy expended, this descent was a bit technical in places and quite strenuous, so you still really needed to be paying close attention to what you were doing. It would be quite easy to come unstuck with potentially very nasty consequences.
This photo looking back up towards the refuge gives some idea of the rockiness of the terrain and it's like this all the way down from the bocca ...
We had thought of stopping at the refuge for a drink and a bite to eat but it seemed pretty deserted as we came by it. Besides that we could smell the acrid stink of plastic burning and smoke from a little sheltered area of to the left as we neared the refuge, so it seemed maybe the guardian was off burning waste so he didn't have to cart it out or pay for it to be transported by helicopter.
The next photo was taken about five minutes on from the refuge, where we spotted a gorgeous little pool which seemed to suggest we should treat our legs to a cool bath after the excellent work they'd done over the previous four and a half hours ...
... and it didn't take much to seduce us. Here Di is just drying out after dangling her lower legs in the crystal clear mountain stream ...
If you looked closely you might have noticed the bruise on her right knee. That was the result of her tripping in the dark stairwell of our hotel in Bastia - with her pack on her back - two days before embarking on the hike. The hotel's lift was just big enough for one person without a pack, so we'd taken the stairs down from our second floor room as we were leaving to go to Calvi. Di missed the last step, which was on a bit of a diagonal, and landed her full weight, with her pack, on her knee. She was in agony and we thought, briefly, that our walk on the GR20 was going to be over before it started. Luckily she's a tough old bird ...
Tucked in next to this gorgeous little pool were some dwarf birches providing a lovely touch of green ...
We still needed to descend almost 250 metres before being finished for the day and were starting to get hungry so we didn't linger long at our little oasis and were pleased to arrive at the Auberge U Vallone, five hours and ten minutes after leaving the Hôtel le Chalet at Haut Asco ...
The auberge has tents for hire and also has a huge tent with bunk beds that is effectively a basic gîte d'étape. It is situated a bit above the auberge below a great backdrop of craggy peaks ...
The first thing we did was to have some lunch and then up went the tent. Another advantage of arriving early is that you get the pick of the campsites that aren't already occupied by tents for hire. Here we've got a nice flat spot just near the refuge ...
Shortly after we arrived from the north one of the guardians arrived from the south with a couple of heavily laden donkeys in tow. Bread, wine, saucisson and other provisions were quickly unloaded before the donkeys were cut loose to graze ...
(I love this photo for the range of technology on show, from the centuries-old carting methods,
to the folded up tents to the laptop on the table.)
In conversation with one of the guardians of the auberge who was busy dismantling tents when we arrived we discovered that they'd hosted 114 people in the gîte and tents scattered around the site, and fed dinner to 102 of them in the auberge. (When there are large numbers at the refuges and auberges they do two shifts for dinner). We concluded that some of them must have been the three guided groups we'd encountered descending into the Cirque de la Solitude, and some others - like us - must have been heading south.
We were a little concerned that it would be crowded again that night, but thankfully this didn't happen. Many of the walkers must have stopped at Refuge de Tighjettu which was a bit of a bonus. We were glad to be a little lower down and farther along the route as it had clouded up as we were completing the descent to the auberge.
The auberge nestles into a lovely little shelf just above a gorgeous stream and surrounded by pines. After lunch, a shower and a bit of a rest we wandered down to the stream to have a look at a quiet little pool formed just below the auberge ...
... and enjoyed the panoramic view back up towards the auberge ...
... before having a satisfying dinner at the auberge and yet another early night after a fantastic day out.
And that's about it for Day Four of the GR20. We knew the next day's walk should be a little easier than the previous four, and that after it was done we'd be over halfway through the first section of the route and one-third of the way through the entire journey. Despite being a couple of fairly tired hikers our confidence was growing that, barring any major mishaps or a serious downturn in the weather we would indeed be able to finish the hike.
For the past few days we had been running into an older gentleman from Avignon but the name of Alain. Although he had even less English that we did French, we'd managed to have a reasonable sort of chat in the afternoon at Haut Asco. Alain had done lots of stuff in the Alps over the years and seemed to really know what he was about. He would set out each day a little bit ahead of us and we'd invariably pass him an hour or so into the day's walk. But Alain invariably turned up - and not last either. The same thing applied on this day. An hour or so before dinner, he arrived pretty much unfazed. We weren't sure exactly how old Alain was, but were pretty sure he was quite a bit older than us. We reasoned that if he could keep going, so could we.
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