Because kids can’t go go go forever, there is some down time in the apartment every day, in which I can blog. I am falling into a pattern of uploading my photos to Blogsy right before bed, then getting up and writing my blog post in the morning with my coffee before we all get moving. I wonder if I can keep this up daily. I am going to try. Today Mark went off early with three of the kids and I stayed in with two others who are still sleeping, for now.
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The weather was to be especially fine on Friday, so we planned a family hike.
Our first idea was to hike across the Midi-Plan, taking the train up on one end and the lift down at the other. That really would have been a good hike, but we didn’t get ready fast enough; we wouldn’t have gotten up there before 11, we estimated that the three-hour hike would take our family five hours, and the last lift goes down at 4:30.
This would not have been very relaxing, even though the worst-case scenario would have been spending the night in a fully staffed French mountain refuge with beds, food, and beer.
So we decided to go for something that would require less commitment.
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Three years ago we attempted to hike to the Refuge de la Pierre à Bérard from Le Buet, through the Vallée Bérard. It was a gorgeous hike, estimated to take 2 hours up for a fit adult; but difficult and slow for our then-four-year-old, with nearly 600 m vertical gain (most of it in the first third and the last quarter or so). Rain threatened, and we eventually turned back.
So we decided to give it another go on this sunny day.
We parked in the train station lot at Le Buet. I carried the 3yo on my back in the Boba, plus I carried a crossbody bag that works well with the Boba and that gave me quick access to my phone for its camera. The teen boys had one big backpack between them, because I intended to transfer the 3yo to one of them later. The two younger walking children each carried a daypack. Mark has a brand new lumbar pack that he is trying out, since shoulder straps seem to exacerbate his upper back and shoulder pain.
This hike begins by winding through a little town, right past farmhouse windows, and then enters a forest. You pass a gorgeous waterfall, the Cascade de Bérard, where there is a little buvette (restaurant selling drinks, desserts, and small meals) that does a brisk business extracting euros from people who walk that far to see the falls. Then you keep going up… and up… and up.
Hiking upward with my 35-pound child on my back, I hadn’t enough breath to engage in conversation and had to pay close attention to where I put my feet. My oldest offered to take him, and Mark asked, “Don’t you want to trade off a little bit?” But I didn’t. I may not have looked like I was having fun, but climbing a steep hill (for real, not on a machine at the gym) is one of my favorite strenuous exercises. I don’t get to do it very often, and I was enjoying the challenge.
Besides, I intended to do my time now, and make someone else carry him later.
The one thing I had to concentrate on, besides setting my feet down securely, was alternating my legs. For some reason, I tend to lift my weight with my right leg more often, and that can wear me out early if I forget to climb with my left some of the time.
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After about an hour and fifteen minutes of steady climbing we came into a flatter, grassier place with scattered, lichen-dotted boulders and a tufty soft turf. Lunchtime!
We walked a little off the path to where some scrubby little trees cast some shade and there were rocks to sit on. I let the 3yo off of my back and gratefully eased myself onto the grass. Then we distributed the sandwiches from what is, according to Mark, The Best Bakery In The World (TM).
(It is the sandwichmonger closest to the lift that takes you up to the Aiguille de Midi).
Mark and I do meatless Fridays; this being optional, we don’t require it of the kids. The 17yo had a leftover sandwich from the day before; the relatively selective 13yo had a sandwich lyonnais (sliced rosettes de porc—-think hard salami, but French—on a chewy baguette with butter and little French pickles); Mark and our daughter had the most excellent sandwich pecheur (tuna in mayonnaise with sliced egg, lettuce, and tomato on a very soft kind of long bread); and I had the panini végétarien (soft rectangular bread, toasted, with sun-dried tomato spread, a shredded provolone-like cheese, and slices of grilled eggplant).
I also had an apple, which I ate first; and I gave half my panini to my still-hungry 17yo, who declared it a delicious pizza sandwich.
The two little boys, who needed to be fed even in the event that they might refuse strange food, had homemade sandwiches on grocery-store pain de mie. For the 7yo, lots of butter and confiture de fraise, with a Babybel for protein. For the 3yo, butter and three (individually wrapped, processed) slices of “orange cheese” that had been labeled “Cheddar.” I had also impulsively bought a small can of Pringles (paprika flavor) which were much appreciated.
The 17yo took the 3yo for a brief frolic down by the river (before we stopped him; the valley is full of warning signs about sudden flash floods even in good weather due to an upstream hydroelectric plant), and then we strapped the 3yo onto his back for the rest of the hike. The 17yo is fresh off of Boy Scouts hiking high adventure, and used to carrying a heavier pack than the 3yo. My workout was over.
Off we went.
About that lumbar pack of Mark’s: Apparently when he took it up on his glacier traverse with the boys the other day, a couple of climbers from other parties (British, I think) made fun of him for carrying a weird pack. It bugged one of their guides enough that he said something to one guy, about Mark having had a shoulder injury.
I don’t think it bothered Mark — assholes are assholes everywhere, even on top of the mountain — but it got me to thinking quite a bit about manners, and also about invisible disabilities, and also about young and fit people not being able to imagine themselves older and broken and still wanting to go places and do fun things.
My thoughts boil down to this: Wherever you go, don’t be that guy.
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Lunch helped, and the long flat trek across the valley was refreshing, but the 7yo still struggled with believing he could make it that far.
I took pictures of some end-of-season aster-type flowers that had petals that glimmered like silver.
Soon we could see far ahead of us and partway up a steep slope, the refuge nestled into the side of the mountain, with a bright white dome as part of its roof. The 17yo told the complaining 3yo that we were headed for the white building, and repeated it over and over as we climbed the twenty or so switchbacks.
And… we made it!
(We had started 5 km away at altitude 1350 m.)
The 3yo cried because we had not reached “the white building;” the 17yo had to take him up a little farther towards the pass so he could see the domed roof.
Then we settled in for the promised snacks and drinks.
Coke for our daughter. Juice for the 3yo. Sirop de cassis for the 13yo. Perrier and un petit café for me (it turned out to be a tiny but welcome espresso). Tarte des myrtilles for everyone else. Fantastically buttery crust.
I wandered around the refuge a little bit. There are bathrooms, and a big dark room with a couple of bunk beds visible through the open door, many more inside, I think. They serve one kind of draft beer and two kinds in cans. They make their own ice cream and tarte.
The waitress here was the first person on our trip to comment on how, as we only have one daughter, she must feel very protected by all of her brothers.
In our experience, she will hear that again.
Flush with success, caffeine, and tarte, we headed back down the trail.
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