The map of our hiking route from Chatillon-en- Diois to Grandasse Mountain.
Tight corners of Chatillon-en- Diois.
As we start out, the Montagne de Glandasse stands as a wall 1000 metres above us.
Rich enjoys the cool air at 1700m.
A glider passes overhead but never to close as to lose precious altitude.
The refuge of Chatillon on the top of the plateau has only this man made puddle as its
water supply.
We miss our kite in the windy, wide open space on the plateau.
Late light on the town of Chatillon-en -Diois greets us on our return from the mountain. |
EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNAL September
2, 1999
Die, The Vercors
The Plateau de Glandasse (1795 metres - 11 kilometres)
Chatillon-en-Diois is another one of those places in France where you can’t
imagine anyone actually living there, and at the same time you can’t imagine why
anyone would live anywhere else. It is the epitome of civilized: no trenchcoats, no
pollution, no rushing, impersonal workforce, greedy for the insignificant without the
perspective of a mountain range, a treble of whitecaps or prairie horizon.
Chatillon’s perspective is a small boy tossing handfuls of dirt in a medieval alley.
An impossibly long-legged nymph led around town by her Bullmastif. At one point she’s
skidding on the rubber souls of her sneakers. An elderly woman, shrinking, orders her demi-baguette
(she can’t eat a whole one – all day even) from a chair by the door. The baker
slices the bread neatly in half and takes the exact change. There’s aqueduct that
runs along the edge of people’s gardens and disperses glacial runoff into the
waterbottles of hikers. It’s imperative to stop at every alley, where one can peer
into the darkness of the petit coin and catch a glimpse of a buttress, flaking like
a sandcastle, a patchwork of cobblestone or a kitchen garden, thriving with summer
optimism. In a month this place will be blanketed, wrapped like a parcel in winter and
unscathed by anything but footprints.
The climb is steep – literally straight up on switchbacks for five kilometres,
from the village’s elevation (547 metres) to the refuge at the south end of the
plateau at 1795 metres. The plateau continues north for 50 kilometres to the other end of
the Vercors and at places reaches 2300 metres in elevation. From its southern end the
plateau is reachable by human foot only by two access points – fissures where runoff
has carved a waterway into the cliff and trees have managed. From the pine forest and the
dried-up riverbed of loose, slippery stones we can see the cerulean sky through branches
and parting peaks. We’re almost there, finally, and the reward is beyond our
expectations. The plateau is a gentle, undulating slope of lush, green meadow – a
feeding pasture for mountain sheep. In this paradise we’re thinking of our kite, and
have to remind ourselves that we are in the gallery of the French Alps, 1800 metres above
sea-level, where it drops to freezing blackness when the sun goes down, with high winds
and blizzards for most of the year. On the opposite cliff there stands a modest hut –
a refuge for hikers – with a wood stove, a table and chairs, emergency kindling, an
axe, a candle and a high loft for sleeping. Beside the refuge is another small building,
and surrounding that is a water reservoir, slowly evaporating in these temperatures, a
garden, watering troughs for animals and a smattering of sheep droppings. A window reveals
the contents of the one-room hut: a woolen shirt hanging on a hook, two loaves of country
bread, a saw and axe hanging on the wall, a stove, wood, bottles on a table.
Someone’s stepped out. A mountain man who monitors the summer refuge? A shepherd? He
must hike down to Chatillon for his supplies.
From all sides except the north the plateau drops off from the meadow, cliff-style. The
valleys below are speckled with tiny villages accessible by treacherous roads. Ibex routes
are gnarly, narrow paths around the edge of the drop-off. When the mountaineers dip below
the treeline, they cut through the man-made switchbacks and take the short route. In our
silent climb, we catch a doe and calf traversing the trail, pausing wary of us, and then
totally confident – the mother leaps over the ankle-mangling ridge and cuts a slope,
her baby at her heels without sweat or lungs. At the top, on the grass, savouring huge
sandwiches, we hear an unfamiliar noise; something like a low hum, the sound a giant kite
might make, wind resistant and changing frequency slightly at intervals. Over the ridge in
front of us, from the invisible valley below and blinding in the direct sun, a glider
appears over the apex of the hill. It tips its wings and sails toward us, the noise of its
wings changing marginally when it gains altitude or banks to catch another current. It
glides above us like this for the whole time we’re at the summit. After an hour or so
it disappears beyond the cliff edge like we do, making our descent the slow way. |
A celebration of flowers on every crumbly home in Chatillon-en Diois.
Two and a half hours - straight up.
A few moments of shade where the ibex traverse.
Sara tries to find the rock pile on the map.
Stone is worn like a bone on the markers leading to the refuge of Chatillon.
A kilometre below, the tiny homes of Tussac are barely visible.
One last atmospheric look before a gruelling descent. |
