Provence Blog by ProvenceBeyond

Autumn Colors at Entrevaux, Alpes-Maritimes

Bright orange, yellow and red leaves on the mountain roads approaching the Medieval town of Entrevaux, on the Var river in the Alpes-Maritimes. We drove up through the little villages of Caille and Andon, through the narrow Clue de Saint-Auban, a café stop and Briançonette, then north over the mountains to Entrevaux.

The first photo is on the twisty D911 road approaching Entrevaux. The second photo is at the edge of Entrevaux village, where a small stream comes down from the hills to join the Var river.

We had a great lunch in Entrevaux old-town (in across the draw bridge), at L'Ambassade. Local Autumn fare, finishing with truly wonderful tarte de chataigne (chestnut pie).

 

Rougon village near Gorges du Verdond

We've added the lovely but isolated little village of Rougon to Beyond. Nestled in the hills overlooking the famous Gorges du Verdon, Rougon village is famous itself for the colony of vultures nesting in the cliffs beside the village.

 

Lac de Trecolpas - Mercantour Mountain Lakes

 We've added photos for the Lac de Trecolpas to our Mercantour Mountain Lakes page. The pretty Trecolpas lake sits at 2150 m altitude, near the Refuge de Courgorde, northeast of Saint Martin-Vésubie and northeast of the Boréon lake and vacherie in the Mercantour National Park.

From the Vacherie de Boréon, we hiked up to the Refuge de Courgorde; under 1-1/2 hours at a leisurely photo-taking pace. The Refuge is 400 m higher than the starting point, but our altimeter records over 500 m of total upward climbing.

After a nostalgic tour of the Courgorde Refuge area (where we've hiked and overnighted for many, many years), we headed southeast and south on a trail that traverses around the side of the mountain, mostly through forests. Traveling slowly, knowing we're likely to see chamois here if we're careful, we took 40 minutes to reach the Lac de Trecolpas.

The slow moving paid off, with the sighting of four chamois (see our recent, previous blog).

Chamois in the Mercantour - Great Hiking

 Two days of early-Autumn hiking in the Mercantour - no crowds, great scenery, sore legs. On today's hike, from the Vacherie de Boréon (Boreon Dairy) north of Saint Martin-Vésubie, up to the Refuge de Courgourde (a mountain refuge station). Then traversing around the mountain to the Lac de Trecolpas, where we surprised four chamois. The photos here are the first two chamois, coming down the mountainside in front of us, a few minutes apart.

 We later saw a mother with youngster crossing along the base of the cliffs high above us. We got a few photos, but at a far greater distance than these two.

Extinct Horses and Short-Toed Eagles

 A sunny Sunday drive in the back-country of Grasse today, and we ran across once-nearly-extinct Przewalski's horses and a Short-Toed Eagle.

The Przewalski's horses were at the Reserve Biologique des Monts d'Azur, a Buffalo Park we've described on our Thorenc page. We stopped by to check the place out. It was going great, and we decided to come back at some non-August time for a leisurely safari visit.

The Short-Toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus) was hunting over the fields in the area of Thorenc and Andon. 

 

Another great lunch in the little Chez Nous restaurant at Andon finished the morning off nicely.

Thorenc Alpes-Maritimes village Photos

 We've updated our Beyond page for Thorenc, a small mountain hamlet in the hills north of Grasse. Our main improvement is going from a single, smallish photo to a gallery of 8 nice photos for Thorenc.

You'll also find on our Thorenc page information about an animal park, the Reserve Biologique des Monts d'Azur. This site has walking or horse-drawn carriage safaris to visit their herd of European Bison, the very rare Przewalski's Horse, and more local wild life, including deer and wild boar.

Beyond Chamois page updated - better photos

 Following our recent adventures with wild chamois while hiking in the Mercantour National Park, we've updated our Fauna - Chamois page, adding to the text and putting on some much better photos.

Lac Scluos Chamois - Reprise

 Our Chamois photos during the 15 July 2010 hike to Lac Scluos came about from a combination of luck and skill.

We had hiked for 3 hours, up from the Salese parking to the Col the Salese and then northwest up through the forest to the Tavels area. The last two hours we hiked slowly, looking constantly for chamois in the trees above or below the trail (where we've seen them in the past). Then a steep hike up to the Lac Tavels and a good long look-around there, before heading back down that mountain and retracing our previous trail southeast.

From the main trail we went up the side of the hill, very, very steeply, without any trail, to find the Lac Scluos. We spent a good hour wandering the pair of lakes, photographing and lunching. Finally satisfied that we had seen all there was, we headed out across the plateau to find a route back down.

Walking across an open, sunlit field I saw the chamois coming slowly out of the trees towards me. Although I was in a field in full sunlight I saw it first (I'm more observant than a wild chamois?). I froze. It dropped its head to feed. I sank down slowly, then lay prone, just another boulder in the field.

I propped up the camera and started shooting while the chamois wandered and grazed, trying to ignore scratchy dry throat, blazing sun and bothersome flies.

When the chamois disappeared back into the trees I got up and stalked it. After some searching, I found it again further into the woods. I crawled, then slowly stood up beside a pair of 2-meter high trees. Standing as just another tree, I shot more photos. And then a second chamois arrived. I photographed them both for several minutes, but they were mostly in the shadows and fairly far for my medium-telephoto camera.

When the pair of chamois moved completely back into the woods, I headed back down the mountain and continued my hike back to the Col de Salese.

Lac Scluos Chamois

Lac Scluos chamois. Not crowded at the lake, but we weren't completely alone.

Mercantour, Boreon Hike, Cime de Paigu

Our second successive day of hiking in the Mercantour turned out really fine, with better weather than yesterday, magnificent views from the high mountain ridges, Alpine wildflowers, chamois, and our legs not protesting too much from another 8 hours up and down mountain trails.

The "overall" for the day's hike was 8 hours, with an accumulated 1260 m vertical, reaching a maximum altitude of  2338 m at the Cime de Piagu.

(As we sit on our hotel balcony in the late evening typing this up, we have the sound of vintage, 1970's80's, sports cars coming up the narrow valley for an event here in the village this weekend. Makes us feel right at home!)

We started the hike a little after 7 am at the Vacherie de Boreon (the Boreon cattle barn), about 1600 m altitude. Very chilly so we started with a jacket. The first hour and a half the trail goes south, straight up the mountain side. Through the trees, but not even zig-zags to relieve the verticality until the last part, then topping out above the tree line at 2100 m.

For much of the trudge straight up, a cuckoo chanted to us from somewhere above,  obviously encouraging us to keep up the effort.

At the top of the east-west ridge, the sun was out, jacket long gone, and magnificent views down across forested valleys to higher, snow-clad mountains. Took the time to photograph some of the Alpine wildflowers, but there are too many, and too much trail ahead of us. (We'll put some  of the photos on when we get back home, in a couple of days.) 

Hiking west up the grass-covered ridge, from 2100 m to the Piagu peak at 2338 m was really beautiful. Across the Boreon/Vesubie valley to the north are the high mountains of the Mercantour, only 4 or 5 km distance. Immediately to the south is the deep valley of the Madone de la Fenestre, rising up a forested mountainside where we were hiking yesterday.

We caught sight of a chamois in the open, about 100 m in front of us. With us "frozen" and the morning sun behind us, the chamois decided we weren't a threat and continued grazing. While we continued our long distance photography.

Following the climb to the 2338 m top, the trail descended the ridge, eventually back into the trees. There were some nice views of St Martin-Vesubie and Venanson villages in the valley far below to the southwest.

Down at 1700 m our trail turned north, northeast, and east to loop back near our starting point. It wasn't an easy trail back though. Looking "flat" on the map, the trail kept descending, then climbing, sometimes 50 or 60 m at a time. The frequent ups and downs were linked now and again by lovely level paths through the forest, with occasional freshly fallen trees that had to be passed by whatever means.

We closed the loop at the eastern end, at 1850 m altitude. A steep trail back down to the Vacherie de Boreon, afternoon clouds overhead, and a day well done.