You can also contact us by clicking here.The baguette we bought that morning from the boulangerie was a perfect blend of airy, lightness and cracked crust. The cheese – a nutty, golden gruyère – we’d bought from Pierre: we hadn’t expected to hike past a human, let alone a fromagerie, in the teeny hillside hamlet of Rouet, and it had taken a while to rouse the cheesemaker from within his thick farmhouse walls. We were glad we had persevered. Now we were resting on a pasture surrounded by pines and grazing sheep with the finest sandwich that we’d eaten. Two ingredients. If you include the mountain air, that makes three ingredients.
It was a deliciously simple lunch. The website clearly states that this trip is “Hiking the French Alps”. The name had struck me as so unimaginative I was perversely intrigued; now it seemed that Macs Adventure – organisers of this self-guided walk in the Queyras region – were just being admirably to the point.
Yes, Queyras. I had never heard of it. Bordered to the north and east by Italy, barricaded by a phalanx of 3,000-metre peaks, this regional natural park might be the least-discovered – and the Frenchest – corner of the Alps. Queyras entered the national consciousness only in 1957 after devastating floods briefly made it headline news. Tourism began to filter in. The rural character of the area has been preserved through centuries of agriculture undisturbed and isolation.
Queyras is still a long way away. You can either take the hair-pinning, narrow road that winds through the gorges along the Guil River starting from Guillestre. Or you drive over the 2,361-metre Col d’Izoard (from Briançon) or the 2,744-metre Col Agnel (from Italy), both of which periodically test the thighs of Tour de France riders, and both of which close over winter, all but cutting Queyras off from the rest of the world.
Macs Adventures and Byway have teamed up to offer a no-fly service. My husband, who is a keen cyclist, and I were able to get as close as possible by train. We overnighted in Paris, whizzed down to south-east France, then chugged more slowly towards Montdauphin-Guillestre, where a Vauban hilltop fort Surveillance of a strategic meeting between valleys. Finaly, we boarded our school bus to end the day and joined children accustomed to the stunning views as they squeezed up the valley towards Ceillac, the gateway to the Natural Park.
We planned to hike for six days on a circular trail that would offer big, satisfying climbs without any technical terrain. There were no shared dorms either. Covering up to 12 miles each day – and walking for an average of six hours – we’d use parts of the GR58 (the grande randonnée There are also other trails that allow you to travel between the traditional villages. We would eat cheese and gaze at mountains and lakes, and enjoy a region with 300 days of sun a year, as well as 2,500 different species of flowers.
On day one this meant walking from Ceillac to Saint-Véran, over the Col des Estronques (2,651 metres). It was a fine start, under blue September skies – we’d come at the end of the hiking season (the trip runs June to mid-September), when crocuses still fleck the meadows and houseleeks hang on higher up, but the bilberry bushes are beginning to blaze in fall-fiery colours and there’s a sense of change in the air.
The valley was filled with crickets as we walked through isolated farmsteads. Noisy choughs and a boisterous breeze welcomed us to the pass itself; 100 vertical metres more took us to the lookout of Tête de Jacquette, where we felt like monarchs of this mountain realm. These may not have been the very biggest Alps – few peaks sported any snow – but they rippled every which way, great waves of limestone, dolomite, gabbro and schist.
From the col we dropped down through arolla pine and larch to Saint-Véran. It claims to be Europe’s highest village at 2,042 meters. The village is a glimpse of Alpine life, before modernity took over. The oldest house, built in traditional Saint-Véran style, dates to 1641 and is now the Soum Museum; the ground floor, with its half-metre-thick stone walls, is where animals and families would sleep together for warmth. The upper floors made from tree trunks were used for storing hay and barley. The grains were baked into large loaves to last through the winter in a communally owned oven.
This huge village oven is still lit up for festivals a few time a year. But I was happy to be fed. Hotel le Grand Tétras (“Capercaillie”) instead. We ate a lot of gratin d’oreilles d’âne The room was simple, but had a great view of the mountains.
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Our days began to follow a predictable pattern. After breakfast, we would go shopping for picnic supplies. We would hike through a green dotted with butterflies. We would go over a pass, by a beautiful lake or to a panoramic ridge. We would then descend through the forest towards an icy stream. We’d end up in a picturesque village by evening, enjoying a wine at a reasonable price, a multicourse dinner or a fondue. The air was always clean, the trails were joyful and the crowds were largely sparse.
The owner of a hotel, Christophe Delhaise Ramond stated that “it’s very busy from mid-July until mid-September.” gîte in Abriès where we stayed one night, as he poured us mélèze While we pored over maps, we sipped (larch) liquors. He then reconsidered, “But there are around 2,000 beds for tourists in the park so it’s not that bad.”
We made a small detour on the next day thanks to Christophe. We climbed to the 2,583 metre Lac Grand Laus. The lake was so blue-green that it looked like a little bit of the Mediterranean got lost in the mountains. The lake was beautiful, but it was also crowded. Christophe suggested that we continue climbing steeply up to the Col du Petit Malrif. Here, flowers were bursting through the rock and the view was incredible, reaching snow-covered peaks.
We looped around, passing two smaller, but equally Mediterranean tarns where no one else was present. We flopped in the cottongrass and ate baguettes with stuffed vegetables. bleu de queyras. We stayed long after the baguettes disappeared, listening to water bubbling in the breeze. We continued onwards, descending through a rocky cleft. We soon found ourselves on a trail so engulfed in puffs of silken thattledown, it looked like we were hiking through Fairyland. But no, we were still just hiking in the French Alps – albeit a particularly magical bit.
The trip was organized by Macs Adventure and Byway,The seven-night self guided tour Hiking in the French Alps Trips are available for all ages. costs from £1,150pp Half-off-board. Transportation was provided by Byway, which can book return trains from London to Montdauphin-Guillestre, plus a night in Paris in each direction, from £734pp
