Boondock Puffins

Somehow setting out for a hike up a mountain straight from your front door makes it quite easy to underestimate what you’re about to undertake. Given that we start with a 2100m head start, it seems that it shouldn’t be too much of a trek, but somehow climbing 600-700m up still feels significant!

Hike No.1 – Col de la Toviere

On one of our first days here, Eliza suggested that Tom takes a quick break for a half hour hike. Two and a half hours later and we were stuck at the top of a mountain without a map and with only the memory of a friend’s verbal instructions on how to get down. As it was nearly sunset and we had neglected to bring multiple warm layers for what was supposed to be just a quick and simple hike round a mountain we can see from our balcony, we had to take what looked to be the most obvious and safest route down. After a few hundred meters of steep descent, this path morphed into a black mountain bike trail, complete with ramps and perfectly smooth basin-like turns on what looked to be a 90% decline. With no time or real option of turning around and heading back up to the top, we had to go off piste until we met up with a track that led us safely back home.

Hike No.2 – Palafour

Having decided against setting off for impromptu hikes, on a morning jaunt to the post office, we saw that one of the chair lifts was open for the first time. We wandered around to find tickets and we happily agreed to €8 for a chairlift ride up and down the mountain – not bad, right? Right. Except that our nodding along to the very fast talking French lady behind the ticket desk meant that we had misunderstood what we had agreed to: €8 for a one-way trip up the mountain. Thankfully this time we had Tom’s rucksack, our thermals and our flask so the hike down with picturesque views and some good coffee stop spots.

This also gave us our first view of what sounds like a bird of prey but is in fact a mutant squirrel… a marmot! Imagine a squirrel cross with a meerkat and a beaver, then you’d not be too far off this fluffy creature. Having never even heard of these animals, we now see them everywhere!

Hike No.3 – L’Aiguille Percée

Having set off too blasé-ly on our first hikes, a few days later we set off before sunrise with properly packed rucksacks and head torches to hike up to the famous eye of the needle. This was an awesome hike that starts by doing the reverse of the walk that we made down from the chairlift before (which means you can do this hike and take out the first hour of climbing).

The final stretch up to the needle could be a bit hairy, particularly if the weather was bad, but the morning we did the hike the weather was beautiful.

We also accidentally timed this walk so that we overlapped with a trail running marathon… a good way to feel pretty humbled is to be tired walking down a mountain to be met by enthusiastic and cheerful athletes of all ages bouncing up the switch back paths up to 2778m!