Hiking in France - Day 9 (GR4 Moustiers Ste-Marie to La Palud)

August 17th, 2006

Read previous "Hiking in France" posts:
Hiking in France - Day 1 (Paris)
Hiking in France - Day 2 (Paris, Marseilles)
Hiking in France - Day 3 (Marseilles, Cassis, Calanques)
Hiking in France - Day 4 (Cassis, les Calanques)
Hiking in France - Day 5 (Marseille, Manosque)
Hiking in France - Day 6 (GR4 Manosque to Greoux-les-Bains)
Hiking in France - Day 7 (GR4 Greoux-les-Bains to Riez)
Hiking in France - Day 8 (GR4 Riez to Moustiers Ste-Marie)

For the stretch of the GR4 from Moustiers Ste-Marie to Chalet de la Maline, we chickened out and hitchhiked. I guess we couldn’t face the prospect of an eight hour day on the trail. After putting out the thumb for only about five minutes, we were picked up by a twenty-something who lives in Moustiers but works in La Palud. His French was pretty difficult to follow—he rattled off at light speed while I tried to keep up with the slang and slur. As we drove we quickly ascended past some amazing scenery, as the Gorges du Verdon cut a crooked swath through the mountains. The canyon is quite deep, but very narrow—from a distance it looks as if someone took a knife and cut a slit in the mostly flat surrounding countryside.

Most of the day was spent resting as we only covered eight kilometers from la Palud down to the Chalet de la Maline. The Chalet is mostly a bed-and-breakfast outfit, but they allow limited camping if you do some cleanup work around the place. The location is fantastic—right on the edge of a cliff. We literally pitched our tent five feet away from the abyss. We were joined that afternoon by a group of about seven French college students from Paris who were hiking the GR4 in the opposite direction, from Castellane to Manosque. They were very friendly and seemed to be having a great time.

I wrote in the trip journal:

This morning we were lucky and found a ride with a young man who works in La Palud, so we arrived there at 8:40 a.m. We then walked two easy hours (8 km) on the road to the Chalet de la Maline. It’s the only outpost on the entire north side of the canyon. We raked up some grass to pay for our place to set up the tent. We are right on the edge of the gorge—it’s very deep but also very abrupt—the walls in most places are nearly vertical. Tomorrow we set out on a seven-hour hike down to the bottom of the gorge, then along the river and north/northeast. We climb out at Point Sublime and then will be looking for a place to pitch our tent and “camper au sauvage”. We’ll be near Rougon. Then Thursday we plan to hike our final day to Castellane. From there we’ll make our way to Lyon.

Today it was nice to rest. My feet needed to recover—sore and blisters. I’m ready to get going again though.