We had originally planned this hike 4 weeks ago on May 22 but the forecast of rain and coolth forced us to adopt plan B, a gentle walk from Morges to Ouchy.
This time the weather forecast was great: wall to wall sunshine and temperatures between 15 and 20 degrees at the top of the gorge. But there were many apologies, ranging from “going to see a man about a knee” to fear that it would be too hot for hiking. After all the apologies we were down to a planned energetic eight. Then there were more apologies the night before the hike: two complained of stomach bugs, one with too much detail, and one feeling generally tired (turned out to be Covid so almost acceptable). So we were down to the fab five: Mervyn, Peter S, Ross, 2 Marks.
We duly assembled in Divonne at 07:45, climbed into one car and set off. The early start was in case of delays getting to, and on, the autoroute. In fact it took us 15 minutes to get to the autoroute. After that the journey was relatively easy and we arrived at Noiraigue at shortly after 9:30.
The station at Noiraigue has got a new loo, all high tech with an illuminated push button for every function (further detail suppressed). It was almost worth the drive just to inspect the loo, but that was not the intended purpose of the trip so, all booted up, we set off on the climb to the top of the gorge.
We soon entered the woods and then the path climbed steadily. Those of us familiar with this hike knew that the steady incline was just to give a false sense of confidence. Pretty soon we reached Les Oeillons where the path makes an abrupt left turn and starts climbing more seriously. The path from here is called the Sentier des Quatorze Contours and, sure enough, the path zig-zags 14 times before getting to the top. Each bend is labelled with a number on a tree (is this new? I’ve not noticed these numbers before) which is a great psychological help on the climb. Also the length of successive zigs, or zags, gets shorter so by bend 7 we are well over halfway up this section. At one point we found a, not very horizontal, bench and all managed to perch on it, with difficulty.
Eventually we came out at the top with fabulous views over the gorge.
From there it was only a gentle uphill, then downhill all the way, with plenty of photo stops, till we got to the restaurant for lunch.
We arrived a La Grand Vy exactly at the reserved time of 1 o’clock and found a pleasant shady table.
Ross had brought a picnic but joined us shortly afterwards with a maths problem for the resident geek.
Essentially take any 4 digit number and rearrange the digits highest to lowest and lowest to highest. Subtract one of these from the other to give a new 4 digit number and repeat the procedure. This ultimately produces 6174. I was asked to chose 2 four digit numbers and process them in parallel. By pure chance I chose 1357 and 2468 which both generated 6174 after a single iteration but I’m assured that any other 4 digit number, without repeating digits, will eventually get there. I’ve still got to check this out.
1375 => 7531 – 1357 = 6174
2468 => 8642 – 2468 = 6174
Maybe it was the high level maths, more likely the size of the main course, but nobody wanted the absinthe flavoured ice cream so we continued on our route. From here it is all downhill back to Noiraigue but the path is relatively steep and uneven so it was not a gentle stroll and took us a good 2 hours. Peter decided to take the train back as he wanted to meet his wife in Nyon so we were now down to 4 for the drive back. Naturally we hit the rush hour traffic at Morges and especially leaving the autoroute for Divonne but eventually got home at about 7.
About 14 kms hiking with 774m denivelation. A good hike in beautiful weather and well worth the drive.
Great job Mark and the others fab five. Big hike! Weather and lunch looked super. This must be one of our longer car travelled venues – but could open us to visit the pre Alps more often.
As for me, St Luc has not been kind to my left knee… but Kobie and Jill had fun.