The forecast for Thursday 20th had been for continuous rain, but then it changed to something much more benign, so I sent out a late flyer hoping for a response. And it came from stalwart hiker Nathan.
Sadly Ralph responded that his father had just passed away yesterday aged 95. I sent our condolences. With apologies also from Mervyn, Stephen, Mark2rs, Chris and RichardS, this was to be a smallish party, typical of mid-August.
Altogether then and including visiting UK climbing chum from the 1970’s, Alick, and of course Kobie a team of 4 started out from the parking just above Bursins (515m), at the north end of the Sentier des Chataigneurs.
My plan was a clockwise ascent to 880m on the ridge that surrounds the Combe de Bursins, taking in the Pierre à Mille Trous, and coming down the long trail that takes in the Golettes (Schooners) Hut for a picnic lunch.
We commenced in a SW direction along the chestnutters path with a couple of short sharp descents before ascending up to the road that leads to Burtigny (of bikers descent fame). A short section in the field by the road leads to the woods again and the steep section where David Colledge hurt his knee a cuple of years back. We arrived at the ridge top with fine views open open fields, a fox visible lurking on the skyline, and two comfy chairs for my comrades where we took on some restoration. The view from here back to the Jet d’Eau and the whole Jura chain is magnificent.
Suitably refreshed we passed in a N direction on up the path of the erratics dropped by the Rhône Glacier 20,000+ years ago, with the Thousand Hole Stone to admire. See (but don’t open the additional link to an itineraire) :-
The trail then dives into the woods and for over 2 kilometers crests the scarp overlooking the combes on the right and with another couple of vertical erratics at a covert meeting spot. Passing by the tree trunk with ornaments and gifted trinkets, and the lone chair, it was not long before the hidden link to the descent path that starts just W of Prés Martines. This is an old and underused trail and partly on a disused bike path getting down to the road head at 761m where a small road comes up from Gilly. It was here that the only rain of the day began to fall.
We turned right and started of up the trail that meaders down though beautiful forest towards our lunch spot at the Golettes Hut. The rain soon eased.
We arrived at the Golettes hut just after 1.15pm and ready for our picnic. This would be a good place for a large scale celebratory event.
A bottle of Gerwurtztraminer helped the conversation flow and we covered quite a bit of the world’s problems as well as a few of our own, recognising of course how lucky we are. We toasted absent friends especially Ralph. Nathan enjoyed a particularly exotic and expensive roll, while my Volg wrap did not choke me as we had fluids to sluice it down.
There remained a short descent along the road, then recrossing the Burtigny Road again and down steep steps to the very slippery-when-wet Japanese Bridge over the ornamental lake.
Altogether 10km and 460m (albeit my watch read 560m ??), and enjoyable short hike in beautiful low forest, with some good views to boot.
