The metéo promised coolth, rain and generally miserable weather. The restauranteur at Col du Marchairuz firmly said that he would not be serving food or drinks and implied that anyone wanting such must be mad. So with all this encouragement 10 intrepid hikers plus Kobie met in sleet in the parking at St George aiming to saunter to Col du Marchairuz and back. This was a GIN hike 3 of us (Pete, Mervyn, Mark) had done with Jonathan Harle back in 2017. In fact March 17 and we had then eaten out in warm sunshine at the Col.
Mark had selected and was leading this hike and it soon became apparent that he couldn’t really remember it. Fortunately Rob and Peter are very familiar with this part of the Jura and provided expert assistance, including suggesting that there was no real purpose in going to the Col since it was shut so we went instead to Crêt de la Neuve, where we stopped for lunch.
On the way up we passed a brown bear posing by the roadside, waiting for fellow poseurs, so we helped him out. Then we saw a couple of birds nesting in the rock face. The jury was out on whether they were crows or ravens. They were certainly black birds but not blackbirds, Cravens?
Lunch was cold, colder than the previous time when we were snowshoeing but there was an abundance of wine and spirits including several nationalities of whisky. The world was put to rights about Scottish independence, Irish vs Scotch whisky, the Lions touring party and other similarly momentous subjects on which we were all experts.
After lunch Peter found a paved road that had been specially prepared to take us directly back to our cars. The sun came out on the way down and we even saw the lake and the jet d’eau. We got back to the cars at Chinese dentist time just as it started to rain again.
A great day out. 14km and 580m uppsy-downsy.
Participants: Peter T and Coby, 2 Richards, Steve, Mike, Rob, Mervyn, Philip, 2 Marks.
