Having used every trick in the book to maintain snowshoe outings this winter, your snowshoe organiser has finally given up, and even accepted apologies from skiers taking our snowshoe day for skiing as acceptable and even a good excuse for not coming with us! Such has global warming affected us.
So, this outing on leap year day did not even pretend that we might need snowshoes as we (Richard S, Peters S and T plus Kobie, Marks 2T and 2R, Paul, Larry, Nathan, Drew and Philip) assembled at the parking of the old Divonne railway station at 9h45 for a winter wander around the Mont Mussy.
The circuit, well known by several of us, of 11km and 300m height difference started on the old railway line before going uphill onto the delightfully named rue du Comte de Permission (Bernard Bluet, who was born in Arbère, became jester to Henri IV and was given this name). Philip left us here to continue his recovery programme, joining us later for lunch. A left turn at the top of the hill took us to a long path starting on tarmac before going into the woods to Grilly. This lovely easy trail would, on a good day, have fantastic views of the alps, but not today. We did however note the greatly improved and now excellent signage.
The planned stop at the table d’orientation for coffee plus at the top of the Mont Mussy enabled us to appreciate the various offerings generously given by co-wanderers – coffee, white wine (chilled too – Merçi Larry) and Richard’s concoction from his iconic bottle, called ouzo this time. Thanks to you all.
Continuing over the heights, we then descended through the woods to the Ferme de Mont Mussy listening to the birds (including, Peter S, a song thrush) who already thought it was spring. Here we said good bye to the two Peters and Kobie who took the direct path back avoiding lunch; but the rest of us descended to the Accord Parfait where Philip was waiting.
We had thought there would be nothing more to report but what a lunch. There was another table of vociferous English speakers, one of whom – a Dutchman called Erik – not only very kindly took a photo of us but also, switching to Danish, enabled Richard to show his linguistic skills in that language. But the real surprise of the meal was its great value and its incredible portions, especially Paul who was dumbstruck by the size of his “porcelet” – thankfully the restaurant was happy to give him a “piggy” bag.
Taking the direct route via the “grandes sources” back to our cars, we separated happily having forgotten we should have been snowshoeing.
