Day 49: 24 July, Lac de Cristol to Chalets de Vers le Col

After a rainy and windy night we woke up when the sun reached the tent. We had a lovely slow morning at the lake. The tent was wet, we let it dry in the sun before packing it down.

 

 

We where ready to leave around ten, starting to climb up to the Porte de Cristol, 2483 meter.

 

Leaving our nice campsite at the lake

 

At the Porte de Cristol

 

From there we followed a flat track for some kilometers until we reached Col Granon, it was nice and easy walk.

 

 

At the col it was only downhill, all the way down  to Briacon at 1180 m. We decided to hitch hike down to save our knees. The first car stopped, a very nice family took us to a neighbor village of Briancon.

 

We stopped at a bar/food store and had some peach jus on the outside and ate our lunch. The place was own by a very sweet old couple, the let us stay even during the siesta.

 

 

After an hour break we continued and we soon had a lift by two old men. They drove us all the way to Briancon. We walk through the city to reach GR5 again. The first part was a heavy climb through the forest and it started to be a bit late in the afternoon and our plan was to reach the refuge at the Chalets de Vers Le Col (2163 meter) before it was to late, so we hitch hiked again. This time a very sweet girl,with her kids or it might have been her two little brothers, picked us up. They where going fishing. They dropped us of at the smal nice village, Chalets de Ayes.

 

 

From there we had one hour nice climb through some forest up to the unstaffed refuge. Unfortunately the refuge was quite dirty and full of flies. Outside there was a lot of cow shit and the smell was quite bad. We decided to find a campsite nearby instead.

 

It was tricky to find a flat area but it was a nice valley that could compensated a uncomfortable sleep. And the view was magnificent.

 

 

We made some potato pancakes, or more likely scramble potato pancakes, with dried ham. For dessert we had some almond cake from the store we visit earlier in the afternoon.

 

It was a nice evening and not to cold. We went to bed just before the sun went down.