With 2 public holidays back to back midweek comes holidays. On doit faire le pont, meaning that a 5 day long weekend is in order. From the 8th of May to the 12th, 2013, I went adventuring with a friend around one of the “wildest” parts of France. It is often overlooked as a destination as it suffers from (relatively) poor infrastructure and the lack of significant cities. The reason for this is the area is an extinct volcanic area, meaning that it is locally very hilly, making train travel almost impossible (unless you have a lot of money of bridges and tunnels). That being said, it means the area is relatively tourist free and ideal for hiking. So that is exactly what we did.

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Le puy-en-valey

For reasons I will elaborate on later, we established a base in Saint Etienne, which is just outside of Lyon. We arrived on a Tuesday night, and left bright and early on Wednesday morning. The trains to Le puy-en-valey were sparse, every 2 hours of so, but relatively cheap, about 10€ or so and the trip lasted about an hour. The track follows various rivers and is really pretty due to the volcanic nature of the area. Le puy-en-valey however takes the cake in terms of pretty. There is a central rock, which has a statue of Notre-Dame de France and can be climbed, but is a bit too modern for my tastes. But from there, one gets an amazing view of the real centre piece, the chappelle de Saint Michel d’Aiguihe, which is perched on a lone rock, It is quite a sight to behold. We visited the nearby fort in Château de Polignac which was a nice walk through the fields, but about 8 or so kilometres, so bring you walking boots! Before our return train, we explored the old town, which has a lot of character but is quite small.

Clermont-Ferrend

The capital of the of region and the transport hub, it was necessary to come here so we could get out into the mountains. Our main aim was to climb Le puy de Sancy, at 1886 m, it is the highest peak in the region. To get to Clermont, we had to take a bus, which was 2 hours and due to the windy roads was making everyone feel pretty average. But no serious problems. We had the day in Clermont, which has a few attractions, notably the all black cathedral constructed from the local black lava stone. We then took a bus to La Bourboule where we would commence hiking.

Le Puy de Sancy

To understand the routes we took, it is necessary to understand how transport here works. Not well is the short answer. We wanted to walk over Sancy and then take a bus from Super-Besse, which operates twice a week, on a Tuesday and a Saturday and is operated by a private company. So we oriented our trip around catching this bus. La Bourboule is close a spur for getting up onto Sancy and SNCF buses service it every hour or at least every second hour. So we left on a very crisp spring morning at about 8am. The walk is to Super-Besse is not so long but due to the volcanic terrain it is very steep. The map we used was IGN 2432 ET. We made our own way to catch the GR 4, which basically involved a very short steep climb up onto a plateau and then traversing some fields. It was extremely muddy with flooding in parts, but one could navigate without any problems. We did not see a soul around until we hit the GR 4, whereupon we realised the much larger town of Mont-Dore exists to service Sancy in the winter, which has minor ski fields. The at the intersection of the paths, the seriously climbing commenced shortly after. There was a fair bit of snow and ice around, but crampons were not necessary. I often found myself out on the clean ice as the worn in paths we just chewed up. There was only I section of climbing, which was primarily due to an ice sheet covering the contoured path. There were ropes in place so it was pretty easy going. Following the ridge up, it got pretty exposed and there are wooden steps for the last 200 metres due to a chairlift which services the summit; hence be prepared for tourists at the summit and I would not rest there long. Descending the eastern face to Super-Besse still on the GR 4 presented few problems, although there was a lot more snow; a few people had skis, which would have been handy! We arrived at Super-Besse about 4pm to a dead ski town. Expect nothing to be open.

Then next morning, we were up early to catch the bus, which left at 8 or so. However, after waiting for 15 minutes after the scheduled time , we concluded it was not coming. We recalculated and knew that SNCF buses left from Mont-Dore, so we decided to go there. This turned out to be a great decision. Taking the north-westerly route toward Puy Ferrand, the walking is initially on a cross country ski track and then some bush bashing. The ridge track is really obvious and then we descended into the Chaudefour valley, which was beautiful; really lush and green, which was a bit different to all the brown of suffocated grass and white of snow. The valley floor has a lovely river and offers a great view of Sancy and the surrounding massif. Being a valley, it can be accessed by car and we saw a lot of picnickers, but back on the track we saw no-one. We headed north up the Puy des Crebasses, which is a very steep climb and it is easy to lose the track due to all the foliage on the ground. Once we were back up in the snow, the climbing became quite hard and the weather deteriorated very rapidly, initially raining but advancing to snow and eventually hail. Unfortunately the cloud was right down and the wind was right up, so it wasn't exactly the highlight of the trip. We took the summit at 1762 m and quickly descended, but had a lot of trouble following the path down due to poor visibility and landslides on the western face. Once we descended, the weather fined up, so we visited la grande cascade on the way to Mont-Dore. It is one massive fall with some pretty cascades at the base, definitely worth a look. It is then only 2 kilometres into town and the bus.

Le puy de dôme

On our final hike, we climbed the puy behind Clermont-Ferrend. The is a lot of history associated with the town and the puy and it is a nice hike. There is a bus out to a train which mounts the puy, which you can take and walk from there. I costs about 2€ each way. Unfortunately we missed the morning bus and took a taxi, which was closer to 40€, but our taxi driver was really nice and knocked it back to 30€. We took followed le sentier des muletiers, a former Roman road, which is seriously steep, but took only about 25 minutes, which we were not prepared for. The weather was rubbish at the top, so we didn't see anything, but there are ruins of an old Galic church on the top. We followed the GR 4 down, which was longer but still only took 40 minutes and was much easier walking. We arrived at the bottom 5 minutes after the last bus, which runs every two hours so we sat in the tourist info centre for two hours waiting, which was a little lame and not the best way to finish a trip.

Adventures

Le Massif Central

Le puy-en-valey

Clermont-Ferrend

Le Puy de Sancy

Le puy de dôme