Beautiful stage with lots of climbing through forests on forest trails. Higher up you have beautiful views of the Vosges Mountains, especially from the top before you reach the Brézouard.
This morning it’s bright sunny and after our breakfast we pack our gear at ease. Since we will hardly encounter any stores in the next few days, we have extra provisions with us, so the backpacks are well filled (and pretty heavy). Five complete pasta meals, 2 packages of rye bread (delicious, compact and nutritious), cheese, 2 packages of gingerbread, some vegetables and fruit, some chocolate for the evenings and even more. Amazing how much you need to eat on a hiking day to meet your energy needs... With this supply, we should be fine.
From the campsite we walk to the picturesque village. Before heading into the woods, we buy our favorite treat for the first break at the local boulangerie.
The stage starts right away with a good climb and we will continue to do so for some time. With 1388 meters up, this will be a record day for us, so we climb steadily. Along the way we see one of the largest beetles we have ever seen; a "flying deer" a few inches in size. What a magnificent animal!
As we approach the first intermediate summit, the dense deciduous forest changes to a more open forest with rocks and tall conifers.
We descend a bit to the village of Aubure. Here is a small "epicerie" where we can do our last shopping; mainly water. In many places in France, small stores close in the afternoon between noon and 2pm. No problem, since it's 1:45pm. But when we arrive in Aubure, it turns out that we are lucky, because this very store closes its doors at 2 p.m., only to reopen at 4 p.m. Normally, it reopens at 5 p.m, but today is ‘Flammkuchen’-day!
In this tiny store we buy almost the entire supply with 4 bottles of water. With a few more pounds in our backpacks, we continue our climb through the magnificent forests, where we occasionally get increasingly beautiful views of the Vosges Mountains in open stretches.
It is a long trek and at the end we won’t be arriving at a hotel or campsite; there are a few huts along the route where we can spend the night. The first one we come across after about 20 kilometers of walking, Pierre des Trois Bans, is truly a gem. With a picknick bench and a fire pit outside, a large table and benches inside and stairs up to a loft, to put an air bed on. AND a lock on the door! That's nice for a first night bivouac ... A beautiful place where we would love to stay, but it is still too early in the day and there would be too many kilometers left to hike tomorrow. But this cheers us up and confidently we walk on; there are still 3 huts along the route we can check out.
The steepest part of the climb is yet to come; the path to the Brezouard over a stretch of 1.5 kilometers to 1229 meters altitude. But it rewards us with a magnificent 360° view of the Vosges mountain peaks around us. In the distance we look across the plain of Alsace to the Black Forest. Wow, how fantastic this is...
The hut near here, Abri du Brezouard, is already occupied by a number of hikers. We could join them, but we decide to walk to a hut a little further from the trail, chalet St-Hubert, because it’s description sounds wonderful. In the middle of nature for real peace and quiet. It takes some searching to find the hut via small paths and after a long walk through the woods we see it. Unfortunately, also here people are ahead of us, there is a big campfire and quite some noise, but from what we can see this is really a beautiful cabin.
There is one spot left on our list, a bit further on we could bivouac at the back of a ski club chalet. There should be tables and benches and a shelter. After more than 28 kilometers of walking and time to rest our legs, we arrived at the hut. Hmmm, this is pretty different from the previous huts. It’s located directly along a large path in a dark pine forest and there is hardly any room to pitch the tent (the shelter appears to be full of wood blocks). Anyway, it could be done. We decide to put down our heavy backpacks and contemplate over a cup of coffee. As we relax for a while, people walk by and we hear cars driving in the distance, so it doesn't feel like a nice and quiet place to spend the night.
By now it is 7:30 p.m., there is no other cabin nearby, and Mark goes off to find a spot nearby to pitch our tent. Malou stays with the gear and since we don't want to stay here, she packs everything up again. Fortunately, Mark quickly returns with good news; less than 5 minutes from here is a beautiful meadow at the edge of the forest, still in the sun. An ideal place to pitch the tent. We walk there with our backpacks and indeed, this is way better than the dark hut in the dark forest!
At this beautiful sunny spot with magnificent views, we enjoy a delicious pasta meal and a little after sunset we pitch our tent. Wow, what a beautiful place.