Beautiful, varied stage through forests and mountain meadows and along a lake. Nice views of the mountains and flat land. This stage is mainly uphill, more often on narrow paths.
After several scorching hot days of about 38°C, today, after a violent thunderstorm last night, it’s a bit cooler (32°C), so we hit the road again. We hope it will be a few more degrees cooler at the top of the mountains, but at least we’ll take plenty of water with us.
We take the train back to Thann, where we pick up the GR5 again. The last stretch through the Vosges Mountains is about 40 kilometers, which we’ll divide into 2 stages. Today’s hike is mainly uphill, and we start with a good climb right away.
Soon we leave the village on a narrow forest path. Because of last night’s thunderstorm, quite a few trees were blown onto the path and one of the villagers is busy clearing it. Very nice, because with the high temperature and the many ascents, the beginning of the hike is hard enough.
Fortunately, the forests provide some coolness and the trails are easy to walk. In some sections, the route runs along decent precipices and there are gates installed.
After about 9km, the forests give way to a mountain meadow where there are again thousands of flowers and magnificent views. On one side we see the Grand Ballon with the monument on top, where we walked days before. On the other, we look out over the plain between the Vosges and the Jura, the stretch we will cross after tomorrow.
Up in the mountains it’s so wonderfully quiet that it is sometimes hard to imagine that down in the valley, hectic life goes on as usual. Up here you can hear the bees, the birds, the wind and the occasional running water, while down below the traffic whooshes and all the bustle goes on unabated. What a contrast…
We continue walking across the mountain meadow and descend back into the woods. A little further on, as we saw on the map, there is a spring along the path. It is a fast-flowing spring with nice clear water where we can tap water for tonight. Then we’ll spend the night in a mountain hut again. There should also be a spring near, but since we’ve encountered more springs along the GR5 that turned out to be dry, we fill a bottle just to be sure. Further along the trail there are more springs, so with a bit of luck we can fill the rest of the bottles there.
A little further on, the route passes a lake, Lac des Perches. From above, the water looks lovely to take a dip in, but the signs say it’s 10 minutes downhill and it’s already pretty late, so too bad… We make another short break overlooking the lake and then start the final kilometers to the cottage where we would like to spend the night. At the second spring along the route, where we fill 3 more bottles, there is a very nice cottage. But because of the protected nature reserve around it, you’re not allowed to spend the night here. Too bad, because it is a beautiful place, where we see another group of wild chamois quietly grazing in the adjacent mountain meadow.
The cottage where we’ll be sleeping is situated a bit off the trail. From the GR5 we follow a small path that brings us to the other side of the hill after a few hundred meters. Here, still in the Vosges Mountains, we see the first ripe blueberries of the season. By now we’ve walked 24 kilometers and it’s late, but we can’t resist picking a handful. Yummy!
A little further on is the cottage. It turns out to be still free and a perfect place to spend the night. There’s indeed a spring near the cottage, but the water flows very softly (it takes 7 minutes to fill 1 bottle, so we must have some patience!). We’re glad we’ve already collected a supply of water along the way.
For dinner, we test 2 bags of dried, lightweight meals from Decathlon, which turn out to be pretty good, with a small bag of raspberry crumble for dessert. What a luxury in the mountains!
The cabin is nice and clean and with the shutters closed, we have another wonderfully quiet night in the mountains.
