Wonderful stage through the Doubs valley. The route goes over small forest paths and along impressive rock walls. It also passes through Echelles de la Mort: the steps of death. This is a long, nowadays metal staircase along the rock walls, that used to be the center of smuggling between Switzerland and France.
The day begins with lovely weather. It’s sunny and it promises to be nice and warm. However, thunderstorms are predicted for later on today, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that.
Today’s route runs all the way along the Swiss border and follows the river le Doubs almost all day.
After breakfast and packing, we walk down the campground to the village of Goumois. There should be a small grocery store according to the map, but unfortunately it is closed. We already heard that this store is open very irregularly. So we walk on without extra provisions. Fortunately, we have enough with us, because tonight we will sleep in a hut again.
After walking along meadows, we go back into the forest and continue along le Doubs. The path is nowhere really steep, but it is constantly ascending and descending on small paths along the river. After about 9 kilometers we reach an old ruin, a nice clearing with picnic benches where we can leave our tent to dry. It’s pretty hot by now, so we’re glad our gear is in the sun, but we can have a bite to eat in the shade. And from the water we tapped from a spring earlier along the way, we make a cup of coffee, so we don’t have to take anything from our supply of tap water yet.
Even after the break we continue to follow the river and the edges of the valley take on an increasingly rocky character, making you feel more and more like you’re in a gorge. After a while, the road markings lead us away from the river and we climb quite a bit. At the end of the climb, this yields magnificent views of the gorge through which le Doubs flows. Jagged gray sandstone rocks tower high above the river, leaving only a very narrow valley for the river to flow through. It looks beautiful, but the trail also leads us back down along these sheer cliffs.
On this stretch is the Echelles de la Mort, or Steps of Death, 160 meters high. A route that takes us along these sheer cliffs to the river valley, mostly over metal stairs. These used to be rickety wooden stairs and were a notorious point in the smuggling route between Switzerland and France. With backpacks on, the slippery metal steps are a good lookout. Once at the bottom, the trail follows the gorge, on small paths through beautiful green forests, with lots of ferns and moss over large rocks we continue our way.
Meanwhile, in the sky above us, quite gray clouds begin to develop and we put a good pace. We pass a French farm that can only be reached over a bridge via Switzerland and the guard dog greets us kindly (thankfully).
A little further on, on the narrow path we follow, the weather erupts. With our ponchos on and in the pouring rain, we decide to keep walking anyway, it is raining too hard to take shelter under trees.
The owner of the farm we just passed comes running by to secure his drinking water supply a kilometer away before it gets too muddy from the heavy rain. He tells us we can get drinking water there and wishes us luck and courage in this weather.
In the pouring rain, we fill our bottles with water at the spring just down the road. Thank goodness, because at the hut where we’re going to bivouac tonight, there’s probably no water available.
According to our navigation it’s still another 2.5 kilometers to our hut, just over half an hour of walking. But Mon Dieu, what a long stretch this is…
Soaked we arrive at Abri des Pêcheurs, while the clouds still thunder above us. We’re relieved to see that it the hut is still free.
It’s a fantastic little house with tables and benches, a stove, lots of cooking utensils and even a solar panel giving us electricity! What a luxury, in the middle of nowhere. The rest of the evening and night it continues to rain on the metal roof of the cottage, but we are happy with our dry and comfortable shelter for the night.
