This varied stage of the GR5 heads back into the mountains towards the south. It is a beautiful stage through forests, at first along a cross road from Modane to Chapel de Notre Dame du Charmaix. Then towards the winter sports village of Valfréjus. From here, the route climbs along the river Ruisseau du Charmaix to du Lavoir at 1896 meters.
Today's stage is an easy one. We were struggling a bit with the next 2 stages, which together would be about 32 kilometers. In the mountains this is a bit too long to walk in one go, but to devide it in 2 stages with one bivouac in between, isn't ideal either. Fortunately, Mark's father had already thought about this (thanks Dad!) and saw an opportunity get some 11 kilometers further by car, to a parking lot in the mountains. This leaves about 21 kilometers for our second stage to the next campsite. This is perfect and very luxurious. After a short stage with just a daypack, we can get in the car and return to the campsite to enjoy a few more days together.
From the campsite we walk back to the GR5 trail that crosses the village of Modane. It's not a large village, so soon we walk out of the builtup area and immediately we start climbing. We have quite a few meters to climb today anyway. We walk along a forest slope towards a freeway, which is situated a bit above us. We go under it via a tunnel. This is the last highway we'll encounter until Nice!
Along the path we pass several stations of the cross. At the bottom we started at station 1 and after climbing quite a bit we pass station 5, so we still have a long way to go until we reach number 14....
The route regularly crosses a somewhat larger paved winding road that leads towards the ski resort of Valfréjus. Pieces of the route run across this road and we need to look out for the motorcycle clubs and tourists driving here. After a few turns, we leave the main road behind and walk along a wide forest path toward a gorge. Here we see the second last station with a bit of a lurid cast iron statue of Jesus on the cross. Clearly the artist had some creative freedom... A little further on, where the gorge narrows, we see the chapel Sanctuaire Notre Dame Du Charmaix. It's built against the rocks and can only be reached by an old stone bridge. Amazing how people centuries ago could build such structures in this kind of ravine. From the outside, the chapel looks fairly austere, but when we take a look inside, we are amazed at howvmuch gold and decoration we see everywhere. From here, the wide path climbs a bit more and we soon arrive in Valfréjus. A nice village with wooden chalets, many sports stores and a number of cable cars. But everything is closed: summer season is at it's end and winter season doesn't start until November, so it's a sleepy village right now. At the other side of the village, we quickly walk back into nature and cross the river Ruisseau du Charmaix. The only buildings we encounter are old stone houses built here and there against the mountain slopes. But mostly we walk through the woods, following the river up between big old trees and over rocky old paths, until we reach a dirt road. This leads to Le Lavoir, a small (now dry) reservoir near the parking lot where we'll meet Mark's parents.
A bit higher up the slope is a large building that was never finished and looks like a planned hotel. Some old bunkers of the old French defense line can still be seen in the slopes; we are close to the Italian border here. At the end of the parking lot we see a nice little road to some refuges higher up in the mountains; this is where we'll continue the route in a few days.
It takes a while until the red car arrives and before we head off to the campsite together, we enjoy a cup of coffee with a 'pain aux raisin' at this beautiful spot. It's great to be able to share a stage with our family like this!
