Day 7: Grand Veymont
I've been surrounded by cool-looking peaks, and I really wanted to summit something. Mont Aiguille would be the obvious choice, but it's technical, and I had neither equipment nor any adult supervision. I looked around, and decided to climb the highest thing here: Grand Veymont. At 7680ft, it's significantly higher than Aiguille and could be attained by a long hike.
Alright, so I got up in the morning, and biked to the trailhead. The mountains were fully in the clouds
Lots of signage near the trailhead
I stashed the bike, talked to some climbers headed to Mont Aiguille, and started up the trail.
The report is that the usual route up Mont Aiguille is an easy technical climb that zigzags a lot. And that the usual route down is a direct rappel. And that it's chossy and that there're many routes up and down with various difficulty levels.
The trail is steep, but well-maintained and easy to follow, and soon I was fully in the clouds.
I passed a group of hikers and was equipment-shamed again. "You're going up to Grand Veymont with that???" I was hand-carrying a bike pannier, which admittedly was kinda awkward. Somebody joked that I looked like I was delivering uber-eats. Whatever. I passed them, and didn't see them again until hours later, on the way down.
Every once in a while the fog would clear a bit, and I'd see some of the surroundings. Pretty great.
The few things I read about these mountains (the Vercors) said that there were ibex and vultures here. The vultures were always presented as the thing to be excited about. I was more excited about the ibex. In any case at some point I actually remembered that I was supposed to be looking out for the ibex. I stopped, looked around, saw a funny-looking tree up above, saw it move, took a picture, and BAM. Ibex.
It's near the top of this meadow. The trail zigzags a bit up to Pas de la Selle, and I saw this guy again, further up. Here's the pass:
Here I finally was at the top of the vercors plateau. It is a land of grass and rocks and giant cairns.
Found some forester cabin (not open to the public)
I followed the trail, and saw another funny-looking tree far-off in the fog. Eventually I was near it:
Wow. There were more and more ibex on the way up, and eventually I stopped photographing them. Like the castles. Pretty great views of the plateau below as I ascended
You can see the trail switch-backing up to the plateau in the gap on the left, to the Pas de Bachassons. The trail I came up is behind the prominent ridge in this photo (Sommet de Peyre Rouge and Sommet de Montavella), in the next gap. There're some interesting pits in the grass too; anybody know what created them?
Eventually there were birds too
No idea if they're the cool vultures I'm supposed to be excited about. It's a real bad day for bird-watching, so this would have to do.
There were more and more ibex on the way up. Count the heads poking out of the fog
Some babies and some adults jousting
Eventually I summitted. This is the view I came here for:
This is the view I got:
Not the same, but maybe... even better? This was just magical. I was up on top, in the fog, with the ibex walking around. Somewhere far below in the fog was a herd of cows, making noise with their cowbells.
I hung out on top for a bit, hoping the fog would clear. It never did, so eventually I gave up, and headed down. On the descent, the fog did clear, just never up on top. This still made some pretty great views.
I had some nice ibex photoshoots
Stopped by the public cabin on the way down
This is the view back up to the summit. The switchbacking trail is seen climbing up on the left. The peak is behind that; not visible. The smaller Petit Veymont is on the right.
I walked by a very civilized spring
and descended my pass
Here's a view near the pass: I'm dropping down the big gap on the left, and then traversing to the right of Mont Aiguille.
Got a real nice view of the back of Mont Aiguille
And of the front
Wow. I didn't plan anything for this whole trip, and somehow it ended up quite amazing. I think the whole area might be real nice. Recommended!
