Some Historical and Natural
Sights in one Corner of Provence
Part 8: Climbing a Mountain Near Glanum
The tile ought to say small ridge instead of mountain, but let's go along with it anyway. I drove up from Glanum into the Alpilles
until I came to my first trail marker sign. I was in a hurry so I started right up on a trail that began pleasantly enough:
Soon it was very steep:
To the left rose what I thought to be a solid white monolith:
Within a few sweaty minutes I came upon a concave feature in what (previous photo) had looked like a solid white monolith:
A little more perspiration I came alongside this face of the mountain (by now I was hot enough and weary enough to go ahead and call it a mountain)
From here I was able to look back past this rock block into the valley below, quite a nice view (looking in the general direction of Avignon at photo's center):
After scrambling up a talus slope (the trail) the view to the left remained interesting:
The trail petered out (a road now less traveled?)
Or maybe I just missed a piece of the real trail, because it got better again after that patch. Finally it led me on top of the ridge, with views onto the main portion of the Alpilles range:
To the southeast it looked like I would be able to follow the crest trail to the road that led to the antenna site shown in the previous photo:
But the western view showed I had an opportunity to go further, and higher:
The trail along the crest in the above photo ended at these stairs:
I got halfway up and lost heart:
had I not been alone and on a very limited time schedule I would have ventured it. OK, my street shoes (dress shoes, had to polish them up for the evening meeting) slipped easily on these round rungs, making me skittish about coming down onto this ladder with no obvious handholds until a few steps down (i.e.: I chickened out).
So losing heart at this point lost me the opportunity to see the world from this new ridgecrest:
But from here below the ladder, the view to Van Gogh's glasses (see previous page) was good,
And walking along the ridge gave a few other nice views also, like this one toward the same mountain pictured in the Avignon page (Mt. Vaucluse):
Backing up the crest a little gave a larger view in that same direction and at the same time allowed a peek into the upper end of the canyon that Glanum (previous page) sits at the tail end of:
Going down, I did not enjoy the prospect of being once more on the talus slope, going down is always worse for maintaining good footing. You can see how it slopes in the next photo, but not in the one taken on the slope that follows after.
Coming down also allowed a few good views like this one seeing the setting of the small canyon from which the trail ascends:
On the way down (as well as up) there was a small portion of the trail that I seem to have missed, making me go cross-country for a few yards, but it gave me an opportunity for this parting shot with berries in the foreground:
I Now I raced back to Nimes for my late-afternoon meeting, was only a few minutes late (only because I felt compelled to clean up before being close to people in a small room, silly me).
My next "hike" was up a paved trail to a springs area, see the next (last) page in this series on a corner of Provence.
Springs at Fontaine de Vaucluse
Go back to Nimes and its Arena
Go back to Nimes and its Roman tower
Go back to Nimes and its Fountain Gardens park
Go back to Nimes and its Temple of Diana
Go back to Nimes aqueduct's Pont du Gard
Go back to Avignon's major attractions
Go back to LifePicks in 2006 home page