Dueling Flowers

In a recent posting, Susie shared some of her pictures of the flowers we'd seen on our hikes in the mountains of the Savoie. These come up awfully fast as the snow melts. M. Credoz said that the leaves had only been out on the trees for about three weeks, and that he had watched the spring climb the slopes as trees higher and higher up leafed out.

Anyway, to pay tribute to these inspiring signposts of spring, and to complement Susie's posting, here are some of my floral photos, principally from our hike to the Plan du Tour.

La Montagne de Sullens

Susie's and my last longish hike in the Savoie was on the west side of the Montagne de Sullens, which rises, southeast of Thônes, to just over 6,000 feet. Starting out below the Col du Plan de Bois, the trail wound its way around the northwest slope of the Montagne de Sullens. We could see across the valley clear to the Col de la Croix Fry, where we'd started a hike a few days earlier.

And in the valley below was the village of Manigod.

To our east rose the Aravis mountain range, with the pyramidal Pointe de Merdassier and the jagged Etale. There's a trail up the ridge of the Merdassier, but taking it involves climbing something like 2650 feet straight up.

The slopes of the Montagne de Sullens were dotted with chalets for working farms. This 0ne had laundry hanging out to dry. Note the massive protection against avalanches and falling rocks.

Our path wound south, with the Montagne de Sullens on our right, and the pass of the Plan du Tour ahead, as our goal.

The Montagne de Sullens, at least on its east face, is awfully barren. It reminds me of mountains in Scotland, perhaps not coincidentally because in both places sheep or goats have probably eaten most of the vegetation.

While the goats continued to munch, off to our right, we reached the Plan du Tour, having climbed about 1,400 feet along the way. At the pass, we enjoyed the great vista to the south before retracing our steps downhill to the car.

Hiking above the Col de la Croix Fry

The other day we hiked about four miles on the ridge west of the Col de la Croix Fry, in the Aravis range of the Alps. I picked this hike because it started high (the Col de la Croix Fry is at 1460 meters) and didn't have too much up and down (although there were still some 300 meters of up, and the down turned out to be rugged). The trail, a circuit reaching the Bassin de Colomban, started out with some awe-inspiring views of the Aravis.

The trail had its ups and downs, so to speak. The signage was sometimes great, sometimes seriously misleading; the trail markers turned out to be more reliable than some of the signs. In places the trail was steep, more so at the end of our loop as we descended. On the way up, we encountered this veritable staircase of roots as part of the trail.

Even in late May snow covered parts of the trail. I twice extricated Susie from this patch.

As the snow receded, it was giving way to crocuses. Some parts of the trail itself were carpeted with crocuses. And to the side of the trail they were simply abundant.

Our climb through the forest took us to a meadow with great views back toward the Aravis.

And, not much higher, we could see all the way to Mont Blanc, a little coy in its partial cloak of clouds.

A the top of our hike, at over 1700 meters on the Sur les Frêtes ridge, we had lunch. We could look down (!) to the Pointe de Beauregard, the summit of the La Clusaz ski area. And beyond the valley in which La Clusaz lies, stood the range of the Aravis.

The Canal de Jouy

For a late walk this afternoon, Susie and I strolled south along the Moselle as far as Montigny-les-Metz. We returned on the towpath of the Canal de Jouy, which links the Moselle river with central Metz. It was constructed between 1866 and 1877 as part of the effort to make the Moselle navigable from Toul to the Rhine. The canal starts near the town of Jouy-aux-Arches, about ten kilometers from the center of Metz. Here's the very point where the canal begins in Jouy with water flowing in from the Moselle (in a picture taken later, on April 11).

Looking downstream from Montigny-les-Metz toward Metz, you can make out the city's main stadium, home to the the local professional soccer team, the Football Club de Metz.


The canal and its banks are home to a lot of wildlife. We saw geese, ducks, swans and other waterfowl, including this heron. A man fishing downstream of the heron was catching fish after fish, with bits of bread as bait. He'd throw the line in the water, wait maybe 30 seconds, and a fish would bite. This happened four times in a row as we watched in amazement.

A number of picturesque barges have found moorings on one side of the canal as it passes by the headquarters of the Football Club de Metz. As the "Chambres d'Hôtes" sign indicates, the blue barge offers bed-and-breakfast accommodations.

As the canal nears the center of Metz, the landscape becomes more formal and the canal's banks become part of the complex of parks along the Moselle. We ended our walk by following paths that past a church garden to the Place de la Republic.