St-Cergue

On the first day of October we headed out for another hike.  This time we stayed a little closer to Geneva and tried the hike from St-Cergue to La Dôle.  We weren't very successful at making it to La Dôle, but it was still fun.  And our friends Ed and his girlfriend Aoife came with us, which was even better.

Here was our intended route.  We started in St-Cergue on the right and followed the path to the left of the picture via the red dots.  3 hours later when we were only at Chatel la Dôle.  We ran into some English speaking hikers who said they had come from the other side of La Dôle.  They said probably had at least another hour of hiking to do to get to the top of La Dôle.  So with the prospect of potentially being caught in the wilderness after dark, we decided to head back. 

La Dôle!

I love these stairs.  You can be walking through fields or up hills and then all of the sudden, stairs.  Sometimes there aren't even walls on either side.  But apparently cows don't like them, so I guess they do the job of cow fence pretty well.

On the way back to St-Cergue we took a different route which brought us to an over look.  Unfortunately there was so much fog you can't see the glorious mountains.  C'est la vie!

Creux du Van

It was probably a little aggressive to go to the Creux du Van for our first "real" hike, but we had been all talk about hiking and Dorothy and Bob persuaded us, so we took the opportunity. 

height profile for the hike.  total change in elevation - 950 meters

The entire 14km took us just under 6 hours, and I could barely move the next day.  But it hooked me on hiking.  I was slightly sad we waited so long to get started, but this year we'll make up for it.

The hike started from the Noiraigue train station, there we took a group photo to prove that we did like each other before the hike started. 

Toblerone line at the start of the hike

walked up this path for about an hour...on the same incline

sometimes the trail takes you through farms

GOAT!

first site of the Creux du Van

time to go down

 

Its hard to see a full view of the Creux du Van from the bottom, but essentially we walked up the mountain from the far right of the picture above then across the top to the left and down again, circling back to where we started.

victory drinks!

Le Salève

Our afternoon at Le Salève was the first chance to use our new hiking backpack. We probably didn't need to bring it because we were only out for 2 hours and it was more of a walk than a hike. But Jim wanted to get in full gear. After driving to the top with our friends Dorothy and Bob, we followed a path pretty much in a circle from the parking area on the Alps side, to the Geneva side and back.

The Salève is a great way to see all of Geneva and you don't have to be a hiker to walk around the top. The other cool thing is that you can take a cable car up and since we didn't do that this time, it's on the list for a return trip.

Jim and Bob and the dogs

Some very shaky camera work of the cows and their bells.

Geneva and the lake