On the Cevennes trail

After having walked for ten years on various paths in the Cévennes, from St Jean du Gard to Causse Méjean, passing through Mont Lozère, we went last year to the sources of the Loire, forgetting the entire region located between La Bastide-Puylaurent, Valgorge, Les Vans, and Génolhac, which corresponds exactly to the route of the Cévenol. We therefore decided to book accommodations along the way.
La Bastide Puylaurent (1024 m). 5 PM. Warm welcome from Philippe Papadimitriou at L'Etoile Maison d'hôtes. Hearty meal, everything a dedicated hiker needs!...

Departure at 8 AM. The weather is uncertain, no rain for now... We follow a forest path and then a country road without much elevation until we reach the Abbey of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (1081 m). We see some monks (we think) bustling around the farm. The abbey is magnificent in its green setting.

Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (820 m). We access it from the heights; we only discover the village 500 meters before arriving, nestled at the bottom of a valley between two mountains that crush it with their imposing masses. It is a lovely village where old stones and more recent buildings, including the thermal establishment, blend pleasantly.
One kilometer after St-Laurent, first uncertainties about the itinerary due to a sign lying on the ground and a lack of markings, which I think is due to the widening of the path to facilitate access for wood extraction machines. The little pass we reach offers a beautiful panorama of wild massifs with steep slopes.

We descend towards Conches (800 m). A ruined hamlet that once housed several families. About 300 meters away, we discover an old farmhouse, without road access, but undergoing renovation! It can only be accessed by a mule path. Materials are brought there via a zip line stretched above the valley a bit further on, after a long journey by 4x4, then by wheelbarrow... What a job! But the place is so beautiful!

The valley above which the zip line passes is watered by a clear stream that can only invite swimming: under the bridge, there is a fairly large and deep natural pool in which we would have liked to dive, but the rain threatened, so we continued on our way and met four lovely Belgian hikers, in their fifties, vibrant and smiling.

Le Mas de Truc. An old renovated village whose one house has a "storm bell tower" with its magnificent bell. The path leading to the pass of Toutes Aures (1199 m). The trail is no longer very well marked and is sometimes overgrown with vegetation, so we must pass through the meadows.

Loubaresse (1230 m). A high-perched village where you can find a café, restaurant, guest rooms, and a charming grocery store. We ate around 1 PM in the entrance hall of the church, in the sun, sheltered from the wind. Leaving Loubaresse, we catch a glimpse of Valgorge at the bottom of the valley. Unfortunately, upon arriving at a DFCI road, we do not see the turnoff from our GR and we set off on the GRP Tour du Tanargue! We only find the "Cévenol" again 5 km later, on the crest of Sapet where we won’t pass until tomorrow! We take the descent towards Valgorge that we will repeat tomorrow, in the opposite direction. The stage is long but beautiful.

Valgorge (570 m). A beautiful village, we lodge at the communal gîte where trust reigns: the manager left the door open, the key is on the table! We have reserved dinner at the restaurant "Tanargue." We are a bit surprised by the very stylish welcome from the owner and waiters, all in ties while we are in shorts and flip-flops... But everything goes well, the meal is excellent, very refined, and at a relatively moderate price.

Departure from Valgorge at 9 AM. For a stage we hope will be shorter than yesterday's. We go back up the slope we descended yesterday after our route error. We feel fresh; it seems less difficult than we feared. We do climb for nearly two hours, though. The crest is at 1010 meters; the panorama is very beautiful, we see, down below, the village of Dompnac to the right and the chapel St Régis (700 m) where we will be in an hour, directly opposite. At the chapel, we stop for a small regenerating snack and see a couple of sporty Luxembourg hikers in their fifties heading out on the Lauzes trail that our GR follows for a few kilometers; we will meet them later...

Ready to leave, we see a group of volunteer sixty-year-olds who, too, are walking on the Lauzes trail, but since not everyone is sporty and they know the country well (they are locals), they decided to reach St Mélaine by cutting through the DFCI, which will lead us to confusion, especially since a couple from the Pyrenees, picnicking at the cross of Grimal, hid the turnoff markings for our GR. We walk 500 meters before realizing it... turnaround, the Pyrenees folks are dismayed! We do not regret returning on our steps; the Lauzes trail is superb: old chestnut groves, calades, pretty stone walls, terraced vineyards, and old farms... We pass very close to houses, almost in people's yards, who accept these intrusions with a smile... The path is regularly adorned with original artistic works, in stone or wood, very interesting and integrating well into the landscape.

At Travers (600 m) near the gîte, we go straight ahead instead of taking a small path to the left. We arrive on a road where we find the Luxembourg couple who, in fact, had already done this hike last year! The gentleman is determined to find the trail and motivates us, despite the heat, to retrace our steps. Here we are, back on the right path. The valley is magnificent. In a shady spot near a stream, we stop to picnic.

When we arrive at Saint-Mélan (465 m), we are surprised to find our Luxembourg hiking couple sitting at the terrace of a "Café de Pays" which also serves as a restaurant and small grocery store; they had eaten there, the waitress is charming, and we stop to have a lemonade with them. At the bridge of Brousse, we cannot resist the call of the bath, it must be said that the natural pool that stretches under the arches is tempting: the water is lively, clear, and deep... the rocks bordering it allow bathers to dry in the sun and for children to jump or dive... a treat!
We emerge in great shape, our legs light again, ready to face the long 5 km ascent to the pass of Croix de Fer via an old cobbled mule path. It is hot but fortunately, the path is very shady and so beautiful!

At the Col de la Croix de Fer (818 m), we take the road to reach L'Auberge de La Peyre (860 m), which also offers guest rooms. The welcome is friendly, the meal is simple but very good, the products are local and of excellent quality: homemade charcuterie, the owner's fabulous mushroom omelet, and the host's mother's succulent apricot tart.

Departure from our third stage around 9 AM, it is already warm. The trail down to Dépoudent (650 m) is shady and wild, still an old mule path as we like, even if erosion and wild boars do everything they can to destroy them. Dépoudent is a pretty hamlet with only a few farms, it has remained authentic, and you can still feel the spirit of the old Cévenol farmers.

In Saint-Jean-de-Pourcharesse (600 m). We admire the bell tower with clear openings, "bell-peigne," and some beautiful houses before descending into an old chestnut grove. At Aliziés, we are fortunate to meet the last farmer of the hamlet who pointed us to the very cool fountain where we could fill our already empty water bottles while he placed his beers and fruit juices there to cool them before noon. One of the villagers invites us to visit his spacious house: large tiled rooms, passages with large stone arches between the halls like in a manor, and finally, the terrace covered by a roof dominating the valley where he offered us a cold drink. We appreciated it, but time was ticking, we had to leave... We picnicked on an old shady bridge where a group of mountain bikers, having just sped down the nearby slope, approached us without warning: impressive!

At Champmajour (240 m). We went to see the fountain at the bottom of the village: a beautiful place with its stone vault under a terraced garden. Chambonas (160 m). Too much road, too many cars! The passage over the bridge towards Les Vans is quite amusing: it is long, with only one lane, there are two or three refuges that allow us to escape the risk of collision with a vehicle; we must calculate our crossing based on the speed of the cars and ours between two refuges.

Les Vans (179 m). A tourist town, the streets in the historic heart are pretty, but there are too many people! Many restaurants are already full at 6 PM, we finally eat at "La Feuille de Chou," a place a little away from the old town, it is good, and the prices are reasonable. We sleep at the hotel des Oliviers, where we received a warm welcome, the staff is really pleasant. Unfortunately, in the middle of the night, at 2 AM, a group of young people started smoking in their room, triggering the general alarm, with 5 long minutes of piercing siren...! And it wasn't over, as the young people, having been scolded by the hotel manager, thought they were clever by smoking again, but this time, at the window... A draft must have blown the smoke back into the room, and the alarm went off again! They nearly spent the night under the stars!

Departure at 9 AM. Since there was a thunderstorm during the night, there is mist rising from the ground. To access the village of Naves, the slope is steep but beautiful: a calade in perfect condition. The houses are beautiful, sometimes connected by suspended stairs under the arches that it is pleasant to walk under. We then take a steep path, balcony above the valley of Bourdaric, which looks very beautiful, but there is mist!...

We then cross a lovely chestnut grove before arriving at Alauzas (490 m).We follow a fairly easy DFCI path to reach Brahic (508 m). And there, our GRP disappears! ... No more markers! Fortunately, thanks to the "Road Book," we understand that a small hiking path, marked in yellow, goes in the right direction. How far? We will see, it’s already a good help... From time to time, we find a yellow and red marker that hasn’t been erased.
At Murjas, even the direction signs have been amputated (cut off) from the GRP markers! We descend towards the torrent via an old cobbled path that is very steep and in very poor condition. With the humid weather, it’s a bit dangerous. The place is beautiful; one could have swum there, but it is a bit cool. The climb back up through an old chestnut grove on a steep slope seems endless on this sunny slope, where the temperature has suddenly risen by at least ten degrees!

We picnic near Malbosquet (430 m). The storm surprises us there; we put on our raincoats and set off for a new, very long ascent in an old chestnut grove. We find our GRP a little after Escoussous near Malbosc. The ridge path (660 m) in the forest seems long to us; there is no viewpoint or very few! The ascent is still quite long. 1 km from Col de Péras, we think we will find GR®44 A, which descends directly towards Château du Cheylard and would bring us closer to our evening gîte, but after 500 meters, it gets lost in the forest... we turn back! The storm thunders again; it approaches, and we take out our raincoats.

At Col de Péras (771 m). The GR seems to be in poor condition; there are many stones made slippery by the rain, so we decide to descend via the road towards Aujac (520 m).

A little before the village, we head towards Château du Chaylard, then descend to Aujaguet, and finally to La Baraque (330 m). We reach our gîte around 7 PM. The welcome is warm; Lise-Anne, the Quebec partner of Jonas Nivon, our host, shows us our apartments: everything is charming and well thought out; it’s truly a beautiful gîte. She is concerned about our fatigue, offers us herbal tea, chats, and laughs a lot, establishing a connection right away. La Baraque is an eco-gîte; they have a large organic vegetable garden and a small farm that provides much of the food they serve us for dinner. Everything is delicious; the "chocolate-almond-hazelnut-caramel" tart is a delight, making us forget our fatigue, and we enjoy lingering at the table while eating one last piece of tart with one last herbal tea.

We leave La Baraque around 10 AM, as the stage is not very long to the gîte of Tourevès, on the slopes of Mont Lozère, near Génolhac. We take the path we ended on yesterday; it seems much more beautiful without the fatigue.

We reach Aujac (520 m) and descend towards the Souillas bridge, a beautiful spot for swimming, we’ve been told. There is sun; we decide to stay there for a while after the swim and eat our picnic. We set off at 1:30 PM on a steep climb towards Charnavas-le-Haut (480 m). The village we will only see from a distance as we turn at the first house towards a pass before descending into a valley where we find the smallest bridge of our entire journey; it has everything of the large one (arch, parapets...) but in miniature.

Upon our arrival in Génolhac (540 m). It is heavy; we stop to drink a lemonade, then discuss with the Tourist Office about the marking issues and sometimes maintenance of the GRP "Le Cévenol." We linger a bit because it’s nice to be in the alleys. We start the ascent towards the gîte after 4 PM via the old Génolhac-Villefort road.

The storm surprises us at the foot of the slope; it rains heavily during the three-kilometer ascent to Col de Bergeronnette at 500 m from Tourevès (800 m), a magnificent balcony over the Génolhac valley. When we arrive, a ray of sunshine pierces the clouds and creates a bright rainbow above the town; it’s splendid!
The meal begins with a homemade aperitif "la cartagène," accompanied by delicious herb olives. The pâté from the Chamborigaud butcher is a treat... The meal is even more enjoyable as we share it with a family of enthusiastic Parisian hikers.

Departure from Tourevès at 9 AM to arrive in Villefort before the expected storm around 1 PM. The forest path, terraced above the valley, sometimes reveals beautiful panoramas. We can even clearly see Mont Ventoux, which Jacques Lemaire, our host in Tourevès, had already pointed out to us in the morning mist. At the col du Marquet, there is a nice viewpoint as we pass behind the large rock that lines the road.

At the col de Rabusat (1099 m), we stop for a small snack. A young couple comes from the direction of Mas de la Barque on Mont Lozère; they have picked chanterelles along the way and plan to cook them for lunch. They leave ahead of us. We then follow a ridge line through gorse with a bit of climbing to spice up the route. On the descent, we find their bag of mushrooms on the grass of the path. They are not far; I run to return it to them. Shortly after, we meet a German hiker who is soon seventy years old, still alert and enthusiastic; she offers her camera for a photo of her with Villefort in the background, far away in the valley.

Then we take a long path that leads us to Villefort (591 m). It is 12:40 PM; it starts to rain, and we decide to eat indoors at the first restaurant that presents itself: "La Brindille"; the daily menu is good and not too expensive. We appreciate our choice to eat indoors as the rain intensifies. The picnic stays in our bag; it will still be good tomorrow!
When we go out around 2 PM, it is still raining.

We stop at the press house to buy some reading material and postcards, something to keep us occupied at Hotel du Lac (615 m). At 5 PM, the sun finally manages to break through the clouds; we take a walk along the lake; it is nice, but we are not really into it, as we are already thinking about our stage for tomorrow. In the evening, at dinner, we enjoy the Blue d'Auvergne flan as a starter and then the veal from Lozère, the "homemade" blueberry tart with its chestnut fondant and raspberry coulis. The waitresses are charming.

We leave the hotel a little before 9 AM; it is cool, the right temperature to begin the ascent towards La Garde-Guérin on the GR®700 "the Régordane way." The calade is, at times, still in very good condition. You can see that we are close to Mont Lozère because the stones are round and quite large; it is granite, unlike the calades at the beginning of our tour, where the stones were schistose, flat, and thin, placed vertically against each other. The path rises well; we have a beautiful view over the lake onto Mont Lozère. We can see very well the path we descended yesterday after the col de Rabusat.

We soon arrive at a plateau. We see La Garde-Guérin (874 m). It is not yet ten o'clock; we take the time for a small visit to this medieval village (12th-15th century). I climb to the top of the tower; it’s quite athletic: you access the summit through a narrow tunnel about 90 cm wide and 2 meters high, no stairs, holes in the wall, and a metal bar to hoist yourself onto the platform at the top. The panorama is superb: gorges of Chassezac to the East, Mont Lozère to the West. We leave the village by a pretty shady path, passing in front of a wash fountain and reaching a belvedere, once again overlooking the gorges of Chassezac.

We then follow a golf course, and the path winds through the meadows before arriving at Albespeyres (870 m). We are more focused on looking at the old farms and the large vegetable garden than on the GR markers; we miss the descent to Chassezac, passing under the railway. We continue on the road; we catch up with the GR just before Prévenchères by crossing the dam that holds back the waters of Chassezac. We meet an old hiker living in Albespeyres; we tell him about our mishap, and he explains that we couldn’t see the turn-off markers for the GR because there was a (white) car parked in front! That reminds us of something! ... (the hikers picnicking near a cross).

After La Molette (1006 m). We gain altitude again (1133 m) while following meadows where cows graze. After Le Thort, we take a path alongside a mushroom wood, then we arrive at a very old tarred road, half-eaten by vegetation. It probably serves as a hiking path now. We once again miss a turnoff to the left to reach La Bastide-Puylaurent via a small road...

Upon our arrival at L'Etoile, at La Bastide Puylaurent (1024 m), Philippe Papadimitriou offers us tea; all is well that ends well...

This hike is certainly one of the most beautiful we have ever done, walking from crest to crest, passing through enclosed valleys, crossing streams where we enjoyed swimming, offering us breathtaking panoramas carved from schist and granite, and then there is this magnificent habitat that clings to the slopes, somewhat tamed by kilometers of terraces built by hand, stone by stone... What a beautiful country! Eric Dubois