Training in the Jura Mountains: Part 2

On Day 2 (Sunday 24 March) we were joined by a local French team (team Rosa) who were training for their own Trailwalker on 14 and 15 May.

Michele had hired a coach to give us all tips on long-distance walking. Agnes Godard runs courses in Nordic walking and Afghan walking (that isn’t walking with an Afghan hound). She keeps llamas and in summer months has a yurt in the mountains. She gave us great advice on how to use our poles (we’d been doing it wrong), on breathing techniques for climbing hills without getting out of breath (they really work), on stretches and exercises to do before, during and after, on footwear and on nutrition. You can read more about her (in French) here.

It looks like we’re having a Sunday snooze or practising the dying fly, but this was one of Agnes’s preparation exercises.

This was the view from Michele’s house and the route we were taking (just to the right of the big bare slab), 400 metres (1300 feet) up the sheer side of Mont Saleve to the cow pastures on top (heaven only knows how they get the cows up there…) We thought we’d had enough steep hills on Saturday to last us for a lifetime, but we woke up on Sunday (admittedly not until 10 a.m.) fired up with enthusiasm and ready for the day.

Going up: LSBF: Little Steps, Balls First (that refers to the feet, guys). There must have been at least 40 of these switchbacks, which we climbed without pausing even once to rest. The poles helped a lot, and so did Agnes’s breathing tips. As the slope gets steeper, breathe in for two steps, breathe out for two steps: 2/2. Paula thinks we were climbing non-stop for at least an hour. I have no idea, I was too busy counting my breathing.

Going down. As ever, harder than going up. Bend the knees, said Agnes. Keep your sticks out to the side, in case you get one entangled in your feet and trip. ‘Inspire for three breaths,’ said Michele, ‘and then’ (to our alarm) ‘expire for ten.’ She meant ‘Inhale’ and ‘exhale’.

Further down, once we were off the vertiginous goat-tracks, Agnes showed us some great techniques for relaxing and stretching tired muscles towards the end of a walk. Walking backwards was one, and taking it in turns to lead each other blind was another. Walking several strides and then leaping several strides was a third, which looked completely surreal with all of us leaping together, but really helped to loosen us up.

Scenery, weather, good company and training: altogether it was a wonderful weekend that really made us feel we were getting there. Thanks to Michele for her brilliant organization and hospitality, and to Jackie for keeping us going with her excellent homemade isotonic drink.

Next leg, England, two weeks later…

Team time. Rosa (left) and Channelhoppers (right) with Agnes (far left). Trailwalker here we come!

Training in the Jura Mountains: Part 1

On 23 March Paula and Sally flew to Geneva to walk in the Haut Savoie on the borders of France and Switzerland, where Michele lives (lucky Michele!). Jackie drove up from the South of France to join us. On the Saturday we walked 25 kilometres around the Vuache, a solitary outcrop of the Jura mountains that juts 1,105 metres (3,625 feet) above the valley of the Rhone.

Michele had recently walked 50km with one of the French teams training for their own Trailwalker in May, but for the rest of us 25km was the furthest we had been in months – or even years. Still, we had to up the level of our training from casual to serious at some point, and this was it.

The walk was tough, but the wonderful scenery kept us distracted from aching muscles, for most of the way at least. Limestone cliffs and precipitous gorges, rare flowers and chestnut woods, old forts and stone-built villages, parts of which looked like they’d hardly changed in several hundred years. Things got difficult when we thought we heard Michele say that we were fifteen minutes away from where we had left the car. Our joy was unbounded – until she explained we were fifteen minutes away from the next village, and we still had another 7 km to go. Nevertheless, we made it, and retired stiff but happy to unwind in Michele’s basement sauna.  

Plus ca change! Hazards are the same wherever you’re walking. Fortunately the big bad bulls were not at home

In Chevrier a friendly old couple were happy to take a team photo and wished us well when we told them what we were doing. ‘Mais vous etes fou!’ they said.

Fort l’Ecluse guards one of the routes from Switzerland into France. You can see why they built it here. The archway and windows looked like a face staring out of the mountain, or like something from Lord of the Rings

Not quite a via ferrata, but we wouldn’t have wanted to scramble along this leafy ledge without the help of the wire. It’s a couple of hundred feet straight down through the trees to the Rhone. Fed by glacial meltwater here, the Rhone was the most amazing colour. We’d never seen a major river that shade of turquoise before.

A welcome rest for tired limbs and time to pay attention to Michele’s mantra: Learn to Love Your Feet

Arcine. The road up to here was practically vertical, or at least that’s how it felt to us at the time. A kind woman refilled our water from her kitchen: we needed it, as it was in the twenties by then (you remember, it was that hot week in late March…) Even Jackie, who feels the cold, was down to her T-shirt

On the track down to Chaumont, the third of the mountain villages we passed through. The kind of view that just keeps pulling you onwards

Somewhere around here we passed this winery with its mural of grape-pickers. Paula and Sally couldn’t resist joining in, while Jackie looks on

The beautiful little Erythronium ‘dent de chien’ (or dogtooth violet to us linguistically-challenged Brits) grows on the slopes of the Vuache in spring, and is the symbol of the local trail which crosses the mountain

The Road Less Travelled: no matter how far there is to go, who could resist the call of a track like this one