Hiking
The Cévennes are a small, green mountain range carved by gorges and topped with high, open plateaus (causses) and the wind-swept domes of the highest mountains, Mont Lozère and Mont Aigoual. Yet there is a great variety in the character of the landscape and architecture reflecting micro-climates, altitude, and abrupt geological shifts from limestone to schist to granite.
The trails often follow historical paths and roads, following the logic of the terrain for humans and animals. Over centuries the people sifted the stones from the terraces or fields. They crafted them into pavers and dry-stack walls to keep their feet dry and to make them last, even hundreds of years.
In a day hike I may go from a forest-bath to a river-plouf (dunk), walking between cultivated fields or next to troupeaux (flocks), passing through remote hamlets or isolated farms. It seems like a journey more than a hike.
There are places or trails that seem inhospitable, awesome and rugged. Ruins add to that feeling, while also stoking a recurring fantasy of never leaving. I feel a secretness when I discover a big hollow chestnut tree or a rustic dry-stacked shepherd’s hut; a mossy stone bridge in the crease of a valley that looks like it wasn’t built, but grew there.
A crystal plunge pool or a trickling spring where someone left a rusty ladle; a neolithic megalith of granite standing upright, like a conductor, a knower; a dry-stack wall with a cantilevered stone stair leading to a series of forest-covered terraces that still have cherry trees or maybe a lone olive tree gone wild.
Though I don’t see very many people on the trails I love, I feel like I’ve been hanging out with those who made these paths and stone shelters. There is a real communion with the trees, plants, moss, lichen. The natural elements speak and inspire. I usually come home with foraged fruits, or mushrooms, or chestnuts, or native plant seeds for my garden.
And there is still the dessert: the views. The layered blue-green undulations that float infinitely, with seasonal colors dabbing the near slopes and fantastic clouds outlining a perspective or painting a mood over the canvas.
