They appear to be installing new water lines from the several springs up there that feed the Montreux water system. In fact, Corinne and I had already figured out that the other road was the way to go, but it is better to let people discover their mistakes!I approached this trip as one long opportunity for conversation. So I went up to La Perche and out onto Devant Naye.Not many people had come out here recently either, but the conditions were much more challenging, in part because of the exposure. Peu avant le col, prendre le sentier balisé qui mène à gauche vers les grottes de Naye. There were a few people out walking but nothing like one would expect.

It was completely socked in but it was unlikely that I would get lost on a paved road!At the top of the pass, it was blowing and raining more consistently and was quite a bit colder than down below.

After about 90 minutes the sky was completely overcast and spitting rain. By late morning there were a few more people up there but as usual they stuck mostly to the packed trails. We barely made it to the end of it, and I stayed mostly because I liked all the footage taken of the ski resort at Ischgl.At the end of the day on Tuesday, I notified some of our skiing acquaintances that as Jaman had been closed since the weekend and as if was north-facing and protected from the sun, skiing there was likely to be exceptional.The bottom line: I couldn’t have been more on target.

(You can open up these photos and zoom in to get a better sense of them. A la clé, une jolie randonnée boisée et une superbe vue sur la Riviera et le Lac Léman.

However, the next morning when we awoke, it was clear over our end of the lake though a bit grayer down toward Geneva, the tell tale signs of a new “perturbation” moving our way. It is a bit hard to believe that anyone would do that: while no single part of that descent looked impossible, the whole was far scarier than the sum of the parts.The plan was to hike down the north side of the pass and then take a bus from Selden in Gasternal (read about our first visit ot Gasterntal in 2004 in one of the first entries in this blog) down to Kandersteg. We organized ourselves into three car loads and then drove to the railroad station at Palézieux, on the main train line between Lausanne and Bern, located N of Vevey. First the winds were quite strong that day off Valence, stirring up big whitecaps and causing the boats to heel way over on their sides. The whole episode just proved to me that there is a next step, a bit like when we bought the condo at Kirkwood, in which you say to yourself, well, we could live like this, is it worth it? Suivre de tels itinéraires se fait sous votre propre responsabilité.

La poya is apparently memorialized on barns throughout Romandie, but especially in Fribourg, in the form of naive paintings, of which we saw a wonderful example.We were getting closer to Châtel St. Denis and had some stunning views across richly green fields dotted with yellow dandelions to brilliantly white peaks of the pre-Alpes (the recent precip left new snow above 1500 m).
It took me awhile to figure out what bothered me about that, and I mentioned it to X. later over coffee: while it is certainly easy to pick out the archetypical pudgy, noisy family from Des Moines, how many other Americans – the young Chinese woman from SFO, the banker from NYC – pass undetected exactly because they do not fit the stereotypical image? And in good weather the walk up to the village would be great exercise. I called Bri because there was a country band (yup – Swiss country – it makes sense when you think about it) playing at the Marché and I wanted her to join me there. It was perfect and led me eventually back to the poma for a 500 m vertical, first tracks kind of run.Here’s one of those nooks, again just up against a cliff in a different part of the basin, so the light seldom hits it.After having done Ski Dehors three times, I decided that I should check out the other places that I hadn’t yet got to this season.

Jesus what do I do besides study the hell out of French, ski, bike and go to work??

jaman-les-avants-201. Col de Jaman - Dent de Jaman - Col de Jaman Hiking trail in Les Avants, Canton de Vaud (Switzerland).

Col de Jaman 11.08.2016 ... Raymond nous installe dans un ancien wagon MOB et voici déjà que nous randonnons depuis Les Cases en direction de Jaman. This then ended with an entrance into a fir forest with complete canopy cover. Depuis la buvette du col de Jaman, partez à l'assaut de la majestueuse Dent de Jaman. No one had been down here where long even slopes (in the shade!) However we had about a 45 minute wait. Of course we took the standard precautions-mask, hand sanitizer, vinyl gloves. Cette course d’escalade relativement facile est très appréciée en Suisse romande (difficulté jusqu’à III+, bien équipée). The point is to find vistas that shriek Swissitude!We returned to the house after about 3 hours out.

There were a few bikers out as well.Spring-time forests with le Dent de Jaman and le Merdasson above us. She wants to verify all the vertical we do hiking – I suspect that she will be appalled when she learns how little vertical all her hard work gets her – and maybe to know just how high we actually get.We have great plans for the summer. jaman-les-avants-206.
Clearly, tucking into a ice cream sundae or a meringue was to be a major part of this Sunday experience. We looked at the little there was to see in Les Haudères and finally went into a restaurant to get a bite to eat, the rain having kept us going through the lunch hour.