La Foully

I was sitting at home, going over my hiking book to select a place to go that would not have too much snow, when the phone rang. It was Mael, suggesting that we go for a hike with him, Michelle (his dad) and Predip. The weather was initially good and we planned to go for a 6-hour hike. That is, until we stopped at the grocery store.

Predip said he wanted to buy some water. Mael asked him to get two bottles. Predip left the car, entered the shop and returned with two bottles: one bottle of water and one bottle of wine. Excellent. Next stop, la Foully, where we got some marinated steaks, chicken, sausages, cheese.... we drove on to get out of the village and walked for about an hour until we found a nice plateau by the stream.






We lit a fire. I removed my boots and walked around on the grass. It was mushy and the ground was porous and soft, like a sponge. In places water would ooze out caress my toes softly. I entered the stream - the water was painfully cold.
After gorging ourselves on the meat, Michelle took out a surprise: Crepes from Bretagne! And marmelade! Needless to say, the way back was very leisurely.

Leysin->Tour d'Ai

A hard hike over snow. I wanted to reach the two towers on the far side. One option was to climb to the top of the hill I was on and continue left, then go around the towers.

The other option was to go back down and approach from the right, taking the easy trail that led between the two towers.

As it were, I tried to climb the mountain I was on from the wrong side and ended up stranded on a mountain crag, only 200m away from the real peak, but separated from it by a 50m-deep gorge. In the end I turned back.