Saturday we decided we weren't going to be lazy, we were going to take advantage of the nice day, the sun shining to hike up the mountain. We've been meaning to climb our way to the top of the Jura ever since we got here and we haven't done it. So Saturday morning we said, "today is the day." We packed a little backpack with some snacks, a canteen of water and some dog biscuits and we were off!
We headed straight from our door up the hill to a path through the reserve national, to a barbed wire fence, which we climbed over in order to stay on the trail. Why is there a barbed wire fence (or even multiple barbed-wire fences) in the national reserve is beyond me. Also beyond my realm of understanding is why dogs are allowed in cafes, boulangeries, grocery stores and any number of other places the rest of the world might think it unnecessary to allow dogs, but you aren't supposed to take them hiking in the National Reserve?!?! What's that all about? Obviously we just ignored the sign and took Ally on our hike with us. What else are you going to do?
So, admittedly after we clambered over our first barbed-wire fence we lost the trail for a bit...but then we noticed that the trees were trying to do math - there were large red numbers, minus, plus, and multiply signs all over the place! We thought, "hey, maybe their trying to tell us something." So we followed the signs and low and behold they took us higher and higher into the mountains.
After scaling some rocks...OK, OK we just climbed up a few moss covered rocks...we came to a road. Hum...I didn't know there was a road in this part of the Jura's. Are you telling me we could have driven all this way! man. Just kidding, at this point I was enjoying the hike immensely. We all were. Ally was absolutely loving it. Although I'm sure she would have preferred it even more if we had let her off her leash. But she's been
naughty lately and running off so we had to keep her close.Walking on the road was a nice little break. We didn't have to walk on stones and wet slippery leaves and we weren't walking straight up hill for a bit. I felt sure we were getting ever closer to the top. An hour later and a straight climb up my legs were burning, my chest was aching and it didn't feel like we were any closer to reaching the summit. I had to take constant breaks to sip some water and rest my throbbing legs. Between Ally and I we drained the canteen of water. good thing DH is in good shape or we'd have been in trouble. Next time we'll definitely take more water. I kept telling myself, " just put one
foot in front of the other. You're the one that wanted to do this."Lucky for me there were some pretty cool views from up there. that way I got to enjoy the scenery as I sat huffing and puffing trying to make my heart stop racing from the latest short burst of
uphill climbing.
Sadly we didn't quite make it to the top. We made it to where the trees stopped and we could see the summit beckoning us. But it was going to be at least another half an hours walk straight up hill and we'd already been at it for 2 hours and 40 minutes. I just couldn't do it. We decided that it was close enough for us and we packed it in and headed back down the hill. All three of us were exhausted by the time we made it home. Naturally, going down hill was much easier. Although, you still had to be careful and your thighs still burned from the exertion of trying not to fall face first down the mountain. The fact that all the trails here seem to be covered in rocks that like to slide loose under your feet and you have to be extra careful on the way down. I made DH take the dog the whole way down because my legs felt like jelly and I was sure I'd loose my balance the first time she tugged and I'd end up being dragged face first down the mountainside. That would have been a pretty picture!
All in all it was a good, yet exhausting day. And I hope we have the energy to do it again some time.
