Trip Report - L'Échappée Jurassienne (GR59): Day 3

 Day 3 post of my GR59 (L'Échappée Jurassiene) trip has arrived! This was one of my favourite days despite the start being somewhat difficult.

STATS:

START: Salins-Les-Bains

END: Arbois

KM: 22.26 km

TIME: 5:08:45 hours

Day 3 started with an upwards hike of ~200m. It was short, but I won't lie, I found it tough. Not in the I'm-dying kind when you're going 1km up, and it really isn't that terrible of a hike, but I don't sleep well these days (again not really the fault of the "hotel") and I'd done 70km the two days prior so I was already a bit tired when I started. The landscape (forest again) didn't really offer anything new either so I couldn't take my mind off the trudging upward. I was happy when the last 500m or so were on a road rather than the twisty overgrown forest path of the first half.

As hinted at in my last post, this first stretch ended up at the fort I'd seen from Salins-les-Bains. This is the Fort Saint André. So, highlight of the day after about 30minutes of the hike! (I love old forts!) Or at least, so I thought.

(Choices Choices... Pretin on the GR59 route or a detour to the Fort?)

Unfortunately, the fort interior isn't easily accessible, as all of the gates are closed. There were no good views, either, except on the back side where you could see some of the environment below the hill it's on, so if you come to the same signpost of choice there's really no need to walk the extra half km to the fort.  Sigh! You can however go around the fort and they do have a cool climbing park (including climbing instructions on a Fort wall itself...) with a few alpacas right next to it!
 

 

 

(The back side of the fort with a view on the hinterland.)
 

 There are also plenty of other activities if you do have the time. Although I believe most of them need to be booked ahead of time.

At the Fort I decided to have some salad. I wonder what the workers I encountered thought about seeing me eat salad from the bag like it's potato chips.

 

 
After I left the fort behind there were some pretty nice views:
 

The climb then continued and I regretted not bringing my hiking sticks. I'd simply left them behind with my tent (a Zpacks Duplex), in a 'obviously I don't need you' way. I usually need them for the tent- but if I don't take the tent then I don't need the sticks. (Unfortunately it doesn't work that way...) But this day was more challenging than the last two! It was hot and I was drenched in sweat an hour in (sigh! ...and I only just did the laundry in the apartment I stayed the night before...). I really, really wanted a coke zero at this point, but of course, I was getting into the wildlands again, so no dice. I'd also only found plastic bottles of coke the day before so that was a no go anyway.

(Note: My backpack was by no means heavy (about 3-4kg) but I'm obviously a wuss.)

About an hour and a half in we come to some of my favourite sites of the day (and in fact the entire trip).

 The first is a paragliding jump-off point that looked out over the entirety of the region's hinterland. Super awesome!

 

The second was the gigantic meadow I had to traverse to get to the next waypoint. I initially went wrong here because I didn't take the flattened grass path as the actual path and there was another more pathy way into the forest. I went down that one about 5 minutes before I realized it's not the one I wanted (I suddenly stood in a field that had absolutely no path whatsoever...).

The grass here was hip-high and the weather absolutely pleasant.

(Note: I'm afraid of ticks so I'll repeatedly look at and brush off my bare legs in shorts.) 

Halfway through the meadow came a sign:

So of course I had to check out the Chapelle! And I found this:

(Can you spot the walls? That's the old monastery! Thank you archaeology classes!)

I finally got to a sign tempting me to go right to a lookout point instead of left on the official GR59 path. And for a moment I struggled with myself because I was exhausted from the last two days... then decided I must see this view anyway. I'm so glad I did!

The houses below belong to a little village called Pretin and my first view of it was taken from the hill (kind of a cliff) above it. I'd known there'd be a town ahead and hoped there'd be a shop or something selling slushies. Or anything cold really. By the time I saw this view I guessed there would not actually be any slushies down there. 😆

I could hear a rooster crowing (at 11:15!)... water splashing... Yeah. I didn't think there'd be slushies any more...

So I descended into the village and found the mairie (town house) with a nice cool fountain next to it instead. I'll take that any day on a hot noon!

 

(The last picture shows the brook the water comes from. It's is called La Vache!)

And I left Pretin behind.

(Note: The rooster crowed when I looked down on the town. It crowed while I crossed the town. It was still crowing as I left the town behind.)

The next stretch of the day was again a bit of road, however, I didn't meet a single car in the 30 minutes it took me to traverse it. In fact, the whole area was quiet and beautiful, and it gets a bit less burning-hot when you enter the forest after the road stretch.

The forest is beautiful too. It starts a bit dry (and I met two loggers doing some work) but quickly turns into a carpet of green and white.

(I dub this the Garlic Forest. You'll know why if you know what kind of plants they are. They smell so much like garlic!)

(Note: I was about 3 hours in at this point but hadn't seen a single bench yet. I don't mind walking (or even hiking) for a long time without a rest, but after three hours it was getting a bit tough. Of course, I could have sit on the grass, but as I mentioned before, not keen on getting ticks!)

Towards the end of the day the path met a railroad track and went beside it. This was quite easy going but I had to keep an eye on the sky. It was Thursday and the weather radar had predicted rain. Well. I did get rained on very lightly during one long (standing) stop in the forest (I wrote a whole short story during that rest...) and a bit later when I was passing pastureland.

(Have you ever heard a cow sneeze? This one did. I hope it didn't have Cow-vid. 😷)

It was getting cloudier then too and I really just wanted to get to town... but I still had about 6km to go. Around the 5km mark I finally met other hikers. This was a group of older ladies and some men. I suppose hikers my age don't really go on trips on Thursdays!

About an hour after that I finally arrived in Arbois just when it started to rain. I was too sweaty and wet from rain at this point to do anything other than hit up the supermarket and find my hotel for the night but I did walk through town and it looked a lot more lively than the villages I'd passed during the rest of the day.

I was sooo tempted...

Then I arrived at my hotel (Logis Hôtel des Cepages):

This was frankly one of my favourites! The room was clean, spacious, luxurious, and the bathroom clean. There was a fridge in the corner (for my cheese from the supermarket!) and a desk to eat at. I was happy (and tired!). I definitely recommend this hotel if you ever find yourself in Arbois! (And you should. They have plenty of local food places with delicious-looking charcuterie! I would've loved to eat there but I tend to get highly socially anxious in restaurants on my own and I was super hungry at 5 PM. The places only open at ~7PM.)

(Note: Hotels should sell/provide after sun care. Instead they have this:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it from me this week! Check in next Sunday for Day 4! And do follow me on Instagram @jimneyhikes!

-Jimney