Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2013-2014

Dispatches from way, way behind the lines in Switzerland


You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

A blustery day in May in the Bois des Fayes

It's a blustery and rainy day at both ends of Lake Geneva, 13 May 2014, as Drs Pirri and Peck convene at the village of Montricher and drive up to the Pré Anselme to see what's what.

Ambling up the forest road towards Mont Tendre, we happen to see a yellow plastic ribbon hung from a tree for no obvious reason.

So we follow the trail of yellow ribbons, contouring across the rainy forest with no trails or evident purpose.

Another yellow ribbon. We're on a roll.

We've run out of yellow ribbons for the moment.

Well-spotted!

Dearth of yellow plastic ribbons

Here, likewise for no apparent reason, in the middle of nowhere, a thermometer nailed to a tree. It's 3°C. (We permit ourselves to hope for snow.)

Up the blasted heath, with a grey row of cliffs above

We've run out of yellow ribbons and, what's more, we're lost.

Sizable cliffs block our way (they turned out to be the Roche Perrause).

A game trail along the bottom of the cliffs. We're peering about for a landmark of some sort.

Dr Pirri stands on a wagon track leading from the Pré de Mollens up into the Bois des Fayes; that, at least, is a "known known".

The Bois des Fayes, from the ancient words for beech trees or, alternatively, the Forest of Lost Sheep. It's begun snowing!

O frabjous day. (Callooh! Callay!) A fine but wet little storm is moving in.

Luxuriating in mid-May snow, we leave the wagon road to wander ahead aimlessly.

A Jura water body

Wandering aimlessly and trading US political jokes, we may have become lost.

We are lost, indeed, but it doesn't make any difference.

We'll just enjoy the day and carry on, more or less straight ahead, refining and repeating our political jokes.

We've decided just to follow Dr Pirri, wherever he may lead us. (☺)

A fine blustery day in May near Mont Tendre

We're beginning to think of looking for a way back, but.

That's probably a wrong way.

Just a complete jumble

Sometimes the old rule of thumb about just going downhill works out okay.

Easier walking in a meadow

A momentary glow of sunlight suffuses the sky.

We just need to figure out where the sun is right now.

Dr Pirri evades large holes in the meadow.

Just go downhill, until . . .

. . . we have to go uphill again. A long series of transverse ridges.

Uh oh. That looks very familiar.

It looks very like the lapiez in the Creux d'Enfer de Druchaux.
Fair enough, but it's on the wrong end of the mountain.

We've been telling an awful lot of Republican and Tea Party jokes! We've come all the way round the southwest end of Mont Tendre.

Confirmation, if any were needed. Another "known known".

We've been following a "known" stone wall back through the forest of Les Râpes and popped out onto the pastures to the east.

We pause to gaze up at our cliffs from earlier, the Roche Perrause.

The farm of Pré de Mollens, down beyond which we'll find the combe of the Grande Baume and the Creux du Nid, leading back to the car.

Dr Pirri and a tree

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Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 19 May 2014.


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