CHAPTER X.
FROM VAL LOUISE TO LA BÉRARDE BY THE COL DE PILATTE.[1]
"How pleasant it is for him who is saved to remember his danger."
Euripides.
From Ailefroide to Claux, but for the path, travel would be scarcely more easy than over the Pré de Madame Carle.[1] The valley is strewn with immense masses of gneiss, from the size of a large house downwards, and it is only occasionally that rock in situ is seen, so covered up is it up by the débris, which seems to have been derived almost entirely from the neighbouring cliffs.[2]
It was Sunday, a "day most calm and bright." Golden sunlight had dispersed the clouds, and was glorifying the heights, and we forgot hunger through the brilliancy of the morning and beauty of the mountains.
We meant the 26th to be a day of rest, but it was little that we found in the cabaret of Claude Giraud, and we fled before the babel of sound which rose in intensity as men descended to a depth which is unattainable by the beasts of the field, and found at the chalets of Entraigues[3] the peace that had been denied to us at Val Louise.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 For route, see map in chap. ix.
- ↑ About half-a-mile above Claux there is a precipitous fall in the valley, and there (where the bed rock is too steep to allow débris to accumulate) roches moutonnées can be seen. At the same place the torrent of Aile Froide falls by some steep rapids through a wall-sided gorge, and the former eddyings of the water can be traced high up upon the cliffs.
- ↑ The path from Ville de Val Louise to Entraigues is good and well shaded by luxuriant foliage. The valley (d'Entraigues) is narrow; bordered by fine cliffs; and closed at its western end by a noble block of mountains, which looks much higher
