Chemin de la Mâture
“The track was very steep indeed. I passed many day walkers coming down, with concentrated and rather painful expressions on their faces.

I could feel the powers that had been used here some 230 years ago. While I sweated like mad I thought: ‘what would the poor bastards have been through? Manpower and gunpowder, horses and donkeys, whips, sweat and blood. The track was 2 metres wide. To the right of me the depth of the ravine. Steep and deep. Wild water rushing through the bottom of its gorge. To my left, the walls of rocks. Overhanging but high enough to enable carts and people to go underneath. Traces of their labour could still be seen in the rock face.

You see many cairns when you’re in the higher zones in the mountains. These are serious guides that avoid you from taking the wrong direction. Particularly when mist or low clouds have engulfed the land, and vision is limited and eyesight is very poor. These cairns stick out of the mist and their pointy shape differs from its environment. Their silhouettes penetrate the fog