It has been a long time … and nothing really has happened. After a miserable Spring (weather-wise) the Summer has finally arrived; the daytime temperatures rise almost  to +30°C, but mornings are still cool and comfortable. This is nice after so many cloudy weeks and a lot of rain; early May broke several rain records in France.

We have done some longer runs on weekdays and hiking trips on weekends, but nothing truly spectacular to report about. Our hikes have taken us to the lower altitude trails on both sides of the Grésivaudan valley, on the slopes of Chartreuse and Belledonne ranges. Our hiking destination on this past Sunday was La Tour d’Avalon in the village of Sain-Maximin on Belledonne. The tower is 33 meters high and it was built in the 1400’s on the ruins of an ancient watchtower that was part of a medieval castle. What remains of the old tower can still be seen as the stones from different eras are of different colors.

Of course the tower was now closed for visits, but we chose some hiking trails around the village (10.5K in 3h 30mins, D+/D- 547m). Our choices were not quite optimal since we spent most of the time on steep and very muddy trails in the forest — at this time of the year many trails are actually streams with water coming down from the mountains.  Also, it seemed futile to climb high up without being able to enjoy any scenery from there, but we saw a couple of cool waterfalls. On the positive side, it was also much cooler in the forest than on open pastures.