We spent a week in Crest in central Drôme at the foot of Southern Vercors range, hiking in surrounding areas, but also going for a couple morning runs. We like this area of Drôme for multiple reasons: its landscape is an interesting mixture of forested mountains and Mediterranean scenery. Also the village buildings remind us of houses we have seen further south in the Mediterranean region, for instance in Nice and Marseille. Drôme also has a network of very nice and scenic hiking trails that are not too technical, but can be difficult with long distances and steep inclines.

We started our vacation with a long run on Sunday morning. Fortunately there was some cloud cover, since when the sun came out towards the end of our 20-kilometer run, it started to be quite hot.

Crest is best known for Tour de Crest, a 52-meter keep that is the highest Medieval tower in France and Europe. It was part of a former castle that was constructed to guard one of the entrances to Pre-Alpes. At some point in its history the tower also served as a prison. As post run recovery we strolled up and down the steep streets and alleys of Crest. We even climbed up to the tower, but did not visit it.

Chemin des Crêtes (7K in 2h37mins, D+/D- 330m)

Our first hike on Monday started directly from the town of Crest. Once again we climbed  to the tower, and behind it found a trail that followed a narrow ridge to north. We returned on a road. It was a hot and sunny hike.

Grigors – Lozeron – Grigors (9K in 2h40mins, D+/D- 350m)

On our second hike we had a plan to climb the mountain of Lozeron, starting from the village of Lozeron. For reasons unclear to us, Google Maps app decided to take us to a different location, not too far away from Lozeron but deeming our original plan unfeasible. So, we parked in Grigors and found a trail leading to Lozeron and back. This was actually much more scenic hike than the one we planned, since that one would have mostly traveled in the forest, but this one offered splendid views to the surrounding mountains. This again was a hot and sunny day, but the strange haze made the pictures look like it was cloudy.

La Chapelle Saint-Jean (6.10K in 1h50mins, D+/D- 150m)

This hike took us near Bourdeaux and the Roman chapel of Saint-Jean dating back to the 11th century.  Besides the chapel having been remarkably restored and maintained — it has been destroyed several times — this wasn’t particularly scenic hike, and the bugs bugged us a lot. This also was a relatively sunny and hot day, but the haze made it look grey.

Reserve Naturelle des Ramières du Val de Drôme (11.30K in 3h 15mins, D+/D- 20m)

Unlike the previous (and the following) days this was the only one when we had bad luck with the weather — not that it was unexpected; the weather forecast had promised thunderstorms for the afternoon the whole week. We had planned to start a hike from the neighboring village Aouste-sur-Sye, a 5-minute drive away. It was already drizzling when we left, but by the time we had bought lunch sandwiches and driven to the trail head, it was pouring, and it didn’t look like going to stop any time soon.  Ironically, half of the sky to west was almost blue, so we quickly googled hiking routes in that direction, and found an easy 10-kilometer hike in a nature reserve of Ramières.

It drizzled on and off throughout the hike, and eventually the sun came out. It indeed was a very easy hike, more like a walk on a flat trail, except one practically impassable section deep inside the reserve where we had to fight our way through an overgrown and thorny thicket. We both had scratches and scrapes in our arms and legs after that. The true storm only started when we were walking from the car back to the Airbnb apartment.

Entre Roc et Estang + Site d’Escalade de Roche Colombe (10K in 3h45mins, D+/D- 535m)

Today’s hike was actually two hikes, both starting from the same village of Saoû. The first one that was planned ahead took us around two remarkable rocks, visiting a little pond on the way that was almost invisible under the vegetation. After enjoying our lunch sandwiches it was still early so we decided to do an extempore hike up to the direction of Roche Colombe. We turned back when we reached the rock climbing site, without noticing that we were really close to the rock. This was a sunny and hot day, with nasty gusty wind that almost blew us from the trail when climbing to Roche Colombe.

Fôret de Saoû (11.60K in 3h30mins, D+/D- 430m)

On our last day of hiking we returned to the village of Saoû and planned an easy hike in the forest of Saoû (open the link to see nice areal photos of this forest). This forest is claimed to be the most beautiful perched syncline in Europe or at least in the Drôme department. From Wikipedia: “syncline is a geologic feature like a “V” fold in layered sedimentary ground,  with younger layers closer to the center of the structure.” A “perched syncline” simply means that it stands elevated from the surrounding terrain.

Except one section with a steeper climb, this definitely was a very easy hike. Actually the gentle downhill was harder to walk because the road was rocky, whereas the uphill trail was smooth. This was again a sunny and very warm day, but with a more reasonable gusts than the day before.

When we were back in Crest, there was something burning or at least smoking on the other side of the river, but we never found out what it was — it started with huge black plumes of smoke that soon turned white.

Jardin des Fontaines Pétrifiantes

One more day and one more attraction to go. On our drive home we stopped at the Garden of Petrifying Fountains in La Sône, Isère. We have planned to visit this garden for quite a some time, but it has been quite inconveniently located with respect our travel trajectories, but now it was right on our way. Here you can read about the petrification process and the history of the garden.

In summary, this was a very successful vacation both weather-wise as well as regarding the choices we made for the hiking routes. Total distance traveled during the week, including hiking, running and walking, was 93.5K of which hiking 55K and running 33K.