Pic Spocket

One week in my first trip to France this winter (I am going back in March). For some reasons, there was never a need for me in that part of the world in the first 9 years I worked for the company, but suddenly they would need me for 3 months in a row if they could. I actually had the big boss of the plant where I am meeting me in order to convince me to stay. But I have too many things to take care back in America, including a very important renewal of my working permit in USA.

My first week went well, but now I am very sick again. Not the stomach (like Mexico) but a cold now: sinus problems, sore throat, etc. I hate being sick on the road. I feel like passing the whole weekend in bed. Anyhow… Yesterday, after stopping at the drugstore to load up on medicine, I decided to kick myself and do something anyway since Saturday was supposed to be the better day of the weekend. So I headed to the French South Coast for a new hike.

I opted for the hiking loop of ‘Calanque de Sugiton’. That’s a 5 miles hike, with a fair amount of hills to cross up and down. I brought my GPS tracking device with me, so I have the track of the hike below. I started from the ‘Domaine de Luminy’. The loop I followed brought me back by the side of the ‘Calanque de Morgiou’ and its port.

There was some technical sections for which I was really not equipped for with my interior gym shoes and my 40 lbs camera backpack and tripod throwing me out of balance. Also, there was some crazy gusting wind to make things worse.  In one spot, there was a vertical steel ladder you had to climb, with a very narrow corridor still going up with chains to hold through. Not so easy with the equipment I was carrying!

In another section, there was a very inclined crevasse that I needed to go down through with not much to hold through. Between my shoes slipping and my tripod getting caught in cracks as I was going down, I had a good scare! I actually decided to go back the other way rather than crossing this section after slipping once, barely avoiding a bad fall. But then I changed my mind again: I had less distance to cover by continuing than going back, and I was not sure when daylight would go down…

Beside the few scares, this was a very nice hike and the view was awesome. It must be more enjoyable in better and warmer weather. February is not very warm this year here.

I am not posting any big pictures yet because I really do not trust my laptop screen to make adjustments. I still made a small slideshow on ‘everytrail.com’ that you can look at to have an idea of the scenery. Just click on the image below to have access to the interactive view of this trip. This is another advantage of using the GPS tracker and geotagging pictures.

Click on image to access the interactive slideshow

Here are the statistics of the hike:

Once I am back home, I’ll process the pictures and post big versions of the nicer ones.

Today Sunday, I feel even sicker so I will take it really easy. No training, no sightseeing. The coming week will be demanding.

Ciao!