Category : Montagne
An unmarked trail on the Hauts Plateaux du Vercors. A wild place that I love. Perfect for getting lost and recharging your batteries.
Ordesa and Mont-Perdu National Park, Spanish Pyrenees
The cloud ceiling settled over the Grenoble area at the end of the morning and is not willing to move. According to the webcams, it is located around 2000-2100m altitude. So above the Vercors. We won’t be able to enjoy the fog in the forest or the sea of clouds. As for the Oisans, it is rather the opposite. The morning clouds dissipate announcing a storm of blue sky.
I decide to go to Oisans. The goal is always to have a good time in the mountains, photography is secondary.
Clouds begin to form in the late afternoon. The golden hour is coming, the hour before sunset. But the light remains harsh with strong contrasts. The Sun passes through high altitude clouds before setting, there will be no beautiful colors. Too bad, it won’t be for this time. It is still so good to be here, in this beautiful place, discovering a new view on this summit that I know so well.
Oh wait! After the sunset there is the blue hour, maybe something will happen again. The clouds are well up, it’s a real tide now. There are still glimmers of light in the mountains and the moon is starting to come down into the frame. Finally, everything lines up…
Well, except that it’s late, the exposure times are getting a little too long and I don’t have the right tripod. And then I have to go back down the steep grassy slope with the headlamp and almost through the fog! Everything went well. It was Sunday evening.
After a long ascent which will end in a nasty scree, I walk quietly on this ridge. The grassy slopes have given way to a lunar terrain. The scenery all around is grandiose. There is no path here. To get there, you have to know the area. And it gives the feeling of being privileged, I imagine that few people pass by here.
I am in the sun. Clouds are coming in from the west. They seem to have decided to blend together over the Ecrins to form a very dark ceiling. The Meije keeps its white dress in the light.
The clouds pass and spread their shadows. They are set ablaze with the peaks in the light of a late afternoon.
Massif du Soreiller. Ecrins National Park. August 2020.
Last September, last week before the weather got fickle.
The blue hour in the Ecrins. Everything is very quiet. Only the murmur of the torrents coming down from the valleys below breaks the silence.
In the warm glow of the rising sun. Ecrins National Park.
