steady run 5:50:00 [3]
Day 5 (and final) of the Jura epic... Set off early ‘cos rain forecast from midday onwards. 0833 depart and then wombled along following various lines of footsteps in snow through forest, drifted offline a few times but reached L’ajoux in reasonable spirits with a sneaky short cut along a road saving a km!
Then long road section, again sticking to it to avoid extra climb and distance. Wind getting up bit and in our faces. Then rain came on about 1125... so waterproof top on then a short while later trousers as well (first time on the trip). Pretty heavy rain and strong headwind so nae very pleasant. Plodded on for few more km of undulating road then junction where we took a track that quickly turned to ice (had been a pisted ski track) past a sign forbidding most activities- but no ‘no-running’ sign :-) Rain even heavier but sheltered a bit in a valley, reached a col and wind much stronger- found a covered entrance to a house and had some lunch, getting chilled so extra layer on and kept going. Soon after reached more forested section so much less wind. Landscape becoming more dramatic with steep valleys dropping away (what we could see in the low cloud and mist). Track still mostly snow/ice covered but good steady moving. At 29km stopped briefly at a col with large display boards then onto large forest track (snow covered and recently pisted but running with water in places... met and old couple skiing - had to laugh, even Scots wouldn’t have been out!).
Ground along the tracks, dropping steadily and snow gone for long sections, then managed to bollox the map reading and dived off down a side track that added about a km extra plus climb... Not very amusing at this stage :-) back to main track - actually a closed road that had been pisted . Eventually headed downhill and the village of Giron appeared. Found a sports hall and a large pillar with 1000m sign - seemed as good a place to finish as any. Popped into an adjacent hotel, eventually someone appeared -turned out he was heading to Belgard (where our hotel was) in 15 minutes -lucked out ;-)
38km out for 6-40 total.