Brunissard - Château-Queyras
Tuesday 2 August 2022
1906 kms
Distance (km) 8 kms
Distance (time) 3 hrs
Climb / Descent 275m / 640m
Hard / Soft surface 40% / 60%
Landscape
Weather 31° 1 Bft

Today will be a short day, which is nice for a change. We drive to Château-Queyras and park the car there. From Château-Queyras we then take the free inter-village shuttle bus to Brunissard where we arrive around 9:30.
Surprisingly enough the GR5 follows the main road between Brunissard and La Chalp while on our left we also see some people walking over a (gravel) path through the fields so there must be an alternative. But ok, we follow the main road which is very busy with mostly cyclists going up the Col d'Izoard before it's getting hot and a couple of cars.
We're happy to reach La Chalp and turn left and away from the traffic. We pass some older houses (hence, La Chalp is not completely a modern ski village) before we start climbing. It is a rather short climb followed by a long flattish part, even descending somewhat. And to our surprise we run into the 3 Americans again that had stayed overnight in La Chalp.
We pass the hamlet "Les Maisons" (very original name: "The Houses") and immediately after start a long winding climb up a grassy slope in the plane sun. This goes on until just before we reach the highest point of today. Now at the highest point one may expect rocks or so...but here we have a small lake with picknick tables. And since the picknick tables are in the shadow we decide to have some lunch here.
It's a very relaxed lunch as the only thing remaining is the descent to Château-Queyras. The first part is gentle, but getting steeper closer to the town. The last part is actually quite steep, but because it has little loose rocks it is in the end not to difficult. What remains is a final 100m along the very narrow tarmac road to Château-Queyras. This section of the road is so narrow that it has a traffic light to let traffic pass in alternating direction since 2 cars cannot pass here. So we aim for having green light in the direction we are walking and have a little sprint to get passed the narrowest part to make it to the car. All together a nice short relaxed day.







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