Gray Day Hike

Obviously, good weather is one thing that attracted me to the Southern Alps. Last week, I managed to sneak away from work for a sunny, mid-afternoon hike every day - not bad for February. But it's more than having lots of good weather days; it's that there are very few days when the weather is bad all day.

Today showed that pretty well. The days started cold, gray and damp; the local peaks were all hidden in the clouds. It looked totally miserable, but it didn't look as though it would get any worse. I hadn't driven my car for about 10 days, so I decided we could both use some exercise and we headed out to Tartonne.

I decided on a low level hike - mostly on deserted roads - that would be out of the clouds. After about an hours hiking, patches of blue appeared in the sky. The rest of the hike was very pleasant; cold when the clouds closed in, warm whenever the sun appeared, with occasional glimpse of snowy peaks thought the clouds. I extended my hike into a 5 hour loop.

Even the bad days can be good here! 

A few pics