Mistral conditions are great for hiking but bad for flying, so I headed to the Mercantour national park for some high altitude hiking. A seven hour hike - no mountain tops, but three high (2600m) passes - left me nicely pooped at the end of the day. The scenery was stunning (though my camera died after a couple of hours, so you'll have to believe me). Wildlife was pretty much limited to lots of plump marmots, waddling into their dens as I approached - they look ready for their hibernation!
I must admit I spent a lot of the hike looking at flying possibilities heading towards Italy and they did look pretty promising. But afterwards I did some checking. The rumors that the park rules now allow XC flying turned out to be incorrect. Despite some minor changes, you have to be have 1000m terrain clearance over the national park and that essentially rules out almost all flights towards Italy from St Andre. Bummer.
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