This stage begins in the fairytale valley of the Doubs River. A steep climb brings the route just above 1000 meters, before descending through the forests to Lac de Moron with it’s beautiful cliffs and to Saut du Doubs. The hike ends in the Swiss town of Les Brenets at Lac des Brenets.
When we wake up in our cabin, it’s still raining a bit. So we pack our gear, make breakfast and take it easy.
Today’s stage isn’t that long at just under 20 kilometers and this hut is a lovely place to wake up, so we are in no hurry to leave. Lucky for us, the weather starts to clear after we finish our coffe and by 8:30 it’s almost dry. So: backpacks on and hit the road again!
We start off nicely flat through the woods along the river. After the rain everything is quite wet, but it looks wonderfully freshly green and the mosses and ferns make it a dreamy scene.
After 2.5 kilometers we arrive at another hut, Abri du Torret, which we had as a backup in case the first hut was too crowded or unsatisfactory. It’s a lot smaller, without stove and table, but in a beautiful spot just near the river.
From here the trail leaves the river and goes up steeply. At first the trail is narrow and it zigzags down the slope, but soon the path widens through forestry. There has clearly been a lot of machinery here recently, making it quite a mud puddle with last night’s heavy rain. We have more often been called “house slugs” by Frenchmen because we carry our tent and all our gear on our backs. And as we slither along the path here, we almost feel like snails too, lol.
Climbing up out of the valley, the world becomes slightly more inhabited again with farmlands and buildings and we follow the asphalt road for a bit. A little further on, as the trail turns off the paved road again, we again meet the hiker we’ve met a few times over the past few days. He narrowly escaped yesterday’s rain at a farm a little way back. The trail continues on forest trails until we reach a large dam, Lac de Moron.
On the shore we take a break and are amazed that this early in the year the water level is meters lower than normal. A little further on we come across a major tourist attraction, Saut du Doubs. Here the water normally clatters down 27 meters in a huge waterfall, but not today. All can you see is a bare rock face; it’s a strange sight. Because of the drought, the river that feeds the waterfall has completely dried up.
At a tourist restaurant we enjoy a cup of coffee with a piece of delicious homemade apple pie, after which we hike the last kilometers to the campsite in Switzerland. This stretch runs along the Swiss shore of Lake des Brenets. At this campsite we’ll stay a few days over to see a Swiss town and avoid a few rainy days.
The GR5 runs on the French side of the lake, and we plan to hike around the lake on one of the coming days, to walk that section of the trail as well.
