Bivouaking in the Alps

With a little encouragement from Heather today, I decided to share our trip to Les Queyras. We went there back in July. I think what impressed me most, other than camping in the Alps, was that only 1 hour outside of Marseille we were cruising along winding roads past country farms and small villages and gorgeous lakes, and 3 hours later, taking tight curves and passing under tunnels in the Alps. Les Queyras are in the Southern Alps and hug the Italian border. We had thought about taking a trail that took us across the border but decided to stick to France. (Apparently the terrain in Italy is pretty intense and not having camped in almost 3 years we thought it best to take it easy.) We parked the car in a town called l'Echalp that was literally a hodge-podge of 4 or 5 ramshackle buildings. Larger than the town was a gravel parking lot, from which we picked up the GR58 or Tour du Queyras From there on out it was nothing but climb, climb, climb. Man! I was beat an hour into what would be a 5.5 hour hike (about 7 km) that took us from 1,687 meters to 2,618 meters. Along the way we stopped to snack at lookout points, check out a herd of sheep that followed us with their jingling bells, breathe the pristine air, marvel at the silence (no scooters and horns and trash trucks!), and chill at Lac Egorgeou. It was so pristine. I dipped my feet in and washed my face. Nothing like some fresh Alpine water! Our goal was to set up camp at the next lake, Lac Foreant. We had read that you could see the first lake from the second, because it was at a higher altitude, so we thought, hey, it must be close. Nope. Another 1.5 hour hike up some rocky inclines and finally we reached our destination. We set up camp literally 30 seconds before it began to rain -- luckily a refreshing alpine drizzle -- and then had dinner. There were only 2 other tents so we felt pretty secluded. After an O.K. night of sleep (who sleeps like a baby in a tent?) we woke up and watched a couple fish. Not fish, people. They were an older couple and had woken us up at 4 in the morning when it was still pitch dark. At first I thought it was some boar (there are lynx and wolf as well) but it was just some crazy folks who must've left at 1 or 2 am to reach the lake in order to get a good catch. Pretty amazing. After breakfast we started the hike back and voila! our first camping trip in the Alps was a success.