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The Parpaillon saga

Le Pastis du Parpaillon - Raymond Cros CC n° 1906 Nîmes - magazine n° 15, 1987

This morning, with my friend Jean-Claude, we're going to climb a col, the sixth over 2000 m since the day before, but I think it's the most beautiful. I've heard it referred to as a god, read articles about it, listened to the advice of those who have already climbed it (and there are too few of them in G.C. Nîmes to have climbed it, too bad for them). What is certain is that it attracts cycle tourists.

So this morning, we wake up at 5am, pack up the tent and all the rest into the front pannier, and it's 6am when we leave the campsite. The road descends to La Condamine, but not for long, just a kilometre or so to warm up.

At the entrance to the village, at the first bend to the right towards Sainte-Anne, I pass almost all the way to the left. It's not that it's really hard, but in our panniers we have our tent, our change of clothes and our lunch: you see, everything you need for cyclo-camping. Jean-Claude also has all his photographic equipment. A journalist following a major sporting event wouldn't dare pack so much.

We're going at a steady pace. I checked with my computer: 5 pedal strokes to go 10 metres! You have to take it gently, like caressing a pretty wife or sipping a fine wine. It needs gentleness, but that's not why it will give you gifts.

The road is still tarmac, but it's in a terrible state! A flick of the handlebars to the right, another to the left to avoid all the holes and bumps as far as Sainte-Anne. Here, the tarmac disappears to make way for a mule track. We make a short stop at the chapel, where we fill up on water at the fountain. Jean-Claude takes a few photos of the landscape. Clouds begin to cover the sky.

The rear wheel slipped a little, I shifted to the left and my cruising speed increased to 5 kph. It's 7 o'clock in the morning. One eye on the state of the road to guide the front wheel to the best places, the other in the forest looking for a marmot. But for the moment, nothing to be done. Before I can spot them, they've already seen me and alert their colleagues with a loud whistle. I saw many of them from a distance, even very close up, but in two or three leaps they disappeared into their holes.

This pass is definitely not doing us any favours, but as we climb gently, it begins to show us its hidden treasures. The forest gives way to meadows with many flowers whose names I don't know, each as beautiful as the next. In the distance a marmot whistles, we've been spotted. At the end of a stream, I spot one leaping into its hole.

After crossing a wooden bridge, a stream has found nothing better than to choose the road where we are driving as our bed, and we are forced to drive on it. We pass a small house and, according to the road map, we only have 6 kilometres to go. We are at an altitude of 2000 m.

The path becomes much stonier; stones squirt out from under our wheels, but we're still going at the same speed. Same caress. But now there's a downpour and we have to put on our ponchos. I look at Jean-Claude with a slightly worried look on my face: «Are we going on or are we going back? No one was keen to give up so close to the finish: we'd done 13 km and had barely 4 to go. The clouds are still high, so let's keep going, the rain won't last long.

A few pedal strokes later, a marmot emerges from a corner of the road, crosses it and gets lost in the wild. I take out my camera, put it around my neck, ready to use it, and open my eyes. I don't have time to leave before another one comes out a few metres from my front wheel, stops in front of its hole and stares at me. I put my foot down as gently as possible and, without losing sight of it, took two photographs. Jean-Claude arrived and I motioned to him to be quiet. At last! he's going to be able to photograph his groundhog.

He got out all his gear, adjusted his lens and shot her from several angles. He even changes the film. This went on for a good ten minutes. We must have come across a marmot-starlet. Further up, I spotted another that had just hidden behind a small flowering bush. Just then, my friend discovered a brood of two young birds ten metres from us. They were playing in front of their hole. Surprise! The four of us look at each other and, instinctively, they take refuge in their hole. But already they poke their heads out of the burrow, spy us and, seeming to understand that we mean them no harm, go back to playing, without losing sight of us. Careful, the «pitchounes»!

I can't tell you how much my colleague enjoyed taking their photos. He even took the time to take out his tripod and set it down. In the distance, a loud whistle makes us look up. Another one! Sitting on its hind legs on a rock, it too is watching us. We've never seen so many.

We need to get back on the road and finish the Parpaillon. The path is as rocky as ever and I can feel that the summit is not far away. Coming out of a bend, I can see that the path follows the mountain and that there's a steep incline at the end. According to the information from the elders, I'm close to the summit. Two more hairpins to go, one last push up a last «wall» at 10%, one last bend and then my joy bursts forth; there, in front of me, 200 or 300 metres away, a mouth wide open that seems to be saying to me: «come on, you've finished your climb». A ray of sunlight streams over the mountain and in my heart I catch a glimpse of a marmot that runs off as I approach and greets me. I'm standing in front of the Parpaillon tunnel! 2643 metres.

I put my bike down against a bollard and climbed to the top of the tunnel to wait for Jean-Claude, who soon arrived. I had the pleasure of throwing him a snowball to celebrate his entry into the Club des Cent Cols. And then, to have the Col du Parpaillon in your collection, that's beautiful.

Being the good southerner that I am, an idea popped into my head: I filled the can with snow from the tunnel, and that evening, on the train, we drank a pastis with melted snow, that's all I can tell you! Believe me, it was so good! And then, I don't know when we'll have another one, in a glass, with mountain water. As tradition dictates, we went through the tunnel, and I had to put my right foot in a deep puddle.

In the end, the Parpaillon isn't as tough as you might think - you just have to take it gently, and it will show you all its flora, fauna and scenic beauty. On the same day that two Nîmes residents reached the summit of France's most prestigious mule pass, the Tour de France arrived in Nîmes. Still, I think we were the lucky ones.