Alpine flowers

I’m late, I’m late. I had planned to write up my notes yesterday but the hotel did not have a reliable internet connection.

But I’m back at the farm and our more humble mountain range out the window.

We travel to Alpe d’Huez every year so David can kill himself riding La Marmotte.  It’s a 170km race (against oneself and 7000 other cyclists) up all the toughest and most famous mountains in the French Alps.

And while he surges and urges up mountains, I’m heading along with my eyes a bit closer to the ground.

I have found this lovely 16km walk from Alpe d’Huez to the Col de Serenne. It’s a bit of a plod, but it affords some marvelous views and the chance to get close to alpine flowers.

Last year was superb. This year less colour.  But we have all endured an absurd heatwave and very little rain for a month. Well, no rain at all for us.  So you cannot expect the meadows along this path to be as dazzling as last year.

That said. You just have to get up close and look.  And I brought a natty guidebook with me this time. So I was looking forward to having some of my botany questions answered.

Being a weekend away in a beautiful hotel (despite the wifi) I had of course planned to rest.  I’m obliged to get up so early every morning on the farm, so I thought lying in a bit later would be bliss.

But the heat.  Even at altitude.  So when I realised I was wide awake at 612am, then that was my decision made. The sooner I could get out and start my long walk, the more comfortable it would be.

But even by 9am it was scorching.  And the surprise addition to my walk were a frenzy of flies.  I soon saw the reason: shepherds were moving two flocks of sheep along the track ahead of me.  And with sheep come sheep droppings and a convoy of flies in their wake.

I had my book in one hand and was flapping with the other.

It was an umbel fest I can tell you.  You must know these flowers well. They are the sort of plants which make you want to pat their heads. 

It is just safe calling them plants from the umbellifer family as  their latin names are baffling. And I can’t say I can comfortably distinguish between laserpitiums, peucedanums, seseli and athamantas.

Or in English, is it hogweed or moon carrot?

I made the mistake of not photographing the leaves. But it was on a steep slope and photographing them was a bit precarious. But it was fun.

And I have finally discovered the name of this common plant which was dotted throughout the meadows It is White false helleborine (veratum album).  It’s a member of the lily family and those leaves looks so odd on a high mountain meadow. They almost look lush and fleshy.

They remind me of cannas. And discovering they are part of the lily family it all makes sense.

Once I finally reached the signpost and the lonely building on the mountain pass I was pleased.

I thought it might be relaxing to eat my lunch and peruse the guide book and generally learn something on my day off.

But no sooner had I perched in the shade when the flies descended and worse than flies – a group of motorbikes roared up.

Grrrrr. Why do they have to shatter the peace of these mountain passes with their noisy machines?  They did turn off their motors eventually and climbed off the machines in their absurd way too overdressed for a heatwave leathers.

But I swear some of them spent more time admiring each others bikes than the view.

So I admitted defeat, climbed further up the mountain to get another view of the distant peaks and tried to block out the din.