Buoux: Along the Upper Aiguebrun Valley, Beaum de l'Eau and Sivergue.

It’s well worth the 25 minutes drive from Cucuron to the Aiguebrun valley (park at the last car park before the Restaurant/Hotel Seguin) to discover a totally new “face” to the Luberon mountains. You will also find that this area has been inhabited by people from a very long time back. A kind of cultural trek.

This walk has recently been extended to be a whole day walk (5-6h), but the full route description is not yet written. You must simply follow the GPX-file or the information from the VisoRando link.

When you come to the end of the road to Seguin (just before the private road crosses the river to the Hotel), you start off on the dirt road to the right marked yellow and red, going into the forest right here. After a few minutes, you leave the dirt road (follow yellow and red markings) and you will soon come to a bridge crossing the river Aiguebrun. This is a popular place to take a closer look at the river.

The Aiguebrun valley - you follow high up on the sunny side.

Since it’s winter, we want to have the morning sun, so continue across the bridge and walk over to the yellow signpost (just before the locked iron gates to the Hotel – new in 2018), where you turn right up the hill. Follow this wonderful old carriage road turning and winding up to the top of the hill (still a few yellow & red markers), where you turn right and follow an unmarked path along the top of the mountain side.

About 10 minutes along this ridge, you see a beautiful old Bori structure in stone on the left and walking another 15 minutes look out for the next point of attraction, which is well hidden below. On the map it’s called “la Baume de l’Eau and you see a very small cairn on the main path, which you leave here for a quick look “down under”, where you will find an old large water basin inside the mountain side.

La Baume de l'Eau

Walk back up to the main path and continue another 15 minutes, or till you meet another large old carriage road, coming from Apt going down to the river (again yellow and red markings). You don’t want to cross the river just yet, however, unless you want to cut the walk by about 1 hour. You should now have walked about 1h 20min and cutting down over the river here will only leave you another 1h 40min back to the car.

Waterfall just before you turn around high up in the Aigubrun Valley.

Walking on this old carriage road down towards the river, take the first major path on the left after only a few minutes. You are now entering a wild life protected area and follow the path parallel to the river. Take the second right hand path after about 10 minutes, and you will soon join the path next to the river Aiguebrun. After only about 5 minutes, you will pass a 2 meter water fall and just afterwards, there is a large area of the river where you can pass over (often dry here, but could be lots of water just after rain fall).

Sivergues

Just after the river crossing, you get to a large grass field and you see a sign post. Take the path going up the wooden steps to the right up the hill and start walking back down the river. This is quite a nice old road and after 10 minutes you meet a second sign post. Here you turn right (or rather straight on) and continue further downstream until the main path turns sharp right down to the river. Walk down and cross the river at the bottom (you might want a stick to better balance on the rocks).

Chantebelle between Sivergues and Seguin.

You are now back on the lower path along the river (right side) and you follow this close to the river till you join up with the large old carriage road (yellow and red markers). You will soon come down to a place where it is easy to cross the river for the last time. From here, just follow the red & yellow markers first down the river a short bit, then turning left up to the small village of Sivergues where you will be in less than 30 minutes from the river crossing.

Still inhabited house just after Chantebelle.

Since this is a winter walk, I don’t take any of the paths marked for Seguin from here. They are excelent for summer because they follow closely the river almost all the way back to the car. For more sun shine, however, follow the lowest tarmac road leaving Sivergues going almost south. It will be marked for Chantebelle, perhaps in places. You follow the tarmac road in winding turns, but the tarmac stops after 15 minutes. After about 30 minutes leaving Sivergues, you walk into Chantebelle and you see an old big flat sign telling you to turn right down this track for Seguin. You now starts on perhaps some of the the nicest parts of this road as it is turning and winding its way back to Seguin. After about 25 minutes you meet up with the dirt road that you were on this morning, so just follow this down to the car.

Summer Walk

On a hot summer day, you could easily twist this walk to obtain maximum shade. From Seguin, you need to take the shady side of the valley, so you start the walk in the oposite direction of what is shown on the GPX-file (or on the VisoRando-link). You will be walking high up on the old road between Seguin and Sivergue (quite well shaded in the morning) and you will be arriving in Sivergue in about 1h. From Sivergue you follow the PR-trail down into the valley (as shown on the GPX-trace) and you keep following the river all the way up to the old outdoor cinema, just north of Plan Neuf (see map). This will take you another good 1h30min. Here you could lunch under one of the old large trees. (With a group, this could easily take 3h.)

For the return walk to Seguin, you do not follow the GPX-trace (unless you like the heat or it's a cool day). You return the way you came, along the river, but when you reach the point where you came down from Sivergue (on the PR-route, or about 45min.), you take strait on and continue following the river. When you come to the first "opening" after this point (about 5 min.), I suggest you take a right turn into the low woods. You cross onto the other side of the river and follow the rocky "falaise" much closer. Keep going along the path on the other side till you see a large "opening" on the other side of the river with water running in several places and a big water pool at the end. Cross over again here and find the path slightly higher up.

It will take you another 45 minutes to reach Seguin, but with a group, the return from the lunch spot could easily take 2h.

Basic information:

Duration:       6h (incl. 1h lunch break)

Distance:      16 km.

Ascent:         350 m

Difficulty:      Medium (river crossings, read text)

Start/finish:   Auberge Hotel Restaurant Seguin

Map:             IGN 3243 OT (1cm=250 m)

GPX-file:       Buoux3 (link to free download fromlist)

VisoRando Lien.

Pour le fichier GPX, vous pouvez télécharger à partir d'ici (voir ci-dessus) ou mettre à jour via ce lien VisoRando où vous pourrez également voir l'itinéraire sur une bonne carte:

https://www.visorando.com/randonnee-/3138564

For the GPX-file, you could download from here (see just above) or go to this VisoRando link where you also will see the route on a good map.

If you have problems with this VisoRando link, download the GPX-file from above and import it to VisoRando or other application.

Buoux: Chateau Buoux and along the Aiguebrun river.

The l'Aiguebrun river

This is a very nice walk along the “inner” landscape of Luberon. It takes about 6 hours including an hour for lunch. But it require good knowledge of map reading and keeping directions. You start in the small village of Buoux and walk passed the restored Chateaux Buoux and down into the l’Aiguebrun river valley (l’Aiguebrun is the only river in the Luberon mountain that does not dry up in summer, with many small “pools” along its way.) You follow the river upstream for almost an hour before turning back along the top of the cliffs west of the river.

Interesting sights along the way (sometimes a small detour) will be “le Fort de Buoux”, la Baume de l’Eau cave and the small village of Sivergues. The latter will only apply if you change the main walk to include Sivergues instead of the last bit of the river walk after the hotel/restaurant Seguin. It would be ideal to do the Sivergues walk outside the summer season, when it gets a bit hot.

Park the car in the visitor’s car park in the village of Buoux. Walk passed the Town Hall and another 150 meters on the road, direction south. Here you take right along a yellow marked dirt road and you will walk the 3 km. over to Chateau Buoux in about 45 minutes. Walk down to the Chateau and walk passed down the road straight south. After only about 1.5 km., you meet the main road going into the l’Aiguebrun valley. Turn left and follow the road 1.2 km until you have just passed over the next bridge over the river.

Just after this bridge, you have a large car park down on your left. Walk down into the car park and take the path along the river at the end of the car park. The number of cars parked here is normally people doing mountain climbing in the vertical cliffs on the other side of the river.

When you get to the point where the path crosses the river (no problems unless it has just been raining), you do just that unless you want to spend an hour or so to see the famous “Fort de Buoux”. At this point, you have just passed a small path on your right up to the road. Turn around and find the path and the road, and walk on to the Fort de Buoux, which is signposted to the right from the main road a bit further on.

The river path continues on the northern side of the river all the way up to the Hotel/Restaurant Seguin, and further. At Seguin, you have to decide whether to continue along the river (fine for summer and hot weather) or take the old road up to the small village of Sivergues. This will be a detour and will make the walk about 1 hour longer and the total ascent 170 meters extra.

For Sivergues, you go back over the river by the car bridge at Seguin and follow initially the marked path. Stay on the dirt road upwards, however, and do not leave the road like the marked path does. Only 5 minutes up from the bridge, GR9 comes up from the left just before a sharp right hand turn. Do not follow the GR9 around this bend, but take the dirt road that turns left here and follow this along, past Chantebelle (25 minutes from bridge) and on to Sivergues. Just stay on the old road around all the curves and bends, and you arrive in Sivergues after about 55 minutes. You arrive just underneath this lovely village, and you now want the path marked Aiguebrun and Seguin on the same signpost. After perhaps a browse around the village, you take this yellow path straight down to the river. It takes about 15 minutes down to a very sharp left bend in the path. Now walk on another 3-4 minutes before you cross the river at the same point as the people coming directly from Seguin along the river path. At this spot, the mountain wall hangs a bit over the yellow marked path, and you turn right down towards the river (yellow cross on the tree) and cross the river over to a small opening.

The Buoux river valley

Now, for the people who want to skip Sivergues. Walk straight on through the open area of the Hotel/Restaurant Seguin. Walk between the Bavette and the swimming pool and turn left just behind the buildings up to the main path that follows the river here. You will soon join the GR9 for a bit, but just having passed the “bridge” across the river, turn to the left down into the actual riverbed. Follow the path that goes along the eastern bank of the river upstream (not marked). You have to climb a bit at one point, but take your time. If you do not fancy following the riverbank upstream, just follow the GR9 a bit longer uphill, and turn left along the yellow marked trail for Sivergues. The latter will also be the quickest route.

The people following the riverbed path, will soon join the yellow marked path for Sivergues, and after a good 10-15 minutes’ walk, you should look for the place to cross the river, described from the opposite direction above. If you are not sure, walk to the sharp bend on the yellow path (right hand bend in this direction), and turn around and walk back the 3-4 minutes it takes.

Now the more difficult bit starts, by walking up hill from the little opening on the second small path to the left. Walk through the bushes uphill, but soon take the right hand turn along a cliff shelf and further around its corner. Well around the cliff corner, follow the path at the same height for about 5 minutes until you reach an inlet in the mountain with a bit of trees (do not turn left after only 2 minutes).

Continue the path upwards to the the built up “road”. Taking the “road” to the right, you see immediately the large open cave. People have been living here for 20.000 years. Turning left on the “road” brings you up to the path that goes along the cliff top. Soon you will meet an even larger trail along the cliff top and you will soon be out into the open. Just follow the trail along side the various fences.

Bori along the cliff top

You pass a small cairn on the left, and it’s here you can go down a bit to take a look at the small basin called la Beaum de l’Eau as a small detour of 5 minutes.

At the end of the fields, the trail goes down to the left and soon meets up with the GR9 that comes up from Hotel/Restaurant Seguin and continues all the way back to the car at the village of Buoux.

If you for some reason have problems finding your way up the steep mountain side and up to the path that goes along the cliff top, stay down on the yellow trail along the river and walk back  down towards the Hotel/Restaurant Seguin. The yellow trail will meet the GR9 in the forest just before Seguin, and simply follow the GR9 (signposted for Buoux) up the hill behind Seguin and then on to Buoux, where the car is parked.











This walk in hot summer weather.

This is a truely great walk in hot weather (30 degrees max. no problem). You simply need to do a few alterations:

Start the walk at the small parking at the start of Route de Chateau Buoux (in the intersection with Route de Seguin). This is also very close to Prieure de Saint-Symphorien. The walk starts now straight north towards Chateau Buoux, but it makes sure you get the whole afternoon's walk in good shade all the way back to the car.

Drop the extra 2km walk "around" Les Esconfines and walk straight accross from Chateau Buoux to the Village of Buoux via Chapelle Saint-Marie. This makes the walk 2km shorter.

Start early in the morning, not later than 9h.

Basic information:

Duration:        6h ( 7h by Sivergues)

Distance:        16 km. (18 km. by Sivergues)

Ascent:           250m (400m by Sivergues)

Difficulty:       Moderate (some difficult passages, but alternative given)

Start/finish:     The village of Buoux

Map:                IGN 3243 OT (1cm=250 m)

GPX-file:        Buoux2 (link to free download fromlist)

VisoRando Lien.

Pour le fichier GPX, vous pouvez télécharger à partir d'ici (voir ci-dessus) ou mettre à jour via ce lien VisoRando où vous pourrez également voir l'itinéraire sur une bonne carte:

https://www.visorando.com/randonnee-/3135442

For the GPX-file, you could download from here (see just above) or go to this VisoRando link where you also will see the route on a good map.

If you have problems with this VisoRando link, download the GPX-file from above and import it to VisoRando or other application.

TET:

21.06.2021 Bjorn: Overaskende populær tur i så varmt vær (15 stk). Nesten alle skrøt den opp i skyene. Vi var aldri for varme da vi tok "sommerturen" beskrevet ovenfor. Startet kl. 9h, lunch på stor flott skyggefull gresslette rett etter å ha krysset elven kl. 11.45. Returen til Seguin tok 1h og det tok enda 1h ned til bilene kl. 15h.

Sisteron (Authon): Les Monges – The ultimate Crête Walk

Les Monges

This is, in my opinion, the No.1 hike in this blog so far! In other words, not to be missed.

Just some 25 km east of Sisteron, you have the longest crête (mountain ridge) I have encountered that could easily be accessed by hikers. It starts off with Montagne de Jouere, continues eastwards to Les Monges (2115 meters) and swings back westwards to end as Crête de Pierre-Mont. The 15 km long crête has another 6 names along its way. This walk covers 10 km of the crête and out of the 7 hours the walk will take (including 1 hour for lunch), you will spend a good 5 hours up on the crête with fantastic views in all directions.

The walk itself is also a great pleasure to do, not only because of the good hiking conditions, such as a very good system of sign posting and markings along the route, but also because of the type of ground you walk on most of the way: grassy slopes. This must be one of my top 3 walks I have ever done!

From Sisteron you drive into the Valee de Jabron, signposted already from exit 22 on the A51 motorway. The road you want is the D3 and it starts on the eastern side of the river Durance (signposted for Authon). It will take you about 30 minutes to drive up to Authon along this magnificent old Roman road. In the middle of the tiny village of Authon, you turn left and after only some 200 meters on the surfaced road, you take the right onto a gravel road. Drive on for about  2 km (take care of bumps in the road) to find the tiny parking called la Peyrouse (here is a signpost for walkers: Sommet de Monges – 6.5 km – 3h).

The walk starts by crossing the river here, so if it’s a lot of water in the river, don’t put on the boots till you are dry and sound on the other bank. (Alternatively, you follow the forest road for another 800 meters, where you turn right onto another forest road. You take a second right turning after a few hundred meters and follow the forrest road up to a U-turn. Here you can join the marked path for Les Monges. In fact, the GPX-file is made using this route.) The path is well signposted as it’s the GR6 that comes from Athon and takes you up through the dense forest for the first 35 minutes. Here, the GR6 takes off to the right and does a loop called “Tour des Monges”, which could be an alternative return route from Les Monges. (This return do not cut down on the total time of the walk (we used a good 7 hours), but could be an interesting alternative in certain bad weather conditions.) You will turn left here, however, and continue the path, now with yellow markers, another 5 minutes till you are on the Crête itself.

Les Monges - Le Sommet

The crête is very comfortable to walk along all the way up to Les Monges. Most of the way, you walk on grassy slopes with a bit of stones and rocks in between. The views all around you are just breathtaking. You end up coming onto a type of grassy plateau just before the mountain top, and you see the path going up the last 100 meters at an angle in the beginning. You will reach the top of Les Monges in about 2h 40min from the car. Up here, there is an amazing landscape of small grassy fields mixed with large rocky surfaces. No problems finding a nice place for lunch with shelter from the wind. 

By ending the walk on the summit of Les Monges, returning the way you came up, you will cut the walk by about 1 hour, as the return to the car from here is about 2 hours.

It could take a good 45 minutes to walk from the top of Les Monges across the whole summit, passed the Sommet de Coste Bell and down to the next signpost. But there is a lot of interesting rock formations and lot’s to photograph.

Crete du Raus and Serriere des Cabanes from Les Monges

There is another 1 hours walk along the Crête to the next signpost at the 1744 meter point (Col de la Sapie), but take great attention to the steep descent in the beginning because it’s easy to slip on the small stones.

At Col de la Sapie (1744 meters), you turn left and follow for La Peyrouse (where the car is parked). It’s says 4 km - 1h 30 min to La Peyrose on the sign, but they have changed the main path, which now takes a more direct route, so we used 1 hour back down to the car. It takes about 30 minutes on the new path down to the forest road. The new path was not on my IGN map, but it’s very well made and well signposted with yellow marks. Down on the forest road, you turn left and simply walk another 30 minutes along this road back down to the car.

Basic information:

Duration:        7h (including 1h for lunch)

Distance:        14 km.

Ascent:           870 m (accumulated)

Difficulty:        Medium + (mainly because it's a long and hard walk!

Start/finish:     Authon (la Peyrouse)

Map:               IGN 3339 ET
GPX-file:         Sisteron1  (Free download from list)

VisoRando Lien.

Pour le fichier GPX, vous pouvez télécharger à partir d'ici (voir ci-dessus) ou mettre à jour via ce lien VisoRando où vous pourrez également voir l'itinéraire sur une bonne carte.

For the GPX-file, you could download from here (see just above) or update through this VisoRando link where you also will see the route on a good map:

https://www.visorando.com/randonnee-/2785512

If you have problems with this VisoRando link, download the GPX-file (Gineste1) from above and import it to VisoRando or other application.

TET

14.06.2021: 7 stk i 2 biler. Peruis 8.00, Depart rando 9.45, Sommet 12.45 - 13.55. Helt nede fra Sommet 15.00 (litt tregt), tar av fra Crete 16.00, Bilene 17.10. Varmen helt grei. Prøv neste gang å gå motsatt vei for å unngå den bratte nedstigningen (med mye løs småstein) fra le Sommet.