Reveries of Mont Ventoux

While I was wandering in those mountains upon a Friday in Holy Week, the strong desire seized me to write an epic in an heroic strain, taking as my theme Scipio Africanus the Great, who had, strange to say, been dear to me from my childhood. But although I began the execution of this project with enthusiasm, I straightway abandoned it, owing to a variety of distractions. The poem was, however, christened Africa, from the name of its hero, and, whether from his fortunes or mine, it did not fail to arouse the interest of many before they had seen it.” (from Petrarch's Letter to Posterity (1909 English translation, with notes, by James Harvey Robinson)

I have become obsessed with Mont Ventoux. It was the one geographical, and physical presence, apart from the Rhone that I had some idea of, before transplanting to the Vaucluse. Passing on the Autoroute de Soleil it leaves an instant impression, graphic in its size and somehow mysteriously wild with its white-capped summit, that false summer crown of snow that in winter transforms into a semi-Artic landscape replete with Artic hare. Everyone who passes through the Rhone Valley will see it, even if they do not know its name or its unique history. It was in my mind as a brooding presence as we drove down to the village of Saint Saturnin-Les-Avignon; this mountain on which the Tour de France sporadically tests its heroes and sometimes breaks them. But somewhat disappointingly the house and garden, which we were renting had no view of the giant Mont. We could see it from the road below, and almost any where else we went walking or by car, but it seemed frustratingly that it was obscured by the houses and trees planted just below us.

   But now as the last leaves curling and yellowing fall off the fig tree at the back of the house I gain a sudden unexpected glimpse of the Mountain. And as the sun begins its afternoon descent and baths the summit in a subtle array of pink and violet light I register a sense of belonging. No longer will I have to climb up, out onto the bedroom windowsill, to look at the weather on the Mont Ventoux, or check how clear the air is by peering in its direction from the road. No, now I can see it without leaving the garden, by opening the back door and standing on the tiled terrace, looking up at it through the bare branches of the tree. Just its bare summit rising from the dark ridge of scrubby pines, viewed from over the rooftops and trees of our neighbour's house, but nevertheless there in all its majesty. And at night I will be able to watch the lights of cars like scattered fireflies flickering on the ridge as they descend from a nocturnal drive to the Mont’s windy heights. That is until the fig tree comes back to life and obscures the view with its opulent leaves.

  Still that leaves me plenty enough time to contemplate the Giant of Provence from our back garden and imagine what it might be like to be upon the uncanny, unfamiliar surfaces of its exposed ridge. How insufferable the heat in the summer, as you break cover from the treeline and rise into the calciferous boulder scape. Or I can recall now, as I stare up at the observatory tower which marks its peak, the only time I have been near its crown, on a full moonlit night this October. Almost clinging to the car, fearful that it might turn over as the wind hits its side at the Col des Tempétes, I clambered breathlessly up its white bare flanks with my son following carefully behind. Sometimes holding each others' hands as if to reassure ourselves that we would not fly off in the wind. And beneath our feet the crisp shards of bleached stone somehow shifting, sorted into sizes by the winds, the rain and its freezing action. On the shingly slopes just above the monument to Tommy Simpson we ascend as quickly and lightly as possible. And here we are now, under the full moon light, approaching the crest of the ridge plateau, buffeted by the wind. We see the concreted stakes marking the pathway – like pilgrim waymarkers lost in a desert – it is a strange Dantesque landscape. My son picks out a cluster of lights that seem to form themselves into a trident as we gaze down over the extended plain of the Comtat Venaissin, out towards Avignon and its orange glower. On this night the exposed flanks of la Jousserène and the precipice of the Ravin de la Cave de Diau appear, less like the powdery accumulation of inert cosmic dust that seems to make people think of the moon, and more like an exposed plateau of windswept calciferous bones, under constant chemical and physical attack, spotted with strange miniature vegetation. Hardened and tempered by the dry sun, this bone yard of stone captures the terrifying grandeur of Dante’s ascent into Purgatorio, as he looks now down at the circles of Hell, which he has somehow escaped. And indeed the shadow that the full moon seemed to be casting now gave a particular hellish gloom to the valley behind us as we stood pressed against the wind, leaning over the precipice and looking out north eastwards with watering eyes into a dark, unlit landscape. For a moment there was a feeling of utter desolation.

   It was only a few days later as I was reading a chapter of Put me back on my bike, William Fotheringham’s biography of Tommy Simpson, that this impression of the Mountain’s strange wild devastation, and its dangerous foreboding presence, was confirmed. It is worth quoting the passage for its lurid details (but why 90 sheep and why 30 goats?):

…part of the fascination of the Ventoux must derive from the hostile forces the mountain can unleash. Hurricanes could wipe out up to 90 sheep and 30 goats in one fell swoop, and flash floods could wreak havoc in neighbouring towns. The mountain was known for its wolves …its caves were reputed by local legend to lead down to hell itself. Even the very stones are to be feared when the wind gets up. In one midwinter storm in the 1970s, the body of a woman tourist was found just below the summit. The car that she and her husband were driving had been blown off the road, its windscreen smashed by a stone driven by the wind and she had then attempted to walk the few hundred metres to the observatory for help. Her body was virtually unrecognizable due to the bruises from the windblown rocks. ‘She had been stoned. Killed by the rocks. It seemed incredible,’ said a soldier stationed at the summit… (Fotheringham: 206-7) 

Walking then, through the uncertain, unfamiliar moonlight with my son, on the gently curved backbone of the mountain, following the concreted poles there is a sudden falling away into a shadowy blackness, rising up from beneath and then toppling as if into the dark void. Like Virgil guiding Dante, I stop, holding on for dear life to his hand, as the wind roars across the exposed ridge, threatening to tear us apart and grind us into the boney shards of the mountain's barren crown. Below our feet the shifting, crackling bones of a million souls. In Dante's Purgatorio, the penitent walks through flames to purge himself of lustful thought and feeling, but in the Inferno, the unforgiven lustfilled souls are blown about incessantly, in restless hurricane-like winds. Hell indeed – how odd this touch of the sublime.

Walk 4: 

L’Ane des Abeilles Sunday 13^th November

   In the foothills of Mont Ventoux, that curve gently in a bow all the way from the summit down to the Gorges de la Nesque and up again to the Monts de Vaucluse, we commence our climb, effortlessly ascending from the centre of Villes-sur-Auzon, up a small back road, that passes the cemetery and runs up the Combe de Sault. The heat from the sun still seems unseasonably intense, burning on our backs even at 2 pm. We take deep draughts of water from the metal flask. There is an overpowering odor of wild thyme, of olives, bare vines, all intermingled with the scent of dwarf mint, dried grasses and flowerheads that we brush against as we walk. Some of the grasses and flowers are still proudly drying in the sun while others dangling, their seeds falling away into the thin rocky soil hopefully. We are passing small half-terraced fields of vines with a few shriveled, drying grapes. The shattered rubble of the rock slips down the slopes on either side of the Combe. We reach a turn in the track. In front of us, a little to the right, a simple cross looks down onto a small hidden vineyard, still with their reddening leaves, that grows in a small protected bowl where the earth and moisture collects. 

   Now we turn away as if from the Mountain, and walk along the GR91 for approximately 500 metres until we come to the road, the source of much roaring of motorbikes and fast cars. Walking this way, there is always a view over the shoulder of Mont Ventoux. As we reach the embankment of the D1 road we make sure there is no convoy of bikers waiting to roar past us and cross the tarmac hurriedly. Quickly we are swallowed up in a labyrinth of scrubby trees and brushwood, a mixture of stunted deciduous oaks, and evergreen holm oaks, dwarf varieties gripping the thin rocky soil. We head upwards, trying to relocate the proper pathway, scrambling under and over the trees disordered branches, tearing our legs on the prickly leaves and twisting briars. This was not a good idea. All we seem to be doing is going further into a dense maze of tangled wood - in no time we will be completely disorientated. 
  This landscape reminds me now of the hinterland depicted in Pagnol’s stories La Gloire de Mon Père and Le Château de ma Mère, an emptied scrubby landscape that lies just beyond the towns and villages: a land that hides in its elaborate topography, extraordinary vistas, crevices, gorges, all of which conceal within its harsh brush-woods, small oases-like settlements. It is only by retracing our steps and returning to the road that we find the signed way again. Now, as we drop away from the road again, along a concealed track, we hear some bells – is it the sound of a goatherd? They seem to be coming from above on the other side but we cannot see anything. As we descend the track the bank disappears and falls away on the right, to reveal an encampment - les Escampeaux. There is something enchanting in the moment as if we were entering a forbidden paradise. It is completely silent now, the sun only reaching the far side of the valley. We strain to hear the bells again. And then we see it, at the bottom of a roughed out pasture, a donkey shaking its head. The sound of bells ringing. Around its broad grey neck hangs a cluster of bells. It is presumably irritated by some flies or other insects, and shakes its head. We stop to watch for a moment, then walk on into the sun. In the curve of this miniature, concealed valley are a few half restored houses and by their side a van, parked just off the track, with the words painted on its rusted flank - L’Ane des Abeilles. We dream now together, of having our very own donkey of the bees, to walk with, and to accompany us on our new imaginary journeys.

For you, this place, these innumerable caverns out of which seep so much dark abysmal water, far surpassed not only the gilded palaces of kings but all of life’s greatest pleasures and earth’s most bountiful harvests. Here, as devoted recluse, stripped of all clothing but that of your hair, you confronted three times ten Decembers, impervious to the cold and devoid of all fear. And because of this, the love and hope that lay deeply within your heart allayed all hunger, mitigated all cold, and rendered even your hard stone bed perfectly bearable. (Petrarch quoted Sobin: 189)