Pic St. Loup – Department Hérault, France

Time for your morning sunrise shots!

Another glorious start to a French day.

Sun baths the Rock.

Later on, the forecast has called for high winds so we decide to hike instead of bike.

Pic St. Loup is the prominent future in these parts and it must be summited! The climb doesn’t look like much from this image but it requires a goodly amount of town time when climbed from Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréviers.

Along the way, century’s old ruins of course. In this case the ruins are Château de Montferrand.

As we climb the ridge to Pic St. Loup we get nice views of the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

We were climbing along the leeward side of the winds and with some nice thick trees, there was not much wind along the trail.

What a nice day!

The ruins were mostly open and I loved the sign at the bottom….. basically it translates to “don’t be stupid”.

You can see these ruins from many miles away. I have visited the area many times but this is my first visit to these ruins.

Across the way you can see Pic de l’Hortus which we climbed a few days ago.

According to the sign, at one time these ruins were over 100 feet tall.

I was exploring the ruins across the way and my photo director summoned me to take this photograph.

Below is the village of Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréviers where I’m assuming the servants for this Château lived. Someone needed to haul food and water up to this place and it defiantly was not going to be Monsieur Montferrand.

In the distance you have the Mediterranean Sea near Montpellier.

As we moved toward the peak, the route got rather spicy at times.

Mark and Anne wanted to renew their vows in the mountain top chapel but unfortunately no pastor was available.

Summit views looking north. These are the areas where we frequently ride and I have tons of Pic St. Loup photography. While we had almost no wind on the trail, as we approached the summit you could hear the roar of a jet engine. The wind was whipping over the top.

Looking over towards Lauret and Pic de l’Hortus. One thing you can’t get a sense for in these images is the sheer drop-off just a few feet away.

Anne careful peaks over the edge.

Back down we go, what a wonderful way to spend a breezy day.