GT Newperson CycleTours

Tour d’Ardêche

From 12th to 19th June 2004, the Tour d’Ardêche will be based between the spectacular Ardêche Gorges, which the Ardêche river has cut deep into the limestone Plateau des Gras, and the quiet wooded hills and deep valleys of the Cevennes mountains.

We will be staying in the gites of the Château de la Selve at 100 metres in the wide and level valley of the Chassezac river which emerges from its gorges to flow beside the Cevennes into the Ardêche river.

Ruom

There are small villages in the Chassezac valley and the nearest towns of Ruoms at 10 kilometres and Vallon-Pont-d’Arc at 14 kilometres at the head of the Ardêche gorge.

From its source at about 1400 metres, the Ardêche river flows steeply east to the town of Aubenas before turning south through the wide Défilés de l’Ardêche valley past Balazuc and Ruoms between the Vivrais Cévenol and the Plateau de Gras to its confluence with the Chassezac.

Balazuc and the Ardêche défilés

Balazuc and the Ardêche défilés

We can cycle up the narrow river valleys of the Chassezac, the Borne, the Beaume and the Drobie, or along the 1100 metre Corniche du Vivrais Cévenol, into the heart of the Vivrais Cévenol up to the Cols of Meyrand at 1370 metres and Croix de Bauzon at 1308 metres, which divide the waters of the Mediterranean from those of the Atlantic.

The Cevennes rise for more than 1300 metres to the Massif du Tanargue and to Mont Lozère in the Cevennes National Park, which is centred around the peaks of Mont Lozère and Mont Aigoual and extends from the Tarn Gorges in the west to the Chassezac river in the east. This national park has also been designated a ‘Biosphere reserve’, which does not especially contribute towards an understanding of why Robert Louis Stevenson brought a small donkey with him on his Travels in 1879.

Ardêche gorge and Cevennes from Plateau de Gras

Where it meets the Chassezac, the Ardêche river then turns east into the gorges for 25 kilometres through the Plateau de Gras to the Rhône river. The road runs along the top of the gorge and it is possible to walk or paddle a canoe down the river in the gorge.

On the south side of the gorge is the limestone Orgnac plateau, 300-400 metres up between the Chassezac and the Rhône, with numerous caves containing spectacular rock formations and prehistoric graffiti.

To the north of the Ardêche gorge is the wild and empty Plateaux de Gras, including the ‘Bois Sauvage’, with views across the gorge to the Cevennes and across the Rhône river to Mont Ventoux.