Did Cezanne just paint it, or did he climb it too?

Montagne Sainte-Victoire according to Cezanne.

Trail maps, like most other things in France, are not at all like they are in America.

Case in point: a day hike up Mount Saint Victoire.

The victims of bad French map to American map understanding: Zach, Me, Karinne, and Haley

Hours spent lost: 1.5

Hours hiked: 4

Hours it felt like we hiked: 8

Here is the story.

Zach and I woke up with the crowing roosters to borrow an awesomely detailed trail map from my friend Maggie, then to meet up with Haley and Karinne to take the bus to the foot of the mountain. This is Zach enojoying the bus ride, not knowing that in just hours, he will be wind-swept, slightly wet, and exhausted.

Ahhhh. The view of a quiet lake that spread before us the moment we stepped off the bus. We could see the lake on the map, which led us to believe we had conquered the map and actually knew what we were doing. Wrong.

The peak a.k.a. our ultimate destination. Little did we know that we were seeing the peak from the wrong perspective at this point-- we actually should have been looking at it from the other side. With our destination in sight, we hardly cared what color the trail markers were and that they didn't match the map, as long as we were headed in the general direction of up.

So-- insert your imagination here-- as I have no pictures of what ensued. To our bewilderment, the trail we were following suddenly ended just as we had climbed above the tree line. We could see the peak, but could see no plausible way to get there.

"If we just keep going up from here, it doesn't look that bad," said Haley, pointing at the rock face rising before us.

"Yeah-- its only about 70 verticle degrees up, we could totally do that," replied Zach in a tone that could have been construied as serious or sarcastic.

I took him for serious, and commenced a hands and knees climb up the face for about 500 feet with Karinne, Zach, and Haley in tow behind me. We kept laughing and repeating ourselves ("This definitely isn't the right trail!"), but we kept going too, as going down was not an option after we started up.

Our French savoirs, who I dubbed "couple". They were so kind, and hardly laughed at me as I came stumbling over the ridge, panting, and yelled almost straight down to Karinne, Haley, and Zach with a huge smile on my face, "I see people! I SEE PEOPLE!!". The man of "couple" showed us the blue markers (the trail we should have been following all along), and even offered to guide us the rest of the way to the top.

Zach and I enjoying actually seeing trail markers and feeling as if we knew where we were going.

The view from the very top. Wow. The mountain is only 3,000 feet tall, but it is by far the highest peak of the region.

Trouble was brewing. After eating our picnic lunch, I noticed goosebumps starting to creep up my legs. It may have been the feeling of a storm in the air, or the sudden 20 degre drop in temperature. We soon found ourselves admist the clouds as small droplets of water began hit our faces and the wind made it difficult to fully open my eyes.

Where we had been. Surprising, even though we followed the correct trail all the way down, it was much harder to go down than up. It requires every ounce of concentration to place your feet in such a way so you won't end up on your butt with every steep, rocky step.

This tiny blue marker, on a rock off the main road, indicated the trail we were suppose to take. When we saw it, we laughed, then made fun of the French ("Stupid baguettes! Stupid expensive coffee! Stupid trail maps with stupid itty-bitty markers!") for a solid 5 minutes.

Seemingly like every experience I have here, Mount Saint Victoire was something I'm so glad I did because of the challenges. We only got a little lost, a little wet, and a little tired, but gained so much more in learning and living.

Zach and I promptly napped for 2.5 hours when we got home, and if I can walk tomorrow normally, I'll be surprised.