While up at Font d’Urle we went on the recommended Karst track walk.
It’s around a 2 hour walk at the top of the cliffs, exploring crevasses and caves and learning about the history and current life on the plateau.
Dave scrambled down into a large cave chamber, 56 metres down into the darkness, where ice used to stay in the summer, tales say the shepherds would leave sheep carcasses there, using it as a fridge.
There were other caves that the shepherds used to use as shelter in the storm – staying safe until the danger of walking off the cliff edges in the storms/fog had passed.
We didn’t see the Patou dogs that day – but they are raised with the sheep and guard them on the mountain sides from predators, like the wolves that are back in the region.
We took stairs down in between to enormous pieces of rock, starting as a hairline crack and then forming a large crevasse as they fill with water creating a landslide.
It’s a great walk to do if you’re in the region, worth taking the info booklet around with you so you can read the stories as you go. There’s some good wildlife spotting to be done too – vultures and alpine choughs.