Geocaching at Barrage du Chatelot

Today I went geocaching with the Devin and Lucas. We had planned on finding two, but only could do one. Both caches are located by things worth seeing. One I have seen and the other I haven't. We started at the one I haven't seen - Barrage du Chatelot. Devin and Lucas haven't seen either. This is a dam on the river Doubs, just down stream from the waterfall Saut du Doubs.

We parked and started our trek at the restaurant Roches de Moran. Although only .2 km from dam, we ended up hiking 12.9 km to get there and back - about 8 miles over 4 ½ hours. (I'm not sure the total distance is completely acturate. The tree cover effects GPS reception. We were certainly walking long enough to do it. I didn't want to stop walking because of my ankle.) Lucas guided us with the GPS to the first cache and Devin actually found it. It wasn't supposed to be a hard one and turned out to be really easy. The plastic bag containing the cache was sticking out of the ground like a flag.

After finding the cache we started hiking down into the valley to go see the dam. It didn't take long to find a really cool vantage point to see the dam and lake below. Not long after this I slipped and twisted my ankle. It felt like jello, but I wanted to see the dam. We continued on. I thought about heading back and minimizing walking it, but as I write this the next day the swelling is minimal and I can walk on it. It was slow going with me hobbling, but we made it.

Down stream from the dam alongside the river was cafe. A cafe? Down here? Yep, a cafe. We thought about getting a Coke, but they only had syrup drinks. We passed. Besides, the place had a 'Deliverance' kind of feel to it. The people there had these birds pinned up. I don't know what they were exactly (geese?), but I don't think they flew. The sure did bark at us. I passed by them first before they really took notice of us. Lucas squeaked by next, but by the time Devin started to pass by they were really barking. It took Devin a while, but he got by them unscathed.

About 10 min. later we arrived at the dam. Given my bum ankle we didn't explore to much. We just kind of looked at it and rested before starting our uphill hike back to the car. The lake level looked to be about 15-20 below the top of the dam. When the level is high the water cascades over the top creating a spectacular waterfall. I pulled a picture from internet to show this. Looks pretty cool.

We made sure to look for and follow the trail signs on the way up. We lost the trail coming down and it was while we were off trail I twisted my ankle. It took us 1½ hours to trek up the valley to the car. The signs led us straight there. We were ready for rest and air conditioning.

At home I had a hard time walking from the garage into the house. Kathleen came home to see me hobbling across the driveway. After cleaning up I went to the drugstore and rented some crutches. I'm not sure how much this will cost me. Surprisingly my ankle isn't swollen all that much and there is little pain. I can walk on it now, but I use my crutches to be safe.