As you walk you will discover a wild and rugged landscape, ancient schist or granite houses with roofs of lauzes, terraces or accolades, wonderful dry stone walls that testify to the hard work of our ancestors. You will also be able to meet some of the species that live on this territory: wild boars, deer, badgers, genets, martens, beavers …, observe the plants that adorn this vast garden and enjoy the extraordinary scents of the broom, heather or chestnut trees in bloom.

Please, consult the Hiker’s charter  to respect the territory that you explore.


Hikes

Order the IGN map: click here

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For hiking  lovers, kilometers of trails crisscross the territory. Here are 5 routes to guide you, but there are many other options available to you. To your cards!

“Surprise course” at Sablières

Initiated by Margriet and Willem Weenink, this course offers works scattered along the road that starts from the village to Orcières. They have already made 6 sculptures and propose to anyone wishing to participate in this project to create a work that will be integrated into the course.

Starting in front of the town hall, you can discover, the first work entitled “Vive Sablières” – “long live Sablières”.

Other works to look for:

  • La pagode
  • Le lézard
  • La buse
  • Le couple
  • L’oiseau

Le chemin de traverse

This pedagogical trail on the theme of water and the natural and cultural heritages of the valley invites us to discover the wealth traversed. The departure is made in the village, in the direction of the Bizal, then passes under the Escoudercs, joins the bridge of the Mas then back to the village by the Grimaldès (partly by the road). A variant cuts the loop at the level of the Bizal by a path in the direction of the Pont du Mas.

This road was formerly the means, for the inhabitants of the hamlets served, of going to the village. It was also used for trade with neighboring municipalities (Borne, Loubaresse, Montselgues).

Natural resources

The old chestnut groves, reservoirs of biodiversity for birds, bats or small mammals, meadows with orchids or even moors with broom previously grazed …

Cultural wealth

Our ancestors exerted considerable effort and demonstrated immeasurable ingenuity in adapting to the slope: they built terraces (or faïsses) for their crops, magnificent staircases, basins to retain water so precious , and many boulders (canals) to channel and distribute it on cultivated land. The landscape testifies to the permanent interactions between man and nature.

Strong links between nature and culture

The cavities of the chestnut trees shelter the genet, the owl hulotte and many bats …

The béalières constitute breeding areas for amphibians or dragonflies …

The ambitions of the project

Beyond the installation of educational panels to inform, the objective is to restore terraces and hydraulic management structures badly damaged by time to preserve the memory of the places, allow visitors to understand the history of these landscapes, rural societies of past centuries and above all to look to the future by safeguarding this rural heritage and relearning old techniques (training courses for renovation of calades and terraces have been organized).

The development of this trail is the result of a partnership between Beaume Drobie Rivers’ Syndicate, Sablières’ Commune and the Sablièrespointcom association. This project, supported by the State, the Ardeche Region and the General Council of the Ardèche, is part of the pedagogical program of the Natura 2000 site “Cévennes Ardéchoises” and the Sensitive Natural Area “Vallée de la Drobie”.


The circuit of the hamlets

  • Departure from the village.
  • Distance: 10.6 km
  • Difference in altitude: 1083 m
  • Markings: Yellow and White
  • Hike very difficult.
  • Document to download: télécharger

 


The balls of Gargantua

  • Departure: le Mas, under the house of Sainte Therese Couderc.
  • Distance: 14.2 km
  • Difference in altitude: 985 m
  • Marking: Yellow and white / Yellow and red
  • Hike very difficult.
  • Document to download:télécharger

Promenade Saint Thérèse des Cévennes

Circuit which passes in front of the house of Sainte Therese Couderc, the camping, the hamlet of Bizal, the church of the village, the chapel Saint Regis, the hamlet of Grimaldès, the bridge of the Mas and returns to the Mas.


Environment

Flora

The sequoia

Where: hamlet of the Mas, on the edge of the road that goes to Le Bousquet (above the house of Sainte Therese Couderc).

1sequoiagThis tree and its history appear in the book “Arbres admirables de l’Ardèche” by Jacky Reyne. His choice was based on remarkable trees, which he defined as follows: “The remarkable tree is not only an elite tree whose size or shape distinguish it from all the others. It is also the tree consecrated by a history and that a local human community recognizes as an element of its heritage … Become more or less famous, it will be entitled to the title of remarkable tree “.

According to him, here is the story of this sequoia…

“This picturesque Cévenole township located at the end of the marvelous Drobie’s valley has a sequoïa directly from the first series of introductions of the last century with its superb specimen of 8 meters of circumference, measurements that place him at the level of his colleagues Ardéchois, the most imposing. This remarkable tree is indissociable from the work of two children of this valley, two Couderc, two cousins who would each know in their domain a grandiose notoriety never denied since.

First of all Therese, Marie-Victoire who was to become the only saint ardéchoise under the name of Sainte Therese Couderc, born in 1805 in the hamlet of Mas, foundress of the Congregation of the Cenacle, died in 1885, beatified in 1951, canonized in 1970.

Then Georges Couderc born a little later in 1850 in Aubenas but whose family came from Teste Rouge village a little higher up on the ledge of the municipality of Montselgues, near Sablières, an authentic scientist of world renown who had to save the vineyard French phylloxera, thanks to its different works: obtaining new rootstocks and new grape varieties.

In any case, as far as the local tradition is concerned, she would like the Holy herself to have planted this sequoia (…).

At Sablières, in this piece of Ardeche sky and elsewhere, everyone already knows, everyone has understood that a tree, even if it is imposing as it is here, not only carries with its vigorous roots , Tons of wood, or thousands of strong or thin branches, but which also carries the hopes and dreams of men to its suspended twigs. (Admirable trees of the Ardèche, Jacky Reyne, Edition l’ardéchoise, 1999, p.169-170).


Chestnuts, broom, heath, ferns …

According to the seasons, the broom and heather give magnificent yellow or purple colors to the mountain and fill the air with their extraordinary scents.


Wildlife

Swallows (Hirondo rustia) or chimney swallows. Swallows are protected by the Nature Conservation Act of 1976.


Circaète

The circaete is a raptor specializing in hunting small reptiles, snakes and lizards.


Salamander spotted or Salamandra salamandra

3salamandreThe salamander is an endangered amphibian and is therefore protected. It has parotid glands behind the eyes (as in the toad), and dorsal glands that can excrete poisonous secretion. This can be discharged during heavy stress. Other cutaneous secretions prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi on its damp skin, so it is better not to touch them at the risk of a slight burn. The salamander can live on average about thirty years.

 

 

 


Pine Processionary Caterpillars

4chenillesThe caterpillar is the larva of a moth. The female butterflies settle in the pines to lay their eggs (packages of 150 to 300). Five to six weeks later the hatching takes place. The larvae will weave nests and eat the leaf blade of pine needles. At the last larval stage, they form a voluminous nest from which they go out at night to feed themselves, moving in procession, following a silk thread to return to the nest. At this stage they are hurting and dangerous for humans, dogs, horses, and cats. (In case your pet touches or licks these caterpillars, it is necessary to take them to the veterinarian).

In spring, always in procession, they will leave the nest to burrow into the ground, form a cocoon in which they will turn into chrysalis and then into butterfly. They produce certain damage in pine forests and measurements (mechanical, phytosanitary, biological, trapping) exist to limit their spread.


Butterflies


The river

The Drobie, with its clear waters, its rocks of granite or schist, is an enchantment. To explore with respect especially for its inhabitants that are the otter, the beaver and the trout.


With the seasons …