Laforêt et la Roche à Saloru

From the car park at the south end of Laforêt, walk up through the village of schist houses and former tobacco-drying sheds and follow the green rectangles west to the Roche à Saloru, where a viewing tower looks over the valley of the Semois. The way drops past Le Chêne Plié, loops north through the woods and tracks of the Semois valley, and comes back to the village by lanes.

It is 7.1 km round with 182 m of ascent, counted on the unsmoothed heights of our line; allow about 2¼ hours. VISITWallonia gives its green-rectangle walk from Laforêt church as 7.2 km, 2 h 30, medium, with 256 m of climbing; our ascent is 29% below that figure. The grade is Moderate on our scale: the time alone would make it Easy, but the tourist board rates the walk medium with 256 m of climbing, so we hold it at Moderate. The ground is path (37%), track (32%) and quiet road (31%), with a climb of about 90 m to the tower at 329 m, a drop to about 180 m near the Semois and a second climb of about 75 m out of the valley.

For a drive hunt (battue), hunters can ask for walkers to be kept out of the woods on the days and in the places where the hunt is dangerous; the Walloon government's page on forest use says the ban is shown by official posters with a red background, which the hunters must put where the public paths and tracks cross the hunted ground. The same page asks walkers to stay on the paths, keep dogs on a lead and make no fire. The government's ChasseOnWeb map shows only the hunts the administration knows of. The commune of Vresse-sur-Semois publishes a calendar of drive hunts by hunting lot and puts Laforêt in lot 12; it says access to the wood is strictly forbidden from after sunset two days before a hunt until the hunt day included, and the notice gives the dates of lot 12 and of lot 11, which our line touches at its far west turn.

The start is a mapped car park at the south end of Laforêt, about 300 m from the church where the tourist board starts the walk. The nearest railway station on the map is Gedinne, some 14 km away as the crow flies.

Route drawn by Global Adventurer along OpenStreetMap paths (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), with figures worked out from it. Check the forecast and the ground on the day: paths change.