Montauban et la vallée de Laclaireau

From the car park beside the former forges of Montauban, follow the blue triangular markers: first the road towards Ethe, then the RAVeL (line 155), a cycle route that the RAVeL site describes as asphalt and concrete, and a path into the forest. A long forest track leads round the Laclaireau valley, passes the wayside cross of the Croix de la Cloutière and the viewpoint of the Éperons barrés, and returns by a track. The Vallée de Laclaireau nature reserve, created by the Walloon government in 2005, covers about 3.4 ha of the valley; Visit Ardenne says the valley is magnified by autumn. At the end of the tourist board's walk, a series of small cascades runs down the hillside over crons, the Gaume word for petrifying springs and the tufa they build; the mapped springs lie 80 to 90 m from our line, a few hundred metres from the start.

It is 12.6 km round with 180 m of ascent; allow about 3½ hours. The grade is Moderate on our scale, which goes by time: the high point is 339 m, 59 m above the start, and most of the way (70%) is forest track. The tourist boards give it as 11 km, 4 h, average (Visit Ardenne) and 13.8 km, 4½ h, hard, with 250 m of ascent (VISITWallonia); this line is the marked loop mapped in OpenStreetMap. VISITWallonia says the waymarking is in places imperfect and advises downloading the GPX track.

For beater hunts, hunters can ask for movement in woods and forests to be banned on the days and in the places where hunting is dangerous; the Walloon government's page on forest use says official posters with a red background mark the ban at the ends of public paths and tracks, and asks walkers to stay on the paths, keep dogs on a lead and make no fire. The government's ChasseOnWeb map, normally updated daily, listed hunts with closure of public paths around the start and on the north-east and south-east sides of this loop on 11 October 2026, and others without closure along about half of it; the notice gives the dates, and only the posters at the forest entrances have legal force. The Maison du Tourisme de Gaume lists the Montauban site, with its forges and keep, as free to enter.

The start is a mapped car park beside the forges, on the Rue de Montauban at Buzenol (commune of Etalle); OpenStreetMap shows no fee information for it. The Centre d'Art Contemporain du Luxembourg belge, which runs the exhibitions on the site, says on its practical page that there is a free car park near the pond, that it is not served by public transport and that the nearest station is Marbehan, 13 km from the site.

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.