P1 - Les Gros Bois - 8km

The Profonde Voie witnessed many acts of violence: it was here that, on August 22, 1914, a first German column entered Porcheresse, setting the houses on fire. The villagers were locked up until the following day in the last house, beyond the cemetery.

The Croix de Bernitienne (a locality beyond Fontenelle) is a wrought-iron roadside cross; there are roadside crosses at every exit of the village, crosses that protected the fields and travelers. A straight, gentle climb crosses the Gros Bois, a beautiful beech forest whose wood was used by the many clog makers in Porcheresse, in whose memory the villagers created a museum. The Gros Bois hides a mystery: a stone-lined well, about 11 meters deep, difficult to spot. It is said to be the last trace of an old hermitage. According to legend, old bells toll mournfully in this well on winter nights, and it is also said that the treasure of Guillaume de la Marck, Baron of Lumain, the “Boar of the Ardennes,” was once hidden there.

Descent toward the Pont des Gades in Gembes. Without crossing the bridge, the route follows the right bank of the Almache upstream along the Rwasse d’Our. This is the former route of the Wellin–Graide local railway. A few meters higher up, behind the houses, remains the trace of the old path that linked the Pont des Gades to Lalou, north of Porcheresse. The Rwasse d’Our was once a very active area: traces can still be found of a quarry, a sawmill, and the “moulin du mortier,” an old oil mill. As in many valleys, hay meadows were irrigated from the Barè stream by channels that can still be made out in the landscape, for example at the foot of the Roche à Mortier, a viewpoint over the Almache valley.

Near a rocky crevice, the track becomes a footpath to climb the Roche à Mortier. A winding route, under conifers and among broom, leads to the heights of the Barè valley. The storms of 1990 devastated part of these plantations. This is the territory of Lalou, or the “alleu.” An “alleu” was free land, exempt from all feudal obligations.