Chaos de Huelgoat et Roche tremblante

Huelgoat

Below the town of Huelgoat, the rivière d'Argent flows between heaped granite boulders. The chaos arose from a fissured Hercynian granite, which water ate away along its joints in the Miocene and Pliocene; in the cold periods of the Quaternary, mudflows carried off the sand and left the sound blocks. The most famous is the Roche tremblante, a block of more than a hundred tonnes that rocks under the simple pressure of a hand, if one finds the exact point to press. Next to it, the Ménage de la Vierge shows a cauldron, a ladle and a stone bed. Tradition explains the jumble of blocks differently. Paul Sébillot reported in 1904 that Gargantua, badly received by the people of Cornouaille, threw the stones of the Léon while playing quoits ‘from Plougastel to Huelgoat’. Tourisme Bretagne tells a variant in which the giant, disappointed by a buckwheat porridge, takes revenge by throwing the rocks he found on his way. Quarrymen nearly caused the Roche tremblante to disappear. The chaos has been protected since the early 20th century and is among the geological sites of interest of Brittany. The same wood shelters the Camp d'Artus, a Gaulish oppidum of thirty hectares.

DREAL Bretagne — site d'intérêt géologique « Chaos du Huelgoat » ↗

Getting there: Below the town of Huelgoat, downstream from the lake, on the left bank of the rivière d'Argent. Car parks beside the lake and near the Moulin du Chaos. Waymarked woodland path to the Roche tremblante, the Ménage de la Vierge, the Grotte du Diable and the Camp d'Artus. Free access all year; rocks slippery in wet weather. Monts d'Arrée tourist office.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound