Alpinism

We came a little south and west, to what has turned out to be the best mountain walking area, that I think we have ever been in.

Arrival was during a particularly unsettled day and it wasn’t at all obvious that this village is in the most dramatic setting but there were a few signs.

We had a night of heavy rain but not before we’d had long chats with the owners of this 130 with their homemade living accommodation, sitting on the back of a crew-cab late model TD5.

He apparently made a lifting roof for his Land Rover 109 (so 1970s) and drove it and his family around Africa.

They are from Brittany and have come to present a paper or chair a discussion (couldn’t work out what) at a nearby conference over the weekend.

We eventually determined that they are both geographers and are trying to ensure that Brittany doesn’t turn into Cornwall. Incomers, money, increasing tourism are all putting pressure on the area. I expect they said “measures to mitigate pressures on the shoreline” but my French isn’t good enough 🤣

The mountains go straight up from here. As I type I can hardly look up it’s so ‘vertical’. The village, whilst having some ski lifts, seems to be a walker and alpinist base and it’s refreshing to be in the buzz after some sleepy ski only places.

It’s another municipal campsite, so very economical and ‘basic’ but it has been popular over the weekend. The best bit is that everyone goes quiet at dark, so 10:30pm. Also we are all a bit cream crackered by then too.

Walking up into the mountains is hard. It’s always hard in the alps as the valley sides are steep. We are somewhat acclimatised and had a quick up and down after arrival and saw someone on a zip (Tyrolean).

Luckily on Saturday the telecabine was open, to lift us from the village. It’s a 600m ascent and saves a lot of legs. From there we did a classic walk right up to Col de la Vanoise and the refuge, at 2,516m. This is a superb climb, right in the proper mountains.

It is really a slog to walk up as it’s so steep but we are ‘fit’ now and passed people all the way up to Lac des Vaches. This has the longest set of steeping stones that I have ever seen.

We ate pastries from the boulangerie when above there and then the usual baguette, tomato, cheese and apple when right at the top.

There is plenty of snow in huge patches and we had to walk on lots of it. Fortunately we had two walking poles between us although only one has the snow thing at the bottom. The other pole just pushes in!

The major view, if there is just one, is La Grand Casse (3,855m) and down the front are two glaciers. There was new snow on the dome from the previous rain and we looked up with binoculars to see ‘Alpinists’ walking down the incredibly steep face from the summit that was still over 1,000m above us.

That’s algae on the rock!

We managed the walk as a partial round trip and rejoined the outward route halfway back but continued all the way to the valley. It was a big day. Total distance was 17km with 736m gain and 1,267m lost as we walked all the way down.