Swanage, Dorset

A warm sunny day and we headed off to Swanage as the girls wanted to do some rock climbing on the cliffs

We had passed Corfe castle on the way down to the cliffs and I had promised the girls to stop off on the way back. So we pulled into the corfe castle car park and spent a couple of hours going around the castle.

La Rosiere/ Col Petit St Bernard, France

Today we would go to la Rosiere, the idea was to make our way around to the col de petit St Bernard.

We drove around to the ski station and spent a while trying to find a place to leave the van, without being ripped off for parking.


In the end we gave in and paid. then set off up the road to the col ...  following the summer road, started off as a piste, but soon turned into a very flat long plod, with only some steeper slopes towards the end.




We made the top of the col and the monument, as well as visiting the (closed) hospis.

Then we set off back again, the best bits being the ones leaving the col. After this it was a long poleing effort.


With hindsight it would have been much better to have gone to the col de la traversette on the piste ... and then decided to go down or not to the monument.

This would be the last trip of this tour, the weather broke, and the next day we set off for home.

Col de la Sache, France

The weather front had passed over, and today was another clear day.

We would go to the end of the valley just below the station and follow it to as far as we could drive, and then head up to a refuge just past the lake.

Driving up the road we got as far as we could - just past the chalet refuge de Rosuel.  It did strike me as somewhere we could possibly stay another trip.

We left the van along with several other cars on the side of the road just where it was snowed in.
 Then set off up the road, and then over to the GR5.

The GR5 Round around to the right, and headed straight south, up into the valley

As we got to the flat area before the lake, we changed plan and decided to make out for the col up to the left, as we were early.

We went up past the chalets de la Sache, and kept going to the col.

We ran out of time ...  the col was always a bit ambitious , and so our high point was 2510 .. an iniquitous little bump .


The descent was common for the trip and we had great spring snow

Back down in the valley on the GR5 it was back on the flatter routes and we managed to keep going without poleing.


After progressing back to the van without much problem, we had made another good day and explored another area.

Les arcs, France

Today the clouds dropped down below the station and we woke up to zero visibility.

After an extra hour hanging around we decided to skin up the piste a little bit.. we would aim for the col du grand Reynard.

We headed up the red route below the teleski du Vallandry, before cutting over to the col using the blue run and then the red to the col.

We paused on the col going under the ropes and walking up the ridge a little way. We paused for lunch, and then returned the way we came up

 There was some powder away from the piste a little, that had fallen over night.

The light was very flat and it made for some interesting turns.

As we got lower and down in between the trees , the visibility became better and better, until once we were down in the station we could see all the way up the mountain to where we had turned around.

As so we went back to the apartment for a cuppa.

Col du Retour, France

The weather was due to change today, but it would not be until the afternoon.

Yesterday we had seen some valleys off the main Val d'Isere road, and close to Bourg St Maurice.

The first of these was heading due north from a bend in the road, just after a place called Plan Du Pre. We turned up a mountain road, until we could go no further and parked with some other vehicles on the side of the road.

Skis on our backs we walked up the road until we could find a track just above the road , from here the snow had drifted and we could make good progress.

After we got out of the woods we followed the road as it worked it way up the valley.
When the road crossed over to the other side and worked its way up there we stayed on the path on the left bank.

We followed this new path as it went deep up the valley, until the valley opened out.

At this point we worked our way up to the left and headed for some building we saw up on the skyline.


As it was a good day and this was a nice place to stop, but we had half an hour before the turn around time ...  time for a bit of a play, and practice some avalanche rescue techniques.

After all the messing around and a bite to eat, we prepared for the descent and more fun.

The slopes were good spring snow after the good weather we had been having and we soon dropped back down through the valley

 The road section was flat, but the track solid enough so that we did not have to do too much poleing.

Down at the bottom we could straight across the slopes higher up and miss the road  but we did have to avoid the avalanche debris.

A good day, and a new area explored a little bit more, even though we did not make a summit.

Travel day,. France

Our time at the gite had finished ..  we wanted to go and spend some time up near Val d'Isere and explore what it had to offer..

We drove out to Grenoble, up to Albertville and around to Bourg St Maurice, before heading up to Val d'Isere. We arrived just at lunchtime, so while we waited for the tourist information to reopen we wondered around, and took in the opulence of everything there ... even the parking cost us.

Looking in the tourist information, showed us that there was not many gites advertised and they were keen to get us into ski accommodation. Very expensive ski accommodation. There must be Gites around but we had not been able to find information easily .. no mobile internet in these days.

We dropped back down the valley and looked into Bourg St Maurice.. they were the same but not so expensive, however they did indicate a new area, Vallandry, and we gave in and took an apartment for the rest of the week, and into the next ... this part week we would find in the coming years hard to repeat.

We drove up to Vallandry, and checked in ...  a very concrete dormitory village serving the ski area of Les Arcs.


We had a small 4 person apartment with two bunks in the corridor and a bed sofa in the main room, and a little cooking corner.

Home for the next few days, we carried our kit up the 3 flights of stairs and settled in.

La Grave, France

 More good weather, and time for a bit of stretching the skiing.. Off to La Grave.

We went to the top of the bubble lift and and came down the route to the left after the initial slope.

this took us down to the refuge area, and then ot the middle station (the bottom runs were short of snow).

After this we went up to the top again form here we went up to the drag lifts on the glacier above ... just in time to see the tractor drag come over from Les Deux Alps.

We went to the highest point with the idea to drop from the top to the bottom, in one go.

 This time we dropped to the right as we came down. and went down the valley under the Meige.

Another good day and tired and well exercised we stopped as the sun started to go down.

La Gardiole, France

Another good day in prospect. We chose to go to explore the north of Briancon. One area in particular was around Col De Granon.. from here there would be easy access to the ridge and the tops along it.

Where we would go would depend on how far up the road we could get.

As it turned out we could get up to the airstrip, but the pastures on each side were very patchy, so we dropped back down to the picnic site, which also had a good area to park.

We could also get on the path through the woods, and hopefully find a route that was still covered in snow.

We came out of the woods just below the col, and followed the road to it. From the col we cut left up the ridge as it gently rose towards the ridge we were heading for.

As we got closer to the ridge we needed to identify our target .. and chose the top marked as La Gardiole.. this took us to the right on the ridge in a gentle rise.





From the top we had a good look back where we had come from and see the complete route, as well as down to Briancon.

After we had eaten and taken the skins off we started down. The top section was good spring snow and we had good skiing.

Then back down the ridge it was more schussing, and excellent snow.

Then into the woods, and  the final section back to the car. This was a little scary as we were not totally in control and had to make some tight turns ...  Back to the van and to the gite.