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.