Thurday, June 25 – A truly vertical waterfall hike! To the Col d’Arsine via the trail from above Villar d’Arene. The Col d’Arsine spans the ridge between our Serre Che valley and the next one over, which includes the La Meije Glacier and Villar d’Arene. We had driven past the road to this trail countless times but, aside from a quick trip up the lower part of the trail maybe 25 years ago when the girls were small, we’d not done this climb. The first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes were fairly easy, but the intervening territory was a Stairmaster from hell climb!! It felt like 45 degrees! Probably wasn’t, however my legs thought otherwise! But the VIEWS! I could not look down on the way up without serious anxiety and the same was true on the way down. That parking lot was a LONG WAY down!!

Saturday, June 27 – Back to the Vallée de la Claret for a short hike up to the Grotte des 50 Ȃnes (Grotto of the 50 donkeys). The grotto was so named in 1815 when Austrian troops were moving up the Vallée de la Claret and the villagers moved their donkeys (then used for both farming and transportation) up to the grotto to prevent them from being commandeered by the approaching troops. The climb was up a ravine that, like Arizona washes in rain storms, can be dangerous because of the volume of water coming down from above, however, although we had dark clouds overhead, the threatened rain did not happen. And the view was wonderful! This, too, was a new trek for us. Despite having come here for most of the last 23 years, each year we discoverer new trails in the area – it’s a bit like Brigadoon - new trails appear during the intervening year!

Interesting: the Weather Channel and the France météo (weather forecast) had both indicated rain for this area today. Yes, there were dark clouds overhead from time to time, but the overall weather was bright and sunny. The Briancon region is at the confluence of 5 valleys and Briancon’s claim to 360 days of sun/year seems to pan out.

Photos taken at Vallee de la Claret ...

Sunday June 21 - Today dawned with clear skies that almost immediately became overcast. We had planned a hike to the Vallee de la Claret, which is the next valley to the east of Serre Che. The temperature was in the mid-60s with a fair breeze blowing and we weren't sure how much time we would have before rain began.
We drove to Pamplinet and started walking up the fairly steep rocky road toward Chalets des Acles - a hike of about 4km each way. We had discovered this road last year. It becomes a track at the top of the pass and leads toward Italy and is very much worth the effort. As we climbed, the skies cleared and the day became a lovely one. Near the top of the pass the road leveled out a bit and we had a clear view across the valley to the Fort de l'Olive, one of the fortifications that pepper the heights in this region. Whereas many of the forts are reachable without too much effort, this one is perched such that the way to it is either very long, very steep or very rocky. Joe has gotten there once, leaving me perched precariously on a rock somewhere along the trail.

Tuesday June 23 – We tried another new (to us) trail today – one above Villiard St. Pancrace, which is just south of Briancon and on the opposite side of the Serre Che that we see from Chantemerle. This area is a bit lower and not good for hiking in warmer weather but yesterday’s high was about 68F. In general the weather has been much cooler than usual and we’ve lived in sweatshirts and polaires. The climb was easy at first and then really got steep but it was through trees and smelled of pine and the sky was blue and the views over Briancon made it worth the effort. As usual, we brought a baguette, slices of meat, a jar of Amora mustard, and a bottle of San Pellegrino and that, after a good climb and eaten while perched on a stump, was a veritable feast in a delightful dining room.

Our food prep and consumption is simple here: we are addicted to French bread and have bread for breakfast and/or lunch most days. Eggs & lardons (a kind of chopped bacon) or cereal constitute non-bread breakfasts. On non-hiking days we usually have soup and bread (yeh, again…) with cheeses or fruit. We don’t go out for dinner very often but enjoy meal prep at home. It’s a bit of a challenge because the apartment is very simply furnished and counter space is a 2’x2’ square with a 2-burner cooktop on one side and a sink on the other. The kitchen itself is just over 3 feet in length, the fridge sits below the counter, and it’s normal to see one of us crawling around on our hands and knees trying to find something in it!

Monday June 15 - Today we drove from Tignes over the now open Col d'Iseran (2740m) into the next valley and then over the Col du Telegraph to our next residence at Serre Chevalier. This area is prime Tour de France territory and, if you've ever watched the Tour, you've probably seen our village. Serre Che, as it's called, is a string of ski villages that cluster around the base of the Serre Chevalier massif. Our village is Chantemerle and is about 6km from the medium-sized town of Briancon. As the crow flies, we are about 7-8 miles from Italy. Being so close to a functioning metropolis of sorts makes life fairly easy. Briancon has several supermarkets, hardware and sporting goods stores (natch!), restaurants, and a computer store that has seen our trade on several occasions.
On our way to Serre Che we had our picnic at le Redoute Marie-Therese, which is a type of fortification that was built for the Italians by the French. Throughout history the French-Italian border has shifted, first one way, then the other way, then back again, so one finds bits of history on one side or the other or even straddling the current border.
Unlike Tignes, Serre Che is below the tree line and the area is full of wonderfully green deciduous trees as well as evergreens. We desert rats truly enjoy the green and the numerous tumbling waterfulls. The area had more snow than usual this winter so many of the upper slopes are still white.
The apartments (studios, really) in our building have a view of the massif of Serre Che. During one of our 2-week segments here the view from our balcony is up the valley and during the other, toward Briancon and the mountains beyond. Briancon is at the junction of 5 valleys and the hiking possibilities are great! It's also an area that has numerous fortifications built over several centuries to guard the (shifting) border with Italy. The most recent of these date to WWII.

Wednesday June 17 - Yesterday, our first day at Serre Che, was a shopping/errand day and today we were eager to stretch our legs. We drove to the 20 minutes up to the Col de Granon (2471m), which lies opposite the Serre Che massif and above our village. It, too, was a former border fortification and has a gently sloping rocky road that was used to transport materials to the fort. Whereas we usually hike from bottom to top, in this case we started our hike at the top of the Col and walked about 4 miles down the road, then back up, which meant we were tired puppies by the time we got to the car! But the views are so worth the effort!!

Col Petit St. Bernard

Sunday, June 14, 2009
We started out looking for a particular trail but, after hunting for it unsuccessfully, we decided to drive to the Col Petit St. Bernard (little St. Bernard pass) instead. The col marks the French/Italian border and is high enough to be closed in Winter.
The first photo was taken while we were hunting for the trail and it shows ‘our’ valley with a view back towards Tignes. The second photo was taken at the pass itself showing the altitude and the next two are just plain fun to look at. There actually is a building, or hospice, that used to house monks who would send the St. Bernards out looking for people stranded on the mountains!
The last photo was taken at a ski village, La Rosiere, which very close to the col and, when we stopped to buy a bottle of wine for dinner, we found a pen with two – yep – St. Bernards inside.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009 Today we walked from the base of Tignes towards Val d’Isere along the ridge overlooking Lac de Chevril The lake was formed when a dam was built in 1930 to help control the flooding that resulted from Spring snow melt. At the bottom of this lake are the remains of two small villages. The residents were relocated by the State and established their farms elsewhere. The first three photos, taken from the ridge, show the lake with Mont Blanc (4807m) in the distance. This is the highest peak in Europe. The next photo shows our picnic site and the last one is of a herd of sheep penned on top of a paravalanche. They were not there when we started out but, on our way back we could certainly hear them! If you have zoom capability on your computer, you can see details. There were easily several hundred of them. From time to time we encounter herds of this size. They are either shepherded from place to place in the mountains or trucked in, which was probably the case today.

what to do when it rains

In Arizona as May and June approach the temps start to increase, a fact of life that usually elicits a certain amount of grumping on the part of the locals. Joe and I usually deal with the increasing Arizona heat by looking forward to the cooler temps in the French Alps and, in fact, usually arrive in the mountains with our warm clothes packed in the bottom of our bag, necessitating a fair amount of unpacking before finding the right kind of clothes for the moment. But that’s always part of the fun – standing by the side of the road shivering as we dig through the bags until we finally find our jackets.

This year we’ve not seen the sun for more than a few minutes since we arrived in Geneva and have had off-and-on rain and snow since arriving in the mountains. Remembering my earlier comment about the gods being against vacations in general, the ongoing rain/snow/sleet does give one pause. On the other hand, our unwillingness to go out hiking in the rain provides ample opportunity for long luxurious post-lunch naps. After the frenetic pace of the last weeks prior to departure, this is not bad at all.

Yesterday, since the weather was iffy, we drove the 30km (~20 miles) down the mountain to Bourg Saint Maurice, which is the nearest town. BSM is the end of a rail line and the jumping-off point for skiing, camping/fishing or mountaineering, depending on the season. It’s a sleepy little town that undoubtedly comes alive in the Winter and later Summer season but just lurches along during early June. It sports a variety of pensiones and small hotels, most of which are closed at this time of year, a cinema, numerous small restaurants selling steak et frites or pizza, outdoor cafes, little shops where one can buy postcards or batteries or flipflops or tents or toothpaste… you get the idea. There is also a SuperU (supermarche) and a McDonald’s. One of us (which is not I) has the occasional hankering for a hamburger, so we visit McDo’s, as it’s called in France, from time to time. McDonald’s also serves at times as our internet café, but more about that another time.

We needed a few grocery items and ventured into the SuperU. We had already purchased a week’s worth of food there when we arrived on Saturday, so this was just for some forgotten items. Most people think of France as the land of gourmet food and exquisitely prepared meals. What we have found over the years is that, at least in these mountains, restaurants offer little more than the above-mentioned steak et frites, pizza, or anything covered with cheese. Admittedly. milk, from cows, sheep and goats is plentiful in this land of pastures, but all the restaurants offer the specialty dishes of the region and ALL those dishes have melted cheese in one form or another - fondue, raclette, pierrade - the list goes on and on.

Furthermore, as you would expect, one of the largest sections in any large market or marché (open-air market) is devoted to cheese, which is usually inexpensive when compared to U.S. prices. And the variety is beyond belief. For example, if one wants bleu cheese, one finds not just plain ol’ bleu cheese but bleu cheese from many different regions of the country, each of which is a variation on a theme. The cheeses are available both packaged (useful for those of us whose French is limited) and in large display cases so that one may point to a particular variety and explain how many grams/kilos one wants. This is always a bit tricky. Over the years I’ve learned to translate ounces and pounds into grams and kilos, pints and quarts into liters, degrees Fahrenheit into degrees Centigrade but getting the desired amount right doesn’t always happen and from time to time I’ve left with either way too much or not as much as I wanted. I can clearly recall both very skimpy picnic sandwiches and times of having enough sliced meat in hand for a crowd of 20!

On vacation. Finally. Getting to this point always takes some doing – as if the gods are against this idea and will do whatever seems necessary to delay the start. Although we were flying separately from Phoenix to Dulles, mostly to due to having waited longer than usual to make flight plans, we were to have been on the same flight from Dulles to Geneva. Didn’t happen. Joe’s Phoenix-Denver flight was delayed leaving Phoenix, meaning he missed the flight from Denver to Dulles and was re-routed Orlando – Frankfurt - Geneva. And arrived in Geneva minus luggage, which had made the flight from Denver to Dulles without him and gotten stuck there since its owner was not on that flight. It finally caught up with us the next day.

After 2 days of down time with the dear people who house and care for us each year on the way to and from our Alps appartements, we were energized and ready to roll. The weather in Geneva had been warm and sunny when we arrived but rain fell all night on Friday and through Saturday and, by the time we arrived at Tignes, our first destination, which is at about 2100m (6,700’), the rain had turned to snow. Happens every year during the first or second week of June. Arrive in summer clothes and immediately start piling on the layers. The photo of the car's dashboard indicates a temperature of 4 degrees C, which is about 39 degrees F.

Tignes, which, along with Val d’Isere, was a venue of the 1992 Winter Olympics, is a very popular ski resort. It is also a summer destination because the altitude offers summer skiing on its glacier, its two lakes make possible a variety of water sports, and its warm but not hot Summer temperatures offer good hiking weather, We bought our first-two-weeks-of-June timeshares largely because of the summer skiing available at the time of purchase, This activity is no longer available, The village mayor decided that the small number of visitors at that time of year was not sufficient to keep the ski operation open and that the lifts would be shut from mid-April to the 3rd weekend of June, when the Summer season officially begins in France. Consequently, this early in June the area is dead. Really dead. One restaurant Is open – usually. The bread, essential in the life of any resident of this country, is sold at the one open newsstand. One small grocery is open for limited hours, mostly to serve the permanent residents – those who groom the ski slopes, run the retail establishments, etc. during the Winter and Summer seasons.

On the other hand, here it is quiet. And peaceful. The peaks and valleys are lovely. The glaciers glisten in the sun. The upper reaches still have snow, which serves to make the green of the lower slopes appear even brighter. Goats and cows dot the pastures. Tiny hamlets cling to the hillsides. Waterfalls are abundant and the lakes are full And the hiking is wonderful! All types of terrain are within our reach, although many of the areas we like are 20-30 minutes by car.

There is one road from Tignes. It runs from the small town of Bourg St. Maurice in the valley of the Haute Tarantaise up the mountain, past the turn-off to Tignes, through the village of Val d’Isere and over the pass of Col d’Iseran to the next valley. That’s it. The Col d’Iseran is closed during the Winter and so, at this time of year, the road ends at Val d’Isere.