bikes and bikes

Yesterday the wife and I went on the same ride as I did with the PJPC bike club, we went for the 'Tour de Lac de Serre Poncon". We had a glorious day's weather and the roads once past Savine le Lac (about a quarter the way around) were completely quiet. Lara was very vocal in telling me that she does not like head wind! I think this was Lara's second longest ride ever (second to competeing solo at 10 more at Moray race 2 years ago) at 120km. Which she seemed to do pretty effortlessly and was not walking funny this morning......... Unfortunately I did not carry the camera, I need to work out a way of attaching it to my bike somehow.

Today she decided she wanted to do some gardening. Today I decided it was a good day not to spend with the wife. So I grabbed my ipod and my mountian bike and headed off. Once I had got up to te Col Bayard I realised that I had picked up the wrong map for where I was. So off I went on a blind mission. I ended up wading through rivers, carrying my bike up scree slopes on my back, getting my shins ripped off by thorny things, and being chased by amorous cows ( I swear they were going to kill me, I don't like cows unless they are cooked and on my plate). All in all I had a brilliant ride and found some really good trails, just have to work out how to get to them with out the wading / carrying & cows! Again I did not take any pictures, I think the music was making me a bit carried away and I never stopped!

Tomorrow we are off to Italy to go and ski tour around the Grand Paradiso National park for 8 or so days, So there will be no more updates until then. So till then have a good week D&Lx

Back to Orpierre we went.

Lara woke up this morning and announced "we are going climbing in Orpierre today" (so much for the 'we make joint desicions like a married couple' that I stated yesterday). So we bundled into the car and drove the 40 or so minutes there, the weather was looking like it was going to be a great day and it did not dissapoint.

Our aim for to day was the 'Quatre Heure' sector which has lots of easy multi pitch slab climbing for us to clock up the miles on. Lara Above at the end of the first pitch on 'Super Mouton' a two pitch 5a and 5b.Another one of the wife at the top of a two pitch route which for the life of me I can not remember and do not have the gudie book to hand. It was a great afternoon, only stopping from climbing to eat the Fucas that we had bougth from the local boulangerie at home for lunch. think we managed to do four 2 pitch routes and 2 single pitch routes. Not bad for the notouriously slow british climbers!Lara abseilling down off the top pitch of our last climb of the day. Was a great day, saw many lizards and ants the size of hamsters! These ants were quite angry little things that came for you, and when they did, they were great fun to flick off the rock! tee hee hee. I am an animal lover honest.

So got home and I cooked dinner, and have found that both our shoulders are a little bit pinky from the sun. It is probably the first time my back has seen the sun for some time as has Lara's. Looks like the weather is finally picking up then!

Wonder what I will be told we are doing tomorrow.....

Tour de Charance

So after faffing around this morning doing bits and bobs, finally managed to round up the wife and get all our stuff in the van to go for a bike ride.

Having spent the last few weeks on the internet and infront of maps I have found / devised a route (amongst many others) that goes around the back and up Charance (local lump near us). So off we went.

Lara climbing out of Rabou. It was turning into a lovely evening. In the distance is the Pic de Gleize (the first lump we skied up and also the pictures from the first post on this blog), the snow is defintely going.Lara turning a hair pin and getting closer to where our plans changed.....So when we got about two thirds up there was still loads of snow on our path, too much to ride though. So after a group decission (thats what us married folk do now) we thought it better to push / carry the bikes up the direct route. Lara above nearing the col and at the end of the hike a bike.Us at the Pic de Charance, youc an see Gap in the back ground. It was going to be a long and good descent!

Me on the descent, unfortunately the light was fading fast so the pictures are not very good. It was about 8pm at this point.Lara on the awesome trail down, nearly all singletrack and all fast and great fun. I think I am going to like riding around Gap! So got back down to the van with massive grins on our faces but rumbling stomachs, so hot footed it home for grub!

Lainie - from Zero to Hero in a day

So after a very silent journey to Orcierre Merlette, where it was honestly the first time I think I have not heard Lainie talk for over half and hour. The poor thing was obviously very nervous. Once we arrived at the ski reort it was very obviously very late session but there was more than enough snow for Lainie to try her hand at skiing. After a quick lesson of how to put the skis on and off and how it works we were off..... So first off I pulled her up the hill. she was so nervous to get any speed up she was hardly moving. After an hour or so of trying we decided it was time for lunch.

In came plan B, so we plied her with cider over lunch and decided it was time for the lift....

Amazingly she found it no trouble at all and never fell offSo once at the top it was time for her to use some of the grrrr from watching last nights monster trucks and get on with it.So following the ski instructor (aka Lara) she really got the knack of it!

She learny that snow was not evil and it didn't hurt when you fell over!I think it was at this point the cider was really kicking in and she was loving it.

By the end of the afternoon she was loving it turning with no problems what so ever. So Euan, I apologise but I think I might have cost you some money and you might have to be taking your wife on a ski holiday. If you have to, I would suggest the cider approach!

One happy ski instructor happy with the fact that she has got her mate to ski (I even think Lainie over took her once......)

Playing with Lainie

So for Lainie's first day we decided to take her on her first Via Ferrata. We went to Guillestre and there is great little Via Ferrata there that goes up a deep gorge

Lara and Lainie going along the gorgeLainie climbing up the side, after a little nervousness she found her legs and loved it and was running up and down the place with out a care in the world!The water looked great, if not a little cold.Lainie and I traversing around the gorge, was hard to hear each other due to the noise of the waterLainie on one of the bridges that crossed the gorge.

In the evening we went to the monumentous show that was the french monster truck show! where we saw things like this......

The oh so mighty POWER SPEED TRUCK!!!!! It was awesome. Then this got bettered by this....

The ROAD BOSS!!!! The biggest monster truck in the world, it made such an amazing grumble when they turned it on. But in all honesty the thing was too long and could only go forward and backwards in the small arena. But still a very impressive machine. So much so the girls fell in love with it

After watching all the testorone and big growling engines the girls where feeling the grrrrrr and tapped into the NarI must sign off now as I have some serious googling to do to see if I can get some mods for the van to get some big wheels on it and jack up the suspension if I am going to win my wife back!

Another day on the bike

Weather was a little in and out today. We decided to go for a blast on the road bikes. Original route was to do the 'Tour de Ceuse' but there seemed to be a mass of cloud hanging around Ceuse so we decdied to ride to the Dam at the Lac De Serre Poncon. Turned out to be a good choice as we were in the sun for the majority of the ride.Lara next to the lake, we didn't really look at the maps and was taken a little by surprise at the amount of climbing we had to do! Still it is all good for the legs and waist line.
Lara at the Col Lebraut our high point of the day.

The afternoon was spent going to the square in Gap and having lunch in the sunshine, which was very pleasent. Lainie is arriving tonight, Lara has just left to go and pick her up in Marseille so I better get on with cleaning the house!!!!!

back from a little bit of climbing

Sorry for being a bit lame at updating this, have not been up to a great deal. Lara's cold is still holding on a bit so not up to too much. So what have we been up to.

On Sunday I met up with the local bike club and did a road ride around the Lac De Serre Poncon. was a great ride but with no pictures as they were going way to fast to be able stop and get the camera out. Was in a group of 12 and I was the only one with non shaved legs - so watch this space (only joking......... or am I)

Monday we went for a search for trails around Ceuse. when we got there the route we wanted to do was still covered in snow so we opted for another route. I don't think many people have been up here yet as there is still a lot of debris from fallen trees etc across the trails, so hopefully in a few weeks things will be better, we still had a good fun ride with the promise of the some really good trails when the weather gets warmer

Lara on the climb up, the cliff is really impressive.And on the way down.So Ceuse - we will be back when the weather has melted some more of the snow.

Tuesday we got in the van and drove just under an hour South west to Orpierre. This is a little town surrounding by climbing. We had two fantstic days climbing here, unfortunately the camera did not see much action, I really do not understand why, but we are dead keen to go back and climb some more there so next time we will definitely take more pictures.

Picture form the camp site. Things we learnt over the last few days:

• Lara is very good at climbing off route and going up harder routes as a result
• Dave is still a big girls blouse when it comes to climbing, but is getting better
• The rain on the roof of the van makes funny noises which sounds like it is leaking , but it is not.
• limestone is very grippy
• and, beer after a long days climbinG goes straight to ones head.

So, with a lot of rain last night, it looks like the mountiains have had a lot more snow in them! time to break out the skis again!

Easy going in Gap

Well Lara still has the remains of a cold, over the last few days she has just pottered around home and I have done pretty much the same with the odd small excursion out on the bike. This morning she got up and felt better so we decided to go climbing. The weather is a little iffy at the moment with the odd rain shower but we thought we would give it a try.

We went over to the 'Falaise de Gicons' a large crag near Devoluy. Was a lovely place with not a very long walk in and the weather was kind to us, it only splattered with rain one time and the rest of the time was not to cold with the odd bit of sunshine. Nothing too strenuous as Lara is getting over her cold and I am getting my head back into it, a great day though.

Above is lara at the of the crag.
Me at the anchor point at the top in one of the sunny spells. The snow is starting to dissapear quickly so we are going to try and grab some more skiing before it is too late over the next few days.

PART II : Please read the post below first!

So where was I..... ahh yes, the beer on the Finsteraarhorn hut balcony. So the View:

The next day we woke up with great intentions of climbing up something big (the Finstereerhorn at over 4,200m), but when we looked out the window the weather had other ideas. We spent the day in the hut playing cards, looking at maps and sleeping. We did go out briefly for a little ski up the glacier but we got about 500m up the galcier and decided that it really was not worth it.

You can decide for yourselves what you would have done with the weather like it was... and the ground full of holes...

So waking up the next day and discovering the weather was not likely to clear for some time, we decided it was time to start think about how we were to get out of the high mountains. We decided to take the famous route down the Langgletscher. So we went up over a col...Down the other side and then we were faced with the feet ruining skin up to the HollandiaHutte. Here is Lara at the bottom of the descent from the col and starting her way along to the hut.

From the above picture you can see our skin along the Grosser Aletscherfirn glacier. The Hollandia refuge is on the right shoulder of the col in the far distance. To give you a sense of perspective from where Lara is standing it is 8km to the refuge, the glacier is over 2km wide in some places and it took us 3 hours to get to it. By the time we got there Dave's feet where rather sore and there was a distinct need for beer! So once again we finished our day with the traditional beer and Rosti.

The next day was to be our last in the high mountians, the hut was at 3300m and we had to ski down the glacier to a town called Blatten at 1400m to catch the train back roound to Grindelwald. What a descent! A fantastic way to finish a great week up in the mountains. I would love to show you some pictures of the descent but somehow we managed to loose the memory card with them on (no prizes for guessing who put it in the wrong place!!)

So since then we have been back in Gap doing the odd day tour here and a day biking there. Miles went home today (thus having the time to update this). Thank you Miles for your great company and taking pictures of us together!

So now we are waiting again for the weather to clear up a bit to be able to go up into the Parc Des Ecrins for some more skiing, the snow is disappearing fast. Lara has picked up a cold so it is a good time to rest a little and catch up with things before heading off again.

So expect some silly pictures over the next few days...

PART I : Finally Back and Have time to update from the last two weeks

So then the last two weeks. We picked up Miles from the airport in Marseille and jumped in the car and headed for Switzerland. Our plans were to head up into the Bernese Oberland mountains for a week's worth of touring then head elsewhere.

On our drive, we went from fairly scary French drivers, to a whole new world of scariness of Swiss drivers. To calm our nerves though we did have funny sign posts to look at (Pruden you will appreciate this). So once we had arrived at Grindelwald and had found some accommodation we discovered that the weather forecast was rather miserable for the next few days. On the first day we spent the time practising our crevasse rescue and practising with our avalanche beacons. We all seemed to be able to find the beacons that we buried in the snow pretty quickly which calmed each others' nerves. Picture below of us playing around in the field practising digging and probing for the burried tranceiversDay 2: it was even worse weather so we just mooched around town checking out swiss army knife shops and trying ever so hard to stop Lara buying Swiss chocolate. A mission that both Miles and I failed on. It snowed heavily all day and night.

Day 3: We woke up to even more snow and no chance of getting up into the high mountains as it was full on storming up there. We decided to go to the local ski resort and have a hunt for the powder. What a day was to be had, None of us had never skied in such deep snow in our lives. It was absolutely amazing, once you had worked out that you could not see anything and there was no point trying - we were all hammering down the hill using 'the force'.

Below is Lara - if I could add sound clips to the pictures she would be screaming "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"The snow was so soft and sugary, it was hard not to smile!Below: this is the start of Lara's transformation into a powder hound! We all finished the day with huge grins and trashed legs. It was still snowing as we cooked in the kitchen of our accomodation at 8pm that night, so we got an early night in preparation for the next powder day.

Day4: Woke up early to find patchy blue sky! Even better we thought, so scurried back up to the lifts. When we got to the top we found a load more snow but very high temperatures. So although the snow was plentuiful, it was not quite the light silly deep snow from the day before. it was still a fantastic day and was great to be able to see where you were going.

Day 5: Weather had completely crapped out on us now, so we decided it was a day for coffee and saving money - as we discovered how expensive a country Switzerland is when they gave us our bill for the beer after the first round there!

Day 6: Our first day of properly nice weather, we rushed down to the guides office to get an up to date weather report, they told us it was still gusting up to 130kph up in the high mountains. So an obvious desicion was made to stay low and wait for better weather. We decided to ski up to the Grosse Scheinhorn. A small Col to the East of Grindelwald.
Above is Dave breaking trail for his new wife, as all good husbands should do.
Here we are at the top with the Wetterhorn in the background. The mountains all around us were incredible and made us all really eager to get up into them properly.
Miles and Dave with the Eiger in the background on the right.

Day 7: We woke up today with pretty rubbish weather and the idea of us being able to get up to the high mountains faded. After looking at all the available forecasts for the area on the internet it looked like the day after we might be able to go up. With spirits low we decided we would go up any way and see what it was like, the thought of wondering around Grindlewald for another day and drinking expensive beer was not a good one. So we packed up all our bags checked out and made our way down to the train station to get the Jungfraujoch train up high.

To any who have not heard of this train, it is a piece of Swiss engineering genius. It was built just before the second world war and is a train that winds itself up inside the mountain of the Eiger. After having small heart attacks from buying the train tickets (very expensive!) we got on the train.
Praying that the weather would be kind to us as we did not want to have to pay for it again. Half way up it stops at viewing windows which are half way up the North face of the Eiger, for those who are reading this with an interest in climbing, you will all be well aware of the massive history of these windows as the brave and stupid have gone out them / come in them to on attempts to climb this scary looking face. When we got there we got out the train expecting to see nothing but cloud. We were greated with this........


An amazing temperature inversion!!!!! Our spirits were raised and the train ride to the top was made in massive excitement. On arriving to the top the weather was far better than expected. blue skies and the wind was bearable. thank God for that!

Us at the top standing in front of the Monch. So after walking through the maze of tunnels at the top of the station (which took 20 minutes) we finally found our way outside and got our skins on, we were going to make our way up to the Monchjochhutte to stay the night. It was around 2pm. it took around an hour to get across to the refuge and we decided we had enough time to go and climb to the top of the Monch before dinner.

So off we went, we got 3/4 of the way up before we decided that we were going to miss dinner in the refuge if we carried on to the top.


Picture of Miles and Lara on the ridge just before the rock step at 3930m when we decided that our stomachs were more important than getting to the top.
returning to the refuge to fill our bellies.

I think I will give up on the days, as it is confusing me now. The next day, after a restless night for Dave, I didn't sleep very well as the refuge was at high altittude and I didn't feel too good in the morning we decided it was wise to lose altitude and head off down the Emigschneefald glacier to the Konkordiahutte refuge for the next night. A rather short day, but the views of the surrounding mountains were fantastic as we skied down the glacier and through the serac fields.


After getting to the bottom of where the hut was we decided to stop and have a bite to eat.
Behind us is the Aletschgletscher - the largest glacier in Europe (a walk that was later on in the week to ruin our feet, but I am yet to get to that part!). So once we had sat around in the sun, ate some food and soaked in the surroundings we decided to tackle the remainder of the climb.
Above in the red circle the Konkordia hut can been seen. When it was first built the galcier was right up to it, but over the years as the glacier has been shrinking, it has got higher and higher off the glacier floor. So to get to it we had to climb up 270 stairs that have been bolted to the wall below it, we all had a good huff and puff to get up to it and was greated with a fantastic terrasse and a couple of lovely beers!

A 6am start the next day saw us skinning up the Grunhornbucke pass to get over onto the Fieschergletscher. The weather was not great with visibilty down to about 50m or so.
At the top we had a descent onto the actual glacier itself and the weather started to clear a little so we decided on another 2hour skin up to the top of the Wyssnollen (3600m). This was a fantastic climb up. the Clouds were coming in and out all the way up.


When we got to the top we had luck to get a clear patch to ski down in.



Would like to thank Miles for this picture as I thought it would be impossible to get a picture of us both skiing together! So once back down the glacier floor, we skiied across the glacier and a short climb up to the Finsteraarhorn Hut. Were once again we sat outside and drank a few beers admiring the views and looking at our ski lines down the Wyssnollen. The view was brilliant; below is the view from the balcony with the Gross Grunhorn in the background.

Just found out this post is too long so will post this and continue with part II .