Hiking in the Bauges

I'm in the Chambery / Annecy region for a few days break and had a nice hike today. My girlfriend took the train into Lyon for the day and I headed into the Bauges (a mountain range in the northern pre-Alps). 

Up here, the mountain ranges - the Bauges, the Chartreuse, the Vercors are a bit like castles, surrounded by moat like valleys. Climb up the steep castle walls, and inside there are relatively flat fields and forests, dominated by isolated peaks. During the second world war, their natural defenses made them strong points of the resistance; unfortunately, they were also the scene of terrible reprisals just after D-day.

I climbed one of the highest peaks in the Bauges and throughly enjoyed my hike and the contrast to the southern alps. Greener and softer scenery, cows instead of sheep, fall is further advanced, a bit more chocolate boxy. The last 200m was very steep grass (I wouldn't have liked to slip) and, at the summit, I had a wonderful view of Mount Blanc, a little further east.

More pics here and also some of Chambery and Annecy - two very cute towns.

The Europeans

There are flying comps - paragliding or hang-gliding - every year in St Andre. This year it's the turn of the European Paragliding Championships for the first two weeks of September. 

I've been worried that the poor flying season would continue into the competition and, so far, I'm afraid it has. The first three days were cancelled; the weather wasn't terrible and there was flying to be had, but not enough time to safely run a task. Things looked similar today, but fortunately they managed to get a task in. I was working and went to make myself a cup of tea, when I looked out my window and saw about 60 gliders all coming into goal. I'm glad they've got started, and I hope the weather improves for them. I'm afraid I forgot to take some pics!

The end of a hot, dry spell

I've been busy, had guests and been away for much of this summer etc - so not much flying. It has been very hot and hasn't rained or 2 or 3 months - I've never seen it so dry and brown here.

The 15th of August is a big French holiday and the start of a week long 'fete' at St Andre, with live music until late every night. This coincided with some especially hot weather. Normally, that's not really a problem here - no matter how hot the days are, the nights are always cool or even cold. But, every night I had a choice. Open the window and have cool air but lots of noise. Or close the window, and sweat in the silence. Don't sleep because of noise or heat - your choice! Then, of course, if you want some exercise, you really want to get up early and have a bike ride or hike. But that isn't so attractive if you didn't sleep well!

I'd seen today's forecast at least 5 days earlier, where a cool mistral was due to replace all the heat, and I've been looking forward to it and was relieved when the forecasts turned out to be accurate. The transition was very sudden, with a cold front arriving yesterday evening accompanied by a storm (10 minutes after I watered the plants on my balcony). Sunshine resumed in the morning but it was much cooler. 

I headed to the mountains for a day long hike. All the streams were dry and the grass was still brown, but there was plenty of evidence of the previous evening's rain. It was actually cold (not just cool) and I was put off climbing an extra mountain by the incessant wind. Lovely, like a swim in the lake at the end of a hot day. All of a sudden, it feels like the summer is winding down. I'm looking forward to the fall!

Some pics.

The Three Cols

Etienne (my son) was over for a stay at the start of August and we did a bunch of tough bike rides, the hardest of which was the Three Cols. You can read more about it here, but the name describes it pretty well. It's a triangle, starting in Barcelonnette and going over 3 cols, each with 1100m or so of climbing. Only 120Km, but none of it is flat.

We started early, planning to do at least the first climb in the cool of the morning. There were feed-stations on the ride, so we didn't have to carry too much food. Wonderful scenery, but as the day went on fatigue and heat seemed to obscure the view. Etienne and Ray went ahead on the last climb and I struggled on by myself.

The ride ended with a argument in a car park. A driver crushed Etienne's back wheel as we were putting the bikes back in the car. The "French" view was that it was unreasonable to expect a driver to see something that doesn't move on the ground. After 15 minutes of animated debate, sanity kicked in and a satisfactory conclusion was reached.

More pics.

The Jet Stream Blues

The Jet Stream seems to have been parked over the S of France for the last 3 and a bit months. Although I've had plenty of hour-long practice flights, nasty winds have severely limited XC flying. The European Championships will be held here in Sept, and I certainly hope things improve by then. 

Today, winds gusting to 55 K/h were predicted and I decided a long bike ride was in order - even if the winds would make things tough, they would keep them cool. It was a lovely ride, climbing for the first 25K, then a wonderful 33K descent with a tailwind, a brutal short climb in the noon sun and then a fight home into the howling wind over some cols. Just over 100K, but it felt a lot longer than that. The highlight was passing through Entrevaux, a fortified town defending the ancient frontier between France and Italy. I've included a pic taken today, but it really is worth a google.

I will have (non-flying) visitors for the next 4 weeks, so inevitably the flying forecasts have improved, starting tomorrow...

Sunday Bike Ride

The paragliding conditions over the last few weeks have done wonders for my cycling. Sunday was too windy for flying, so I decided to get a decent bike ride up to the Col d'Allos. The Col is just over 50Km away from St Andre, and it is uphill all the way, about 1400m of elevation gain. 

The route starts of barely rising and gets gradually steeper all the way, with the last 5 or 6 Kms being the hardest. It was a lovely ride; starting with blue skies and sun, with the Mistral keeping things cool on the long climb. The first part of the ride passes by Colmars and Allos, both lovely villages, before the bare slopes of the final climb. I finished on the summit under gray skies. A quick snack, a pic, layer up for the descent and I was racing the approaching rain home; I got caught about 15Km from home, but it wasn't terribly heavy.

Col info for cyclists and pics.

Wind stopped play...

Flying conditions in St Andre continue to be poor, with a combination of wind and afternoon storms. There are little flights to be had but I don't like playing chicken as clouds start towering into the sky. Apart from 'staying current' with a fishbowl flight every week or so, I've found other things to do. But at last Saturday's forecast was tempting; potentially quite good, but with a high chance of strong winds in the afternoon.

I made sure I got up the hill early, worried it could blow out. The early clouds showed a strong west wind aloft. In the air by noon, I headed N and joined 3 other wings and a sail-plane on Cheval Blanc, all trying to get enough height to head to the Dormilliouse. No-one got high enough over the summit except the sail-plane (who, of course, doesn't need to get very high) and everyone headed back after maybe 30 minutes trying as the wind was getting stronger and the thermals bumpier.

I choose to head back to St Andre via Le Grand Cordoeil. I haven't done a Cheval Blanc to Grand Cordoeil transition before and was surprised at the amount of sink I encountered. I wasn't worried because I 'always' get up on Cordoeil. This time, it wasn't quite so easy, because the wind was blowing about 25K out of the west, making things very bumpy. Eventually, I got over Cordoeil, and had a relatively easy transition back to La Mure, but I decided it was just too windy to land in the Verdon valley.

Given the wind strength, the sensible thing was to land in the super-wide, friendly Thorame valley - so that's what I did. I got a lift straight-away from a local and was home just in time to watch the tennis. 

Log and pics.