Winter wonderland
Every four years that we have been here the winter’s first and only snow has fallen in October and November. This year it came on the first of December. It has also always melted away in a day.
Toussaint on Dent-de-Crolles
We still had Dent-de-Crolles (2062m), the second highest peak on the Chartreuse range, to summit. It is just twenty meters shy of the highest peak Chamechaude (2082m), which we have climbed four times. Both climbs start at the altitude of about 1400 meters, but this was a bit trickier, both […]
Ex tempore Fall break
We took a couple of days off this week to savor the last few sunny and warm Fall days, and planned a couple of easy walks on those days. Earlier this week the local weather forecast promised a significant degradation in conditions this coming weekend, but it has all changed […]
Nordic walking in French Alps
Nordic walking in the French Alps is quite a different business from, say, walking in the Central park in Helsinki. So, for our first Nordic walking experience we decided to attend a non-competitive event with, not 5 kilometers, not 10 kilometers, not even 20 kilometers, but 36 kilometers of walking, […]
Ut4M — we did it … again!
Ut4M 40 Chartreuse, that is, a 42-kilometer mountain marathon with total ascent of 2540 meters and descent of 2610 meters. Two years ago we were not allowed to continue from the last check point, because we did not have lamps with us (the lamps were optional that year!). It was […]
New host, new blog
Welcome to our renewed website and blog! We migrated our old blog content from Ghost to WordPress, and also changed the host from GoDaddy elsewhere. We simply wanted to add more features and functionality, but also make it more professional. Enjoy!
Le palais idéal du facteur Cheval
Finally we had a chance to visit Postman Cheval’s Ideal Palace in Hauterives, Drôme department. For a while we dreamed about riding our bikes there, but gave up the thought since, realistically, it would have been a bit too long for a day ride, and in hindsight, not too interesting […]
Pravouta (1760m)
Our easy and short recovery hike turned out quite differently from yesterday’s hike, besides being short and easy(sh). As soon as we got out of the car at the parking of Col-des-Ayes it started raining. The rain soon stopped and we had to peal off the rain jackets, since we […]
First recce for Ut4M 40 Chartreuse 2017
This was our first real recce for the upcoming ultra marathon that will take place in six weeks of time on the Chartreuse range. We took an early morning bus to St-Izmier and planned to climb to the first rest stop at Habert-de-Chamechaude and then down to Sappey-en-Chartreuse to catch […]