We still have not bought the skis, so we thought that snowshoeing would be a nice alternative. We’ve only done it once before in Hokkaido, but not on maintained tracks but in steep unbroken snow and heavy snowfall. So, we planned a trip to Vercors this past Sunday, since the […]
This past weekend we visited Lyon to fulfill our civic duty to vote on the first round of our presidential elections. We certainly would like it better if our elections were at some other time of the year than January; the weather was miserable, cold, and it rained all the […]
Tomi’s parents stayed with us for a week before Christmas. We rented a car and took them to all three mountain ranges around Grenoble. First, we took them on Vercors range, and drove from Villard-de-Lans to Pont-en-Royans through the gorgeous gorges of the Bourne river. We got a bit lost […]
We spent four days attending the third biathlon world cup of the season in the village of Le Grand Bornand in Haute-Savoie department in France. We did not stay overnight in the village but in Annecy about 20 kilometers away, and commuted to the stadium every morning and back […]
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 […]
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 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 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 […]
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 […]