Le Désert is the last village in the Valjouffrey valley at 1275 meters, a perfect Sunday (Dec 4) getaway from Grenoble’s foggy and polluted air. As always in Winter months when starting driving from the town, we hit the clouds near Vizille, but soon after climb over them. We never […]
We’ve been quite occupied with our bathroom renovation for some time now, and it is still not finished. On top of that, since our Interrail trip to Spain we’ve both been sick with flu-like symptoms with a lot of coughing and runny noses but no fever. Instead of staying at […]
We spent the weekend in Autrans, a cross-country skiing, biathlon, and ski jumping center on the Vercors plateau. We left Grenoble early on Saturday morning to go for a hike to Le Plateau de Molière. We started from Villeneuve (1108m), some 3.5km north of Autrans, and climbed up to la […]
This extended weekend we did three more or less intensive practise runs and hikes to prepare ourselves and test the equipment for this coming Friday’s Ut4M (Ultra Tour des 4 Massifs) race — we will not do the whole 160 on the four mountain ranges (Vercors, Oisans, Belledonne, Chartreuse), but […]
This is our first hike since we came back from Singapore, and counts towards the series of preparations for the 40km mountain marathon we are planning to run in August on the Vercors range. We packed the breakfast, so we were on the road early. And we were almost the […]
Saint-Hilaire-de-Touvet to Cascades des Dioux We had a friend visiting us from the US this weekend, and we entertained him with some easy hikes. First we took the funicular up to Saint-Hilaire-de Touvet on the Chartreuse range. It is claimed to be the steepest funicular in the Alps with the […]
When we left Grenoble at 8am. (on Wed Nov. 11) the town was completely covered in thick clouds. When we reached Sappey-en-Chartreuse at about 1000 meters we started to see the surrounding peaks, and then the clouds were behind and below us and we enjoyed sun shine for the rest […]
Unlike in the last weekend’s hike, when we saw just two people and no animals (at least mammals), this Sunday (November 08) we saw heards of people and animals. The climb to the top of la Grande Sure (1920m) was pretty populated. We took a longer detour back to the […]
This was the first time (Oct 31) we rented a hybrid car from Citélib, a Yaris (automatic). It was comfortable and very quiet to drive. Actually, so quiet that we scared some hunters walking on the road; they did not hear us approaching until we had sneaked right behind them. […]