Torrent du Manival is a shallow mountain stream down from the Chartreuse range that can be misleadingly dangerous when dry. During a thunderstorm the water level rises quickly and the stream tears and brings down everything on its way. Major protection works started in the end of 19th century, not […]
Something my friends may not know is that now that we live in the Gresivaudan valley we are quite near to the well known wine growing region of Savoie. Their wines may be a bit more expensive than the average Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhône wines (for instance), but they […]
Our winter vacation plans were messed up with uncertainties involved in the apartment sale project, but once the date for signatures was fixed (see the previous post), we booked one week in our favorite place, Serre Chevalier Valley in Hautes-Alpes for a skiing vacation. But then we started seeing worrisome […]
This past Sunday (28.2.) we returned for another sunny hike (9.65K in 3h 40mins, D+/D- 840m) to the GR trail of Tour des Petites Roches on Chartreuse (GR stands for The Grande Randonnée, Groteroutepaden or Langeafstandwandelpaden, Grande Rota or Gran Recorrido, and make a network of long-distance hiking routes in […]
This winter has been quite grim in this valley, mostly cloudy and rainy, very unlike the previous ones. So, once the weather forecast promised some sun for this Monday we decided to take the day off and go hiking, which we have not done much because of the weather, but […]
When returning from our first winter vacation in Les Saisies the snow situation in the French Alps was not too good. We did not want to risk another week in a ski resort without anything to do — with too little snow for skiing, or too much ice, slush, or […]
This year was not too bad for us despite the two strict lockdowns. During the first one we actually exercised more than usual: since we could not go for long runs, we made sure we went for the allowed one hour run every morning. However, during the second lockdown in […]
Because of the lockdowns of 2020 we still had two weeks of vacation to spend in the last two week’s of the year. As soon as we learned that there was a de-confinement coming, we booked a week in Les Saisies in Savoie department, where we had already booked our […]
Yesterday (5.12.) there was no place within 20 kilometers where we could expect to see the sun above the clouds, but today was different. This morning the fog was so dense that we could barely see Tour Vercors only 100 meters away. So, we checked the area webcams to find […]