Yesterday we joined our French/Hungarian/Croatian friends to a gorgeous hike on the North-Eastern part of the Chartreuse range, within about 40-minute drive from home. This was quite an interesting  area, and quite different from the scenery we are used to seeing on Chartreuse.  It was quite a long day — we left home at a little before 9am., and were not back before 8pm. — and the hike a bit more challenging than we (or anyone) expected (13.8K in 7h 20mins, D+/D- 1066m).  The Eastern slope of Chartreuse was in clouds, so we did not see much when climbing up, but it may also have been a blessing, since it would have been a hot ascent in the sun. It was  quite warm (and muggy) even without it. Once we were up on the plateau, the sun finally came out. I posted our pictures separately here (Tei’s first, then Tomi’s), since WP is quite clumsy in reordering photos.

This was a very scenic hike, so we wondered why we did not see more people, just a few towards the end of the day (and they were still going up!). Maybe it was because the trail head was not the most accessible; the last 3.5 kilometers were on a bumpy dirt road with a lot of potholes. Our city car clearly struggled.

But we saw a couple of really fat marmots …