In town!

with the kids and Robyn

Feu Sacré

Today the weather and babysitting windows opened (THANK YOU CHRISTA (et al!)) and Chloe and I finally got to try a route on the Tour Termier -- Feu Sacré, 280m, 6a,6a+,6a+,6b+,6a,6b,A0,6b,6b+,5+. We were treated to a cloudless sky when we started, a relatively painless approach, and most improtantly, no one else blocking our way on the route for once!! Things started a little inauspiciously, as the first two pitches were soaking wet. As the route got more vertical, it was almost all dry, with magically adherent rock. The only remaining pitch was the "crux" pitch, which I had planned to do free, but too many key holds were (literally) dripping wet, so I aided through it. About midway up, a low cloud bumped into the formation, chilling us and dropping visibility. There was another team on Terminee, and we would periodically look at the clouds and then back at each other and then shake our heads in disbelief. The cloud eventually cleared, but then a second grey cloud parked right above us! It was like a cartoon storm cloud: no clouds and sunshine for as far as the eye could see, *except* the tour termier. We almost got our down jacket out at this point. Otherwise, it was a fabulous climb on perfect rock.






The view from the top (3070 meters/~10000 feet) is magical, too.



There were some patches of snow,


and a family of Bouquetins looking for food.

The approach shoes are great: lightweight, sturdy, fit like a glove and survived the scree surfing. ❤ La Sportiva. The rubber is not great when wet, however.

The hike back took AGES. At every hill we would see that the trail continued off into the horizon. New weather was moving in, so we had some beautiful views of Lautaret and Termier

And then the fog moved in



Thanks again to the babysitters!!

Rocher Baron

We all (except Tom and Christa, who were on a hiking trip) went to Rocher Baron today. After a bumpy road up to the parking area, we discovered that a few other people had had the same idea. In fact, it was overrun with gumbies. Gumbies pushing us off small belay ledges. Gumbies with ropes running in all directions. Gumbies trying to do multipitch climbs above everyone else. It was a total clusterfark, and very stressful. I was sure that something huge was going to get kicked down on us by someone or one of them was going to get themselves injured. At least a few people got to try climbing, though!

We decamped to the non-gumby sector and I did the 7a to the left that Francois had recommended, which was excellent. Chloe did it on TR with one hang. The real fun was setting up a rope swing for Zoe though!


On the way back to the chalet, we stopped at Alpimat, where I bought some approach shoes (running shoes have not been cutting it). I wanted to check out the Gandalfs after reading the fabulous SuperTaco review, but found that they were a bit too heavy for what I want to do. Instead, I bought a pair of Sportiva Fringes. We shall see how they hold up! Some members of the Spanish climbing team were in the store at the time, and I saw the Slovenian team car a block away (for the Climbing comp).

Montgenèvre, rain

Got in a morning ride before the rain set in. The climb to Montgenèvre is not long or steep, but do-able in a short time. I added on a little flat riding on the road to Nevache, where car drivers seem to think they are on the autoroute. The first drops of rain were just falling when I got back to the car, and huge storm clouds were descending upon Briançon. The rest of the day was spent by the fireplace.

Galibier

Rode Galibier from after the tunnel on Lautaret. It was very cold, but felt ok. The lack of riding has really been hurting my power! Afterwards, Zoe and I went to get crepes and ice cream in town, and then to the bouncy thing and ball pool


Zoe was very happy in the ball pool by herself, but fled as soon as a pack of feral kids jumped in.

pic de laigle

Chloe and I drove over Galibier to try a new climb on the Pic de L'aigle. We parked by plan Lachat (next time we will drive up to the barrier, I think) and then walked up to the peak. The peak itself is visible from the road down from Galibier, but not Plan Lachat, and it is very impressive when you round the corner of a hill and see it looming there in front of you! It took one hour and twenty minutes to get to the base of the climb.

The hike goes through the French Military camp of Les Rochilles, used by the 93ème régiment d'artillerie de montagne. The last part of the path goes up a scree slope, and behind one large boulder, I found a stack of NATO 5.56 casings, and a bullet:

The first pitch of the climb turned out to be very hard, and we decided to bail since it was also very cold (snow on the ground!). About halfway through our return hike, the weather turned very bad and started raining... so it is a good thing we backed off. The climb looks beautiful though, and I would really like to go back to try it on a warmer day. It's been a tough vacation , weather wise. It still amazes me how quickly the weather can turn bad in this part of the Alps. Just look at how clear it looks in the approach photo, and then imagine the sky completely blocked out in grey, with peaks shrouded in clouds (all in the space of less than thirty minutes).


We saw a lot of mountain bikers on the trail. Someday I'll have to come back with a bike! I was thinking that a bike approach to this climb would be ideal, since it could cut down your approach time and descent significantly.

Later, Zoe and I got stuck in a traffic jam going into Briancon (45 minutes to get there from monetier!) trying to get to the toy store. On the way back, while sitting in traffic, I saw this mural



Which looks like the cover for ZOMBIE BIKERS. Either that or Anquetil and Poulidor were suffering from some terrible skin problems.

MTB Lauzet loop

I started mountain biking in high school on a Specialized "streetstomper" that was a little ill adapted for technical singletrack. My favorite trails were in Tilden, while it was raining so that there would be fewer people to dodge. Anyway, in college I started road biking, and except for on and off phases since then, I haven't really done much offroad. Periodically, I'll get motivated to get muddy again, and there is no better motivation than the spectacular alpine trails around Monetier. Actually, on Beaux Quartiers, I saw people riding by on the "Chemin du Roy", so I thought I would try to get Tom to ride that loop with me. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful trails I have ever ridden, and made me wonder what I've been doing sucking diesel fumes and endangering myself on the roads with jackhole car drivers. Anyway, it was gorgeous! The descent was a little dicey and I crashed twice. The second time I went over the bars and slid down a small hill. The impact ripped the HD cam off the bars (and was unfortunately NOT filming at the time.. booo!). Other than a few abrasions and bruises, I'm fine though.

Market day!

Also, we made pizzas on the grill, which was fantastic. Zoe made her own pizza, from kneading the dough, to rolling it out, to choosing condiments

Beaux Quartiers

Today, thanks to generous babysitting by the entire chalet crew, Chloe and I were able to do a fabulous climb on the Aiguillette de Lauzet. The "Petite" Aiguillette is an impressive formation that overlooks the road to Lautaret, and Beaux Quartiers is supposed to be one of the best routes up it. At 300 meters and a whole lot of pitches, it is a fairly serious climb. I was so cold for the first 5.10d pitch that I could barely feel my fingers! After pitch two, we got stuck behind some other climbers, who we had to wait for for the majority of the climb. They eventually bailed after the steep 6a+ chimney, but we continued on with the last three pitches and topped it out.

On the walkoff, we saw a troupe of baby chamois bounding up and down rock faces.

as well as the "daddy", who seemed unimpressed by us.

We were unsure of whether he would charge us to protect the young'uns, so we gingerly walked by him.

When we were about two thirds of the way down from the walkoff, we noticed the other party on the climb, who had managed to arrive in some gully and were just now walking back to the base of the climb to get their stuff. It looked like maybe they had gotten lost in the rappels (which is another reason to not rap off, given the choice of a walkoff!).

Anyway, it was an excellent climb, and thanks again to the babysitters!!!

Tour de Friggen France

Today was the big day: The "Queen" stage of the tour de france which passed through three mythical cols, for a whole lot of altitude gain. With a profile like today's, it was fairly certain that some kind of attack would happen, but I don't think anyone imagined how exciting a stage it would really be. I was thinking about recent tours, and it was definitely the most exciting stage I have watched for a long time. Perhaps more importantly, the tour was going right through the town that we are staying in!

For the past few days I had been trying to drum up excitement in my generally non cycling obsessed co-chaletards, with limited success. However, when you see Andy Schleck attack with 60 km of hard riding left to go, and in particular relatively exposed and headwindy terrain... I think most everyone was excited! Unfortunately, the day did not get off to a great start, when
Christine, Terry and Robyn went to the wool mill in Chantmerle in the morning and were unable to return because of the road closures. Instead, they had to walk back to the chalet, much to their chagrin. They managed to make it back well in advance of the tour, though.

Everyone went out an hour early or so to see all the hotdog cars go by, and get free stuff.


The race spectators were worse than grad students at the prospect of free stuff: one enormous imbecile walked right in front of Jon and me and began swinging his hands in two arcs trying to get packets of Nesquick thrown at him. A middle aged woman next to me was throwing elbows and muttering about free laundry detergent. When the first detergent mobile passed her by, she was visibly distraught, but perked up when she saw a second detergent mobile. I don't think she really need a free one-dose detergent packet, based on the fact that she lives in a GIANT chalet next to the chalet that we were renting. Eventually, I got fed up and braved the wrath of the young gendarme who was blowing his whistle and yelling at people for walking in the street (what would he have done on Galibier, I wonder?) and crossed the street. There were much fewer things being thrown onto the left side of the road, but less of a feeding frenzy, which was fine by me. All I really wanted was the coveted Carrefour polka dotted caps for the kids, and to get pictures of the chalet posse.



We went back to the Chalet to watch the tour live on TV, and were amazed to see the Andy-attack. I thought that there was no way he would maintain his gap on the ramp up to Galibier, since it isn't that steep, and there is ton of wind, but they had sent one of their teammates up in advance of the attack, and actually increased the gap. Here they are, several (4?) minutes ahead of the peloton

And then the peloton, which probably should have started reeling them in earlier!

Worth mentioning: Team Sky has the nicest team cars:

After the peloton whizzed by, we (okay, I) rushed back to the chalet to watch the run up to Galibier. When Schleck hit the base of Galibier with the same lead, even the French commentators assumed that Voeckler would not be in Yellow at the end of the day. Amazingly, he hung onto Evans' wheel for all of Galibier (dropping Contador) and made the gap small enough to retain the yellow jersey! During one of the most memorable sections of one of the most memorable stages in recent Tour history, I heard a "Daaaaaaady-o" coming from the bathroom, which was the song of the three-year-old-butt-that-needs-wiping. So while Voekler was killing himself trying to keep the jersey, I was frantically searching for diaper wipes and cleaning butt. Epic stuff.

After all the tour hullabaloo was over, we dropped Terry off back at her stranded car in Chantemerle. I guess her epic was just getting started, and it ended up taking quite a long time to get to Geneva that night. Along the way, I noticed that the HTC-Highroad team (one of three US teams in the tour) truck was in a lot across the street, so I crept up on it and took these photos.


Amazing things that I missed:
1)That is mark cavendish's bike!! (bib 171)
2)I think that is Tony Martin (one of the world's best time trialists) talking to the mechanic!
3)There is a rubber chicken hanging in the team truck

also, the mechanic was slamming the crankset into the frame with a hammer, having declared the previous crankset "caput". It wasn't even a sprint stage, and Cav still managed to nuke his crank.

Rocher Baron, Tour de France, Casset

Chloe and I were supposed to climb the Aiguillette du Lauzet today, but when we arrived at Pont de l'alpe, it was snowing a little bit! Not wanting to freeze to death, we opted instead for sunny single pitch climbing at a crag called Rocher Baron (just south of Briancon). When we arrived, I noticed that some barriers were being set up, and there were cycling fans everywhere. It turned out that a small French cycling race called the Tour de France was about to come through! I had no idea that the stage came so close to Briancon, but we managed to inadvertently stumble upon the hill preceding the Montgenevre climb! This is the third time I have managed such a feat (the first two were for the paris stages of the 1991 and 2003 TdFs). We did some nice climbs (Titeuf, Eau Secours, Pas de bile, J'en reve encore, Je n'ai qu'une seule vie, Derniere danse) on excellent rock before heading back down the road to watch the tour. A small escape had formed, and we got to see Voeckler in yellow, with Europcar doing work at the front of the peloton.





THOR!

We got down just in time for the riders, so we missed the usual "pre-game show" of cars shaped like pigs etc. I did notice that instead of the just the usual gendarmes, there were also italian police (in BMWs, not Fiats!) because the stage ended in Italy. The road was supposed to be closed until 4 PM, but they opened it at 2:30, so we went back to the chalet for a walk to le Casset with the crew