snow on izoard

Jon, Sue and I drove to Izoard today with the kids. I had been hearing about the beautiful landscape of the casse desert for a couple of years, and assumed that the best way to get there was from the Guillestre side of the famous col (Since I had not seen any of it when I rode Izoard from the North side), so we drove south of Briancon to approach the col from the South. It was raining very hard, but we stopped briefly to look at the Mont Dauphin Fort, built in 1693 by the famous French military engineer Vauban. It was quite impressive, but not worth dragging the kids out in the rain for! From there, after a few wrong turns, we were on the road to Izoard. There was supposed to be a cycling race today, but hopefully it was cancelled. We continued up, and I noticed a whiteness on the tops of the mountains that looked suspiciously like snow. In a matter of minutes, the temperature had dropped to zero, and we found ourselves in a snow storm in the middle of July. It was not light snow either, but huge swirling flakes. We saw quite a few foolhardy cyclists descending and climbing the col. I have a feeling that they were even colder than Ian and I were last year. We stopped a few times for pictures, and the Casse Désért is absolutely beautiful in the snow.


After a few slighlty scary switchbacks we reached the col.

My plan had been to stop at the Auberge Napoleon for lunch, but the snow was sticking, and I decided that it was not worth getting stuck up at the col, so we descended and headed back to the chalet. Zoe got sick from all the windy roads, and vomited on her shirt and Alex's stuffed animal. Poor ZZ!