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.