Ski 31: Winter keeps on giving

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Thursday, March 13, 2014






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An Alpine cycling adventure - Part II

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Day 6 - Barcelonnette to St Dalmas, 123 km (76 mi) Cols passed: Col de Cayolle (2326 m), Col de la Couillole (1678 m) Despite the brooding skies we left Barcelonnette cheered by dry shorts, confidence that we were within touching distance of our goal and enjoying the atmospheric effect of the wispy mist, high clouds and soft sunlight. Our hopes for the newly adapted route were met and surpassed as we wound our way up a stunning gorge towards Col de Cayolle. Despite a brief hailstorm as we approached the col we stayed dry and enjoyed a pit-stop and blankets amongst the snow pack on the col before negotiating over 1500 m of patchy wet descent to Guillames at 793 m. The high Alps now behind us we climbed back up through the ski resort of Valberg and on to the Col de la Couillole up at 1678 m and rolled back down to 500 m where we expected to spend the night. Our ever-supportive support team had other ideas however and let us know by way of text message that they had found a fantastic ca...
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 Straight off the top, we didn't complete it.  We did about 150 of the 170km, although we did get in 9600m of elevation gain (and about the same of downhill).  There were a few reasons for this: (i) we had to dodge thunderstorms on day 1, greatly curtailing that day's plan; (ii) we were cooked by day 7 and there was no way we were ascending 1200m from the valley floor after a 15k hike; (iii) we should have start/finished in Les Houches to minimise the extra elevation involved in getting on/off the trail; (iv) we are old and weak.   That out of the way, this was an awesome hike!  A week of splendid scenery, hard, hard hiking, at times challenging weather, cozy refuges, local food, full immersion in everything Alps and hiking; a real feast.  The generally accepted timeframe for hiking the TMB is 10-11 days which would give you around 17km and 1,000m of elevation change per day.  Sounds just about right to me!  The record for running is 22 hours...
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I am often defending the Ottawa winters, extolling the virtues of the endless days of cold, crisp sunshine reflecting off a blanket of cotton white snow, the sharp crunch of ice skates on the endless ribbon of frozen canal and the pristine dusted pines that hug the fairytale trails and snug, fire-warmed wooden huts of of the park.  Not yesterday.  Yesterday it was bloody awful.  The temperature fluctuated between -1 and +1 and the precipitation changed its mood as often as a two-year old child (I'm just guessing on that one, ours is as stable as you like).  Freezing rain overnight turned to drizzle in the morning, ice pellets by noon, then wet sleet and finally snow-hail.  It was cold, windy, damp and grey, deeply, darkly grey.  Grey above, grey below and grey in your very soul's own heart. All of which may make it seem a curious decision to head out on foot to the shopping mall, churning as it is at this time of year with unhappy and unrelenting shopp...
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