Ski 14: Totally tropical

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Tour du Mont Blanc

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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 which is simply inconceivable but I
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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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A wild weekend

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 Sometimes the weekend is just epic.  We're on the Costa Blanca, favoured holiday spot of literally millions of British people every year, plus a whole load of other northern Europeans in need of a shot of Vitamin D, or more likely in search of sun, sangria and, let's be honest, sex.  Most of them are here for everything that happens within a hundred metres of the beach.  But just a few kilometres further back, there are some quite dramatic mountains, rising over a thousand metres, looming in the background, providing some added drama to the daily sunset show as the heat of the day gives way to the sultry night. Oops, back to the blog Milton. We figured out what this mountain was, and that unless you had a full mountaineering rig with you, you were not likely going to the top, likened as it was to the mythical Cuillin ridge on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.  However, we did find a tantalising route around the mountain, and so off we went on Saturday morning, parking the car arou
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