Chamonix Activity Report: 16th July 2007
The sun has been shining over the skies of Chamonix since Thursday and what a difference it makes to the town and everyone's spirits. Last week's miserable and solemn faces have been replaced with beaming smiling ones, mine included! The holiday atmosphere in Chamonix is now hard to miss. Whatever time you popped into town over the weekend all restaurants, bars and cafes with outside eating spaces were all jam packed with tourists and locals making the most of the warm sunny weather.
Keen to make the most of the good weather we made sure we packed in a lot over the weekend. On Thursday and Friday evening we headed out to watch the finals of the World Climbing Championships. This is definitely one of the Chamonix's summer highlights and is always guaranteed to bring loads of the locals into town. I've been going to the climbing event now for the past few years and each year I am truly amazed by the speed and technical challenges these ‘spidermen' and ‘spiderwoman' climbers overcome launching themselves up what looks like a 70-80 degree wall. Thursday and Friday nights finals were largely dominated by the eastern European competitors, however some of the Venezuelan and French team members did manage to give them a good run for their money. Friday nights climbing was equally as exciting but much less about the speed and more about the technical challenges. The ascent routes were changed slightly to include fewer, smaller hand and foot holds. How these competitors hang on upside down (sometimes using only one hand) for up to 5 minutes at a time I'll never know. There's frequent shaking of tired arms and chalk dusting, followed by sharp intakes of breath from the crowd as competitors swing backwards and forwards desperately reaching for the next hold to launch them ever closer to the world championship title.
The final of the climbing competition also tends coincides with the annual Cham'Bière beer festival to which we duly made an appearance. Held in a large marquee outside the MBC (Micro Brasserie de Chamonix) you get the opportunity to sample many lagers, fruit and spiced beers from independent breweries across the Rhone-Alpes region. We did well in sampling a selection of the 35 different beers on offer, with favourites including; Cherry, Genepi, Violette and regular beer blonde to name but a few. The marquee had a lively atmosphere which was further bolstered by the impressive local firework display, a large BBQ and DJ that played until the wee small hours.
There was a rather sluggish start to Saturday so I decided to take things at a more leisurely pace becoming a ‘lady what lunched' rather than a ‘lady what did extreme sports'. My companions and I decided an afternoon by the pool was in order instead of battling the intense heat in a sporting capacity. Sadly Chamonix's Olympic sized outdoor swimming pool has been closed to the public for the past couple of years, (much to the irritation of many locals as it would appear that very little obvious work has been done to improve or change it) so we decided a change of scenery would be good and headed out of the Chamonix valley for lunch and our afternoon by the pool. St Gervais is a beautiful picturesque little French town that's located about 20-30 minutes drive away and has a good sized out door pool with spectacular views across the mountains. We found a delightful outdoor venue in the centre of town for our lazy ladies lunch, before continuing on to the pool which was packed with families enjoying the sunshine. We found a shady spot and slept off our overindulgences, occasionally dipping our big toe in the water every so often to cool off.
Sunday started with a definite change in pace. Keen to be active, fit and very healthy, we loaded our mountain bikes on the back of the car and headed to Verbier to investigate the Tour de Mont Fort. The tour only started 3 seasons ago and is already very popular. It costs only 29.00CHF (£12.90) for the day's lift passes which is great value considering the distance you cover and the lifts you take. After reviewing the website in detail, we decided to select the ‘Easy Rider' version of the tour which advertised itself as ‘perfect for those who are more interested in a beautiful ride, rather than pushing their physical limits.' Perfect for me and my mountain biking companions! The tour starts in Verbier and takes you through the Swiss villages of Nendaz and La Tzoumaz before looping back to Verbier. At nearly 50kms, it's not a short bike ride either. Our ‘moderate' route indicated that there would be 3000 metres of descent and 444 metres of uphill that would take us about 5.5 hours to do (although the 3 lifts that we would be taking plus any rest times had not been accounted for in that allocation). How exciting, we couldn't wait!
As there was a lot on in Verbier this weekend so we elected to park at Le Châble (it is also free to park there!) Our cheery liftie hooked our bikes on to the Le Châble gondola and helped us with our final route planning. This summer there's a slight variation to the normal Tour de Mont Fort route as the Savoleyres-La Tzoumaz gondola is being replaced. At the top of the Ruinettes bubble, we exited right and doubled back underneath it to take the 4 x 4 path heading in the direction of the Croix de Coeur. With not a cloud in the sky we were treated to some breathtaking panoramic views across the Swiss mountain ranges as we cycled along the top ridge.
The next couple of hours saw the disc brakes being tested to the max as we picked our way down to La Tzoumaz, stopping occasionally to take a few snaps of the local wildlife and scenery. The tour advertises up to 3000 metres of downhill and it's not wrong! A significant proportion of the downhill is on tarmac or wide 4 x 4 dirt tracks that have a few large rocks and many potholes to avoid, so although challenging at times it's not too technically difficult and easy to see why the tour is appropriate to experienced riders with a variety of skill levels. We used the detailed route map and advice printout provided by the Tour de Mont Fort website to guide us round. These documents provided invaluable at times as we occasionally struggled to find the route. (We only later realised when looking back at our photos that the red signs were actually route markers with the Tour de Mont Fort logos, rather than stickered up biking signs - doh!) The uphill section was mainly to be found between La Tzoumaz and Nendaz, however we found this was more of a steady plod on the road as opposed to a vertical challenge on a rocky surface. Although I struggled to believe that the 5 metres of uphill that was advertised on our map between the marker for 1728 and Siviez at 1733, it looked and felt more like 50 metres with tired downhill legs!
The final lift of the day took us to the top of the Col des Gentianes (2894m) where you could look left towards Mont Fort and its glacier. It's quite scary to see just how much glacial erosion there has been in the past twenty years. I remember as a child visiting Mont Fort on a family holiday and being fascinated by people skiing in the summer in ski boots, shorts and t-shirts! There's definitely no chance of that now. We could see the protective sheet in places that was first used in Verbier last summer, to help reduce glacial erosion, a problem that is becoming ever more common in todays climate.
The final section down to Verbier was again heavy on the brakes as we snaked our way down a lunar and unforgiving landscape, negotiating the occasional snow patch on the way! We took a reststop for lunch at Cabane de Mont Fort (which has easy access from the Ruinettes trail to La Chaux with a short climb after) where a quick watch check told us that we'd been riding for a total of 4.5 hours. We thought that the times allocated by the guidesheet would have been generous but in all honesty they were pretty accurate. We finished with another flying downhill descent back to the Le Châble car park which added a few extra kms, but took us through the gorgeous little villages of Montagnier and Prarreyer, that had small Mazot style chalets decorated with beautifully coloured flower box arrangements.
The Tour de Mont Fort provided a great days scenic mountain biking and the opportunity to explore this beautiful corner of Switzerland. Before you attempt it though, it's definitely worth making sure your brakes (and bike) are in good working order. Don't get caught having to do emergency brake surgery on the way as one of our group had to do!! Whilst not technically difficult, it's not an "easy" tour by any means due to its length, but with a bit of stamina and a decent picnic it's certainly one to put on the list of must do's.
Piste Maps for Chamonix (pdf format), Les Houches (jpg format), Cross-country skiing (pdf format), and Mountain-bike trails (pdf format)
Current status for opening of Pistes & Lifts
Chamonix Webcam Index
Useful Links
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice
Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office
