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  • Tignes: Blueberries; Les Arcs: Rasps; La Thuile: Strawbs; Bleau: Blackberries
  • thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Doh, tech malfunction. Hang on

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    So, in these dark days of alternative truths and the inexorable rise of the arsehole; I need a bit of cheering up. What better way than looking back at this year’s summer holiday and planning next. Also, we get endless “where should my family go on our summer holiday” threads; and I this thread should provide a few pointers to what Tignes has to offer for young kids.
    To get in the mood, let’s start with my favourite photo. Fair enough, I pressed the shutter a split second too soon but not too bad.:

    Anyway, we went to Tignes cos I was out of work and money wasn’t sooo plentiful. The campsite was fairly cheap, very quiet and most importantly the lift pass is free. Todally free. Nasty drive from Manchester, but never mind;

    The site is in Tignes Les Brevieres way down below Tignes on the old road. Very bizarre seeing all the chairlifts hanging over the campsite.
    I’ve not done much alpine biking, but was blown away by Tignes trails. There are loads of carved downhill trails, but what really sets it apart (aside from the free lift pass) are the Endure Trails or whatever they are called. These generally follow paths or sometimes roads and are much more varied than the DH trails. Some involved quite a lot of pedalling and some are very gnadgery. Trail Map http://public.tignes.net/ETE2016/DEPLIANT_TIGNES_bike_park_2016.pdf.
    There is a shuttle bus up to main Tignes every half hour BUT it only takes 8 people. Luckily the campsite is only the second stop, so you usually get on ok. We were denied boarding twice during the week, and ended up rolling down the hill to the first stop (near Chalet Lardons if I’m correct). There were usually people stood waiting at 1800 and other stops who didn’t get on. No idea if they ever actually got to the top of the hill or not. Cyclists get priority so we each day we loaded YO9’s broken bike onto the trailer and took it up to Tignes in order to guarantee him a seat. At the end of the day he’d then freewheel back down the hill to the campsite with no chain and no derailleur. Strange but effective.
    On the first day we headed up right to Palafour lift and tried one of the greens. It started off lovely and smooth:

    However, at the bottom it got a bit brake bumpy. YO11 and me waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually I got bored and walked back up the trail to find YO9 and his maw pushing his bike. Daft git had gone OTB and bent his rear mech hanger on the very first run. DEEPLY annoying. I got straight on the phone to the shop in England and ordered two mech hangers sent express delivery. Then we hired a bike. Unfortunately you couldn’t hire a bike without all the clobber:

    Which, when added to the weight of the bike, was far heavier than the wee man. He absolutely hated it.

    So in the end we locked the fullface to a lamp post with his broken bike and he used his own kit. Job done:

    We did a few greens and blues then an Enduro/Itinaire called Into the Wild . The missus loved it, YO11 liked it and YO9 hated it. It was very scenic, but not very challenging, and lots of uphill.

    Scenic though

    Down to Val D’espair then up the Bellevarde. Various routes round there including Popeye of course. Me and YO9 fired up Strava and gave it welly down this one. He was very much in the zone and we managed 22 kmh for the first 5 km. Which of course means nothing at all; but we tried it 3 more times that week and never managed it faster. I did it once on my own and only managed 23 kmh average so was quite impressed by the wean’s speed.
    Can’t recall where this one is, but YO9 looks to be in a bit of a sulk. I think it’s the blue Tarte a Lognan off Palafour. Or it could be Into the Wild again.

    We’d hired the bike for 2 days, so were really pissed off on day two to find that the 24 inch Mondraker from yesterday had been hired to someone else. So we had a PoS Kona Stinky. It was utterly awful. Fair enough if you’re a 95kg bloke ragging it down a hill, but for a 27kg twig it was just stupid. In the end his mum rode it for the day, Yo11 rode the Stumpie and Yo9 borrowed his brother’s Trek. Given how steep some of the stuff was that we tried later on, the last thing I wanted for Yo9 was brake lever confusion. Anyway, he got some air and we did pretty much all of the trails off Palafour.

    The woman at the bike shop was deeply surprised that YO9 had managed to do a couple of blues as well as some greens. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that by the end of the week he’d done all the greens, blues and reds* in the valley as well as various of the Expert Itinaires.

    * two portages 😉

    Having said which, and in the interests of fairness to anyone else contemplating a young family trip to Tignes, you need to be reasonably competent, fully in the zone, or both. We saw quite a few other family groups out and about and some seemed to be finding it tricky. Much of the green routes were smooth as anything. Really good for jumps and going fast. But almost invariably the surface would deteriorate at some point into something loose and rocky. These sections required much more concentration and could get a bit scary if you bashed in at speed (as Yo9 was wont to do). Note his OTB on day one which put his bike out of action for the trip (I wonder if it was deliberate)

    Towards the end of each day we’d split into two groups. One of the kids would freewheel down the road with an adult (very scary) and the other would go shopping and then cycle up a short hill from Tignes towards Palafour and then come down the Wonderboisses trail with the other adult. Or sometimes we’d take the Palafour lift all the way up..

    Along:

    And down:

    Really nice trail. Almost all easy.

    Takes you right down to Tignes 1800, where we’d nip into the Spar for a tub of Haagen Dazs. Then down the old road to the campsite. There were loads of lovely raspberries and redcurrants round the site. Blueberries as well. Lovely with Ice Cream:

    Gnomm gnomm

    😛
    Tomorrow: Lost Valley. Steep Loveliness; Scary Klettersteig.

    wallop
    Full Member

    Great post!

    Tignes is a lot of fun.

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    ahsf
    Free Member

    Might not be free lift passes for long if the rumours are true.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    After a hesitant start, the kids seemed to be relaxing and enjoying it. The littleun especially was in his element searching out jumps etc. We did the reds down into Tignes and enjoyed most of them, although there was one step on Gypsy below Toviere that we all portaged. Anyone done this section clean?
    I was on my XC bike (105mm stem etc) which wasn’t really enjoying the rough fast bits. It was fine on the smooth fast bits and fine on the slow gnadgery bits, but didn’t like the fast bumpy stuff. It just felt like it was about to break. So I took to exploring the Itinaires or Enduro routes or whatever they’re called.
    The Twig and I did something called Rocky Ride from Belevarde and I was chuffed as hell when it ended up going down the Lost Valley. https://vimeo.com/25647435
    I’ve skied this and absolutely loved it; so was really looking forward to a bike descent. Alas after 300m or so it climbed back out of the valley with the vallee itself being VTT interdit. After a few minutes ruminating I made a bad call and we ducked the rope and headed down the lost valley. In very short order we realised that they weren’t being killjoys, it just wasn’t cycleable:

    What I’d not realised is that the lovely flat smooth surface in winter is based on a 4-5m thick cover of snow. In summer it was just a dry rocky riverbed. We walked. Bits of it were essentially mini Via Ferata. I had to send the wean on ahead without his bike and then carry them both up one after the other. All the while looking out for angry ramblers/Gendarmes/Ski patrol. Luckily there was a relatively quick escape up the right bank and over a bridge. So, bad dad.
    So we took it easy after that and did Popeye again and then the Red Forest Fun or whatever it’s called from Bellevarde. Oddly enough it seems to be absent from the new piste map linked above. Shame, as it’s really good. By this time we’d managed to find The Twig an amazing Commencal 24inch ful susser which he loved. It was totally suited to him and even had Avid brakes which could be swapped from left to right. Yehaaa..
    Jumps on the Bellevarde red:

    We then went back up and did the proper Rocky Ride route without the nasty detour down lost valley. It was very good:

    Can see the lost valley in the left background.
    The weird thing about the Enduro routes was that on the flat bits the trail was almost non existent. It was only when it got steep that of course it got hacked up and rocky.
    I think this is the rop of Rocky Ride on Bellevarde:

    Really good interesting gnadgery, technical, slow riding. Lovely.
    Yo9 and I also did the Enduro routes down from Palafour to Brevieres. They were absolutely stunning. Palaf was great, although he had to portage 2 little sections.
    Looking down Palaf

    Looking back up the same section:

    Steepish bit (no really, it was)

    We also did Rocky Trail and something else all the way from Palafour to Les Brev. Looks like the piste map has changed again.
    It was amazing.

    Bit scary in places…

    If you fall, you’ll go a long way.

    Luckily he didn’t

    Was quite funny, as a group had followed us right at the top. Presumably thinking that anything he could do, they could do better.

    Four of the group were fine, but there was a girl and her dad with them and we could hear her crying intermittently all the way down the hill. She really didn’t enjoy it.

    We loved it.

    Back at the campsite for more berry picking

    And communing with various natures

    The rest of France was suffering an unpleasant heatwave. But Tignes was great. Lovely and cool to sleep at night and not too hot during the day.
    We did a few drives up to Claret to play B’ball

    On our rest day we went paddle boarding.

    It was fun, but got a bit samey after a while. So I tried to stand on one foot.
    Bad idea. As the board tipped I put my foot down very quickly. Very Very quickly. And it hit the side of the board coming up. Ouch

    Who knew toe nail roots are shaped like that eh. I spent most of that day sat in the medical centre filling in forms and worrying about the rest of the week. In the end it was fine. I just cut off the excess, bandaged the rest up and kept my toe clips nice and loose.
    The kids made the most of my absence and went zorbing. (free, like loads of things)

    More of the same over the next days. Lots of berms

    A few jumps

    Easy

    But consequences if you miss the line

    I think this is the bit where a marmot ran out in front of the wean. In between these two photos

    He got quite freaked. Think he was worried about ending up in the hole.
    The photos above are some red route between Toviere and Claret. Seem to be renamed on the new map.
    Anyway, we did loads of biking and were knackered. But luckily the weather gods were listening and the next day it pisched it down with rain. Proper biblical.

    So the kids went mad on the berry picking

    Gnomm gnom. Baguettes, croissants, jam, Cwoffee berries

    Excellent rest day. No wasted lift pass. No vague feelings that we ought to have done a bit of cycling. Just mooching around in the pissing rain chilling out.
    Next day involved some more biking
    And spending the lift pass money on ice creams.

    Sometimes Yo9 got a bit tired and lost concentration

    So we stood around and took the piss, and some photographs

    On one of the days I bust my tyre on Popeye, and had a big walk back to Tignes.
    On another day I did Very Bike Trail into Val D’Isere. I’d been avoiding it all week as it was marked as Expert and had a much steeper gradient than the others. In the end it was amazing. Really good. Lots of steep ricky gnadgery bits, flat grass where you couldn’t even see the trail and then a finish down the Face ski piste into Val D. The last bit down the piste was awesome. Back wheel almost locked out, front wheel braking as much as you can without OTBing; surfing this wave of loose rocks and scree down the hill. Desperatley looking for a slight easing in angle so you can stop gaining speed. Great, even on the XC bike.
    Also did the ridge between Toviere and Borsat, Ice Tignes. It was very scenic, with a few scary bits, but not much actual biking.

    The valley behind looks like it goes up towards the Grande Motte Glacier (Not the M piste, round to the left) Looked great for an XC day, but never got round to it. Anyone done it?
    Alas whilst I was away, the missus tried to shift Yo9’s chain onto the biggest cog. It was a bit stiff, she pushed, it broke. 3rd bike failure of the week just before we headed to Les Arcs. When I examined it, it turned out the limit screw had been tightened up to prevent it getting onto the biggest sprocket. In the end some little bike shop in Bourg had a replacement, which I bought rather than having to take it back to the Tignes hire shop and lose a days biking. The mechanic in Tignes was quite pissed off with us for breaking it. I told him he should have pointed out that the 9 speed bike only had 8 gears. He said all hire bikes in the alps have the limited screw tightened to prevent the biggest sprocket being used so the chain doesn’t fall in the spokes. I suggested that was what a spoke protector was for.

    i_like_food
    Full Member

    Loving this, brings back lots of good memories. Roll on summer 2018!

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Doh, two Flickr ctrl vs with no corresponding ctrl c.

    Avoiding the hole, part deux:

    And us consoling the Twig after his fall.

    Hang on son.

    just want to take a photo from a different angle.

    spacey
    Full Member

    Brilliant, inspired stuff. We went to Tignes this summer and it was 2 degrees and icey at the campsite. We only stayed one night. This could inspire a return 🙂

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Now that is a proper family holiday….

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Top post 🙂

    You culd spend a month in that valley and not ride the same trail twice, Tignes, Vat, Sainte Foy, Les Arcs, Peisey, La Rossiere, La Plagne, La Thuille

    Cool parents. When I was your lads ages our family holidays where caravanning in Weston Supermare or Porthmadog (by far the better of the two for me)

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    matt_outandabout
    Now that is a proper family holiday….

    Cool. If moab approves of a family holiday, then it must be good.

    Right, rest day number 2 coming up. More active than the first rest day, and more scary too.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Getting my days mixed up, but never mind. In amongst the mayhem above, the much awaited mech hangers had arrived. Unfortunately they’d sent the wrong ones [swear]. So I asked them to send the correct ones, like the bike had on it when we bought it from them. They arrived in Lyon on Friday and were duly put on the shelf marked “economy delivery” until the following Monday. Nothing I could say to the DHL man in Lyon would persuade him to release them unless I drove the 300km to Lyon and back to get them myself.
    So we decided on another rest day.

    After breakfast of course.

    Trawled through the various hire shops in ValD to find some via ferrata lanyard hires that weren’t obscenely expensive. Parked behind La Daile and set off up the ladder;

    Strangely enough, although Yo9 is fearless on the bike, he’s not so good dangling from big cliffs, so he needed a lot of encouragement. Yo11 did his usual slow, constant progress with a big grin.
    Some bits were quite hard and exposed. We got overtaken by some bloke with his old teenage daughter. They seemed surprised that we weren’t bailing out at the first exit. They went down. We went up.
    At which point it got slightly scary.
    I think this is the 6m bridge. The photo is rubbish, but the drop underneath was big

    Up a bit more.

    Look at those knuckles. It’s not possible to grip on harder/ 😈

    At this point Yo11 lost his insouciance.

    As did I. The route got proper serious at this point. You can’t really see on this photo, but it goes directly along the white wall in the background behind his head. I think you can just make out a bridge in the background. Part of the problem was that the handrail and footrails at that point were clearly placed for the average french adult. It was probable that TheTwig would have to hand traverse along with his feet dangling in the air. Not good.
    So, fair enough, giving the pre-teen kids a bit of adventure, but this looked proper bowel loosening. So we came down again; realising exactly why the French bloke earlier gave us such a weird look when he bailed out.

    Back across the 6m bridge. Which seemed more photogenic in this direction

    Those are big tower blocks in the background you’re looking down on.

    And back to the campsite for beer and steaks again. All relaxed, chilled and recharged for the days ahead. (maybe)

    big_scot_nanny
    Full Member

    Marvellous write up, thanks thegeneralist, looks like a fantastic holiday!

    bobbyspangles
    Full Member

    Loving this. Good work!

    i_like_food
    Full Member

    We did the first section of the via ferrata this summer with our 7 yr old and I harboured a wish that we’d carried on the part II. I’m glad we didn’t now 🙂

    Keep them coming!

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    So, we’d pretty much done Tignes, damn good it was too. So we went and had a look at Les Arcs. As mentioned above, the missus had broken TheTwig’s hire bike the day before so we had a bit of a quandary. Staying in the campervan in LesBrev and shuttling up to Tignes each day was great but the idea of driving up there to get the bike fixed, then driving to Les Arcs sucked. We also didn’t think the shop would have any spare parts, so we headed straight to Bourg bike shops.
    Sorted the shifter for the bargain price of 25 euros (anyone want to buy an nearly brand new Sram 9sp shifter?.
    Alas by the time we got up the train it was approaching noon. 😥
    Then by the time we got to the Transarc the Frenchies had stopped for lunch 😥

    Then the pissing lift broke down and we spent about 45 minutes dangling in midair eating lunch 👿
    Then when we arrived at the top the missus, who hadn’t been in the gondola with the sandwiches, wanted lunch 🙄
    Then some woman from Belgium phoned to negotiate a job offer with the missus, which took about 45 minutes 👿 (it was a shit offer too, so the missus was grumpy too 👿 )
    By the time we got going I was well pissed off. We did a few of the runs off Arcabbulle; and after a week of biking they were just a bit dull, a bit hot and a bit samey. So we headed down to 1950 and then followed route 66 back to La Cachette. Partly because bits were closed, and partly cos it was a shit route anyway, it was shit. Took ages.
    By this time it was about 4:30 pm and we’d done almost sod all. I was cheesed and deeply uninspired by Les Arcs. The missus and the BigUn headed off to 1800 to do the big red down to the bottom (Dre dans le Pentu). TheTwig and me did something under La Cachette. Can’t recall if it was the red or the Black, but it was brilliant. I think it helped that the Twig always goes faster than his brother downhill – a lot faster and so you get a much better flow going. I’ve often noticed this skiing/riding as well, that 3 is the optimal number. With 4 people you just spend too much time faffing, however fast and organised they are.
    Anyway, we bazzed down as fast as we could desperate to catch the last lift. Alas it was not to be and it closed just as we approached. I was a bit gutted as we headed to the top of La”8”. Like everything else in Les Arcs, it seemed to include a long section of road/track to get to it.

    BUT, when we eventually got it it….. wow. It was bloody amazing. Looking at the trail map, it seems to descend around 2500 feet. Initially I was miffed that we’d only had a short day, but by the bottom we were both fried. <Full disclosure: I walked around 10m of it that looked impossible; and TheTwig walked 3 or 4 sections totalling about 40m height.>
    It just went on and on and on. We had to keep a careful ear out for late finishing bikers coming down, but it was amazing. Loads of bits that were proper scary and loads of difficult bits. I had one bad dad moment when I encouraged him to try one bit he didn’t want to do, and he binned it big time. He fell a long way down a hill and I really worried he’d hurt himself (thankfully not).
    By the time we got to the Funi carpark we were gubbed. Especially the wean. It took about 40 minutes before the missus and BigUn arrived and then a race back up the Isere valley to drop the hire bike back off and get harassed by the hire dude who insisted that all hire bikes in the alps always have the bottom gear disabled to stop the chain going into the wheel. Any experience of this.?
    So, a shit morning, followed by a frustrating afternoon followed by one good and one outstanding trail.
    To be fair, by this time in the trip we were somewhat biked out, and having done some excellent trails, the good trails just weren’t that inspiring. I’d really wanted to do the epic trail from Col De La Chal mentioned in that shit Alps biking book, but didn’t feel confident enough about what we’d find to take the Weans down it. Anyone done it; is it any good?
    No idea if this pic is Les Arcs or Tignes, but let’s put it here anyway

    My rubbish attempt at photographing his rubbish attempt at air on La “8”

    My rubbish attempt and photographing some random bloke’s excellent attempt at air on La 8

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Probably worth mentioning another bad dad moment (around 2 days actually)…
    Bigun had been telling me for a few days that his brakes were making funny noises, but I just told him that’s what bikes do. You buy them new, they work really well, you use them more and they work less well. Eventually stuff breaks or wears out and they you either buy new stuff or just make do with the limited remaining functionality.
    He kept moaning. I kept ignoring him.
    In the end he said his front brake just wouldn’t work at all. At which point I just told him to use his back brake.

    Anyway, when I got home I realised he was right and decided to undertake a bleed of his brakes. I completed the job excellently (if I say so myself) and was admiring by handiwork when I noticed a big pool of stuff on the patio.

    Closer inspection of the brakes revealed:

    Took the pads out….

    Turns out the initial weird noise must have been the springs etc being eaten by the brake disk. Then the backing plate, then the brake piston. I guess it got a bit quieter when the piston wore through and all the brake fluid pissed out onto the disk and wheel and presumably trail.

    Ho hum.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Right, only one more days biking to go; then a bit of ‘bleau

    In the mean time, anyone up for some DWS in Mallorca next year? Want to get a slightly bigger crew together to remove some of the fear factor 🙂

    i_like_food
    Full Member

    Still loving this. Agree totally about Tignes Vs Les Arcs. We base in BSM to Les Arcs is so much easier to access (ride from flat to the funicular) but the trails are nowhere near as fun as Tignes/VdI. I’m hoping to get a bit more off piste action around Les Arcs/Piesey next summer as the nipper will be 8 and on a full sus. I am however total crap at finding and then following online trails and I’m always a bit cautious about taking mini-me on trails ‘blind’ after several bad dad moments (akin to the time I took him to BPW in the pissing rain when he was 5).

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    BPW when he was 5. Lol. Sounds epic.

    Yup. I need to keep reminding myself not to overdo it with them.

    philstone
    Full Member

    Love La 8 (also known as black 8). There’s also an unofficial line that shoots off from it called White 8. To be honest the lines from the top of the Trasarc aren’t that great. Unless you go for La Varda I find the best trails in Les Arcs are in the trees.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Glancing at some guidebook suggested that LaThuile was the place to head for. I also recall it being touted on STW, so off we went. The book said that it had lovely flowy wooded singletrack built by experts “take the trail bike, leave the DH rig at home” or words to that effect.
    As ever, the weather gods were smiling and it duly pissed it with rain all day when we drove across. Splendid timing. There was a big traffic jam on the La Rosiere pass, which delayed us by about 4 hours

    It rained biblical. Yeuch. The campsite was absolutely jam packed, but they found a space only just bigger that the van and fitted us in. Lovey pizzas and gelato (i?)
    Anyway, getting to the point, La Thuile sucked pretty comprehensively. We did Flow which was okish. We then went down Muret, which was just a very steep rocky ditch with zero flow and no interest apart from banging pedals on the side of the ditch. I was deeply disappointed. I left the kids on the red and headed down a black to see if it was any more suitable. It wasn’t, Bits of it were ok, but the rest was just way too steep for me/bike. So we went back to the red. Major disappointment.
    Doesn’t look that steep on the photo…

    At which point the missus (who thankfully had won the earlier argument about whether to get a one or two day liftpass “but dear, the STW massif says La Thuile positively rocks”) decided we’d do the big old Verney route that looked like a great adventure. The bloke (bastard) at the top of the lift pointed to a hut just above us and said that was the highest point on the route. (bastard) So off we went. The kids were remarkably tolerant given that it just went up and up and up.

    The wee one even zoomed off ahead in a desperate attempt to end the pain. Sorry son, you’ve gone the wrong way.

    You’ve gotta be shitting me

    He came back down and we went down. Every now and again we’d find 30m or so of singletrack and get all excited. Then it would end.
    Mmmm Mud

    Flowy technical wooded singletrack (maybe)

    Little bit on the road

    Got a bit better

    Then a lot better

    Then it got shit again

    Mmmm fireroad. Uphill. Awesome. Well worth 100 euros of lift passes.
    Then onto the road.

    Presumably there was a sign leading off the main road back onto another landrover track. But we didn’t see it.

    We just wanted to get it over with. There was one section near the bottom that looked like a good trail, but it had a sign on it threatening a hefty fine if you MTBd it.
    I was well cheesed by this point, the missus bailed out and me and the kids headed back up the lift to try to rescue the day….

    And we did (mainly)
    We did La Tour into Touriasse

    And it was kinda ok. Good flowy bits. Good gnadgery bits. No pissing landrover tracks, no bloody roads and no muddy ski pistes.
    I think we did it three times in the end and it was good The kids really got into the zone and we played a few excellent games of dabs. I was amazed what they managed to clean.

    Well ok, he’s clearly got his foot down here..

    So, back at the campsite I thanked the missus for refusing to buy a 2 day lift pass and we planned our escape. La Thuile was a bit pants, but to be honest we were gubbed and the bikes were gubbed and we were probably suffering a bit of bike fatigue. So we changed our plans and headed off to Fontainebleau. The best bouldering on earth.
    Via the Monte Bianco Tunnel, for which we had to queue for hours, even though there weren’t many people there.

    Got to bleau, cooked tea.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    Right, so ‘bleau. If you’ve been then you already know. If you haven’t and think the kids might be in to a bit of climbing then get your arse down there. Huge forest with literally thousands of marked boulder problems in circuits round the forest. Colour coded in difficulty. For kids it’s like some marvelous treasure hunt as you climb one boulder and then follow the arrows to the next. If you’re finding it too easy then you just keep an eye out for some blues, or Reds, or whites, or indeed blacks if you’re in God’s own venue (Elephant).
    We went to Diplodocus on the first day as you could cycle there from Musardiere campsite (DO NOT leave anything valuable in your car in the car-parks) Especially, don’t be a dick and leave anything valuable hidden in your car; otherwise they’ll come to the conclusion that it’s worth breaking into seemingly empty cars (like mine) to search for hidden stuff.

    Anyway, a picture paints a thousand words and all that

    Colder up north, so blackberries were in season

    Then went to Gorge aux Chats.

    Where the kids struggled on some rounded finishes

    TheTwig did his first Red

    All the way to the ‘top’

    And the bigun burned me off for the first time. He was well chuffed. So was I, sort of.

    This is as far as I got

    Not the last time, I fear.

    Cycle back to the campsite

    Then home.

    That’s all folks

    Hopefully we’ll do something similar this year. Maybe with a bit of sport climbing thrown in.

    About 65 pages above, someone mentioned that Tignes lift pass might not be free. Do you have any more definitive info? That would be a real shame, but to be honest, still worth going IMHO

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The topic ‘Tignes: Blueberries; Les Arcs: Rasps; La Thuile: Strawbs; Bleau: Blackberries’ is closed to new replies.