Serre Chevalier? Isn’t that a ski resort?
Yes, Serre Chevalier is indeed a ski resort. It’s one that I’ve been to in the winter twice. In fact, three times, I think. I’d been once for a full week in the mid-1990’s and again in the early 2000’s. I also remember a day trip down from Les Deux Alpes too, on a different holiday. This time, however, it was the middle of summer.
We need some food first
We began the morning in Le Bourg-d’Oisans with a trip to the local supermarket to grab some provisions for dinner and also so that Minimus could make some brownies in the afternoon. That never happened though, because we forgot to buy foil or baking paper, but I digress.
So at about 10am we set off for a day out meandering our way through Serre Chevalier. The ultimate destination was to reach the fortress at Briançon, but that was some distance away from where we started.
Up and over
After driving along the valley from Bourg we soon started to climb up into the mountains. To get to our eventual destination it’s necessary to climb over the Col du Lautaret. At 2,058m of altitude, this is one of the regularly used “big” climbs on the Tour de France. The road up to it was, as you might expect, steep and twisty. On the Bourg side it was also a bit narrow and in need of resurfacing. I guess that’s an occupational hazard when you’re a high mountain pass.
At the top of the pass there is a very rough car park and a couple of cafes. We decided it was time for a stop, so we parked up and walked back down the road a little bit to take some photos of big mountains. I had a multi and an earthcache to have a go at here too. The multi took, to be honest, way too much time. I couldn’t find everything, so I guessed a couple of bits of data. Thankfully my guesses were accurate and the cache was nicely found on the back of a road sign nearby.
Still, the view from the top was decent. Ami and Kas went for a wander off into the mountains while I was messing around.
The Scene of a Major Skiing Achievement
Moving down the valley, we stopped in the village of Chantemerle for a walk around and a bit of lunch. As is always the case for us in the Alps, it was fiercely hot. I mean, really hot. I wasn’t wearing any suncream and didn’t have a hat either, so I was asking for it. So we retired for something to eat in a snack bar next to a bunch of ski lifts. After careful research, I realised this was the site of one of my greatest ever skiing achievements. Well, if you can describe survival as an achievement.
Back at the start of this post I mentioned a day trip from Les Deux Alpes. On that day, they dropped us in Chantemerle. At this point it’s really easy to get uphill, but somewhat more troubling to come back. Chantemerle is where Serre Chevalier’s World Cup Downhill run finishes. The Luc Alphand piste, named after the local hero, descends a very steep straight section into the village. The major achievement for me was getting down alive. It was the week after their World Cup race and it hadn’t snowed since. So basically it was a 600m schuss of sheet ice with a 20ft wide gap in some high-jump matting at the bottom. It’s one of the only places I’ve skied where it wasn’t possible to stand still. I was gradually slipping down the hill all the time.
Thankfully there were a couple of little roads to the sides that gave some respite. Bear in mind I wasn’t a particularly accomplished skier at this point. I remember a couple of our party decided to “go for it” and regretted that decision for a number of seconds as they fell over and slid all the way down to the bottom. One of the team was nearly skewered by a stray ski that someone else had parted with.
Anyway, back at the plot, we sat at the bottom while I reminisced and we ate some decent toasted sandwiches.
Chantemerle had a set of lab caches, which had a bonus that was placed about 100m upstream from the car park we were in. So we had a quick wander around the village and then I grabbed the bonus.
Onwards and Downwards
And so down to Briançon. It’s a weird kind of town. Not in that the people or the architecture are funny though. It’s just that it looks very much like Italian alpine towns, rather than French ones. I guess a part of that is it’s history. Another part is the geography. From France, Briançon can only be reached by crossing one of a number of very high mountain passes. Well, apart from one road heading south-west. It’s a pain in the proverbial to reach from the rest of France, but it’s very close to Italy and it look Italian.
It also contains a Vauban Fort. In fact, the old city is inside the fort. It’s certainly the best one of these that I’ve visited. The scenery is dramatic and the town itself it very pretty.
This fort was the main object of my caching visit. It hosts a set of adventure labs as well as a handful of other things. The walk for the labs took us in a roughly anticlockwise walk around the walls of the fort. I was expecting it to be flat, but it wasn’t. I guess the builders of this fort had to work with the terrain at hand. There isn’t enough flat land near here to build a big fort. At least, there’s not enough flat land in any place you could defend. The top of a hill is better than the bottom of a valley, as far as old-skool warfare is concerned.
Off to the east side of the fort in a valley of the River Durance is the wonderful Pont d’Asfeld – a 40m span at a height of 56m above the river. It was a bit of a descent to get there from the walls, so the ladies stayed up the top while I walked down and across the bridge to find a challenge cache on the far side. It was rough going and we were all suffering a bit in the heat.
That walk over the bridge finished the set of labs, so we decided that would do for Briançon. We stopped for cold drinks on the way back to the car. It was mid-afternoon by this point, so we probably needed to start getting back anyway.
On the way back up
On the way back up the valley we made two further stops for a bit of geocaching. One was in the very quiet village of Les Guibertes. The whole skiing circus hasn’t made it here, so the village is best described as rural and quiet.
A little further up the valley was our final stop, at the “other” Serre Chevalier skiing hub of Le Monêtier-les-Bains. Here there was a set of labs and a couple of other bits. The ladies had had enough though, so they sat in the car while I rushed round as quickly as I could.
That left us with a drive over the Lautaret and back into Bourg, where we discovered Minimus had had a day of not doing much.
