Briançon and La Salle-les-Alpes

This morning we would leave Milan. We had an amazing time with Naomi, so we were sad to leave, but at the same time we were excited to leave the city and head back into the mountains. Julian had to manoeuvre Limão out of Naomi’s parking lot, which he was not excited about. Luckily, this time he could drive forwards, instead of the backwards manoeuvres he had to go through on our way into the parking lot. Naomi behind the van and me in front of it, we coached Julian through the first turn. He only had to go back and forth a couple times and rather quickly we arrived at the second turn, turning onto the road. Doing this forwads was easier than entering backwards upon arrival. This meant we were quickly parked on the side of the street and could say our goodbeye’s to Naomi while thanking her for her great hospitality.

We drove off and prayed we didn’t forget anything (so far it seems we only lost a charger cable for Julian’s phone and somehow brought along a t-shirt of Naomi). We drove off and realised we hadn’t yet fixed the navigation system. In a bit of a panic I tried to connect my shitty new phone, which didn’t work. This was the moment we realized Julian’s cable was not in the van and the battery of my old phone had died after not using it for a few days. We tried navigating with what we had and had to stop at the nearest gas station to fix up our setup. On our way to this gas station the fridge opened and some other stuff in the van went flying, which made for a bit of a dramatic and chaotic few roundabouts. Arriving at the gasstation it turned out we drove a bit in the wrong direction and we had to turn onto a toll-road, which we had rather not due to some financial issues… But we had to go with it and went onwards. Not even 10 minutes later I had to pee, so we had to stop again. After that we finally actually headed to our next destination.

Halfway, during the midday heat, we noticed an Ikea on the side of the road and figured it would be best to work a bit while cooling off in an airconditioned building. After doing our work for the day we ate some Ikea pizza, this was a first for us, but we were pleasently surprised. The pizza didn’t have cheese, added cheese would almost double the price of the pizza, which well, is not worth it… It was a great lunch and soon we faced the outdoor heat again. We drove towards Saint-Chaffrey where we parked at the municipal camping-car park. Quickly we walked towards the “city-centre” to find a bathroom and some groceries for dinner. The bathroom was located in a shopping centre, that was further empty due to it being summer. And groceries could be done at the local “Carrefour-Montagne”. Turns out this mountain store is absolutely way too fucking expensive. We bought some fruit (which we regretted as it was around €7 per kg for some apricots), stuff for hamburgers, which eventually became buns, with some vegetarian chicken patties and eggs. A bit of skimpy, but just fine. Outside we started laughing and decided to not do groceries here ever again.

The day before we had to do some neglected household tasks in the nearby city Briançon. We did laundry, cleaned the van, did some actual groceries, worked at McDonald’s and prepared for the hike planned for the next day.

We decided to go on a hike today, which I had picked out the day before. It was from the ski lift in Saint-Chaffrey, towards Briançon over the side of the mountain and then back along the water. We left early in the morning and started the ascent at the foot of the mountain. This ascent was about 440m high and an average slope of 25%. Sadly, the path was infested with so many flies and it was so hot that we doubted turning back a few times. But everytime we figured it wouldn’t be that much of a climb anymore and we decided to push through. Julian kept getting swarmed by flies and even though it was hot and we were tired we couldn’t take a break before we got rid of the flies. After the climb, we entered a gravelpath near the stream and figured the flies would leave us alone after that. But no, they kept following us and at this point we just wanted to get rid of them and kept walking in a very fast pace. Eventually, way after the halfwaypoint, after the descent had long started, we found a place to have lunch. We didn’t take too long and finished the descent. Then, we followed a very cute path along a stream of water all the way along the foot of the mountain. This made up for the terrible start of the hike. But since we had kept up a high pace for the entire way we decided to keep up with the pace and see how fast we could finish. In the end our feet hurt, but we had walked 14,5km with 440m ascent and ofcourse 440m descent in less than 4,5 hours. Which, to be honest, we were very proud of. After the hike we chilled the rest of the day and drove to Briançon to get a head start on the productive next day.

These days consisted mostly of working and chores. We switched up our sleeping spots every night and went to Basic Fit quite a lot to keep up with our excersise. Somewhere these days we decided to visit the oldtown of Briançon, which is absolutely worth a visit. Parking (paid) is available just underneath the access ports of the oldtown and from 19.00 till 08.00 parking is free and you’re allowed to spend the night. The historical city centre consists of cute alleys, old stone buildings, ateliers and lovely restaurants and cafés. We walked around for a bit and enjoyed looking at all the people having dinner in the cute restaurants. When we arrived near the end of the hirstorical centre we saw some signs pointing towards a viewpoint and decided to see what it was about. Absolutely surprised by the stunning views in the dusk we sat down for a bit and talked for a while, contemplating what to do in the next few days. This easily accessible view and the walk over the bridge towards the other side of the gorge are genuinely worth a visit.

A few days later we decided to try for a daylong hike. Sadly quite some rain was expected, but the morning off we decided it would be worth a try and as early as 8 we headed out face the rain. We had already made an agreement that if either one of us didn’t feel safe because of heavy rain or possible thunder, we would either find shelter or head down, depending on the situation. The beginning felt good and it was nice to hike in cooler weather than the 30°C we were beginning to get used to at this point. The path was steep and the rain made it slippery, but steadily we made our way up. When we exited the woods and would enter the ski slope thunder became audible in the distance. We went up a bit more with hopes of the thunder moving away instead of closer, but soon the both of us felt unsafe and descending would be the safest option. We had a quick drink and some raisins to fuel for the descent and in a rapid pace we headed towards the village. It was a great experience to walk in the rain and we were sad to discontinue, but it was for the best.

Another day we decided to go on a trip to Decathlon to finally buy some rope and quickdraws to learn how to leadclimb. The valley in which Briançon is located is famous for its great climbing oppertunities and we decided to take advantage. Julian almost hit a very dramatic French woman in the parking lot. It was very obvious that she did not have right of way and she still tried to cross in front of us, while making direct eyecontact with Julian, driving not even 10 km/h. When Julian didn’t stop, she dramatically started screaming, even though it wasn’t even close to an actual collision. We couldn’t stop laughing at her dramatic French exclamation and other people in the parking lot saw what happend and also started laughing at the very strange situation.

Eventually we bought our climbing gear and the next day we could start with the first practice session.

After buying some climbing gear the day before and spending the evening watching videos on how to belay, and leadclimb safely we felt ready to practice on the wall. We drove to Le Monêtier-les-Bains and walked to a climbing site called Le Pantalon and we agreed to climb to the first bolt, attach the rope to the quickdraw and rappel down to practice belaying and clipping a safe distance from the ground. We had some fun learning and we felt secure enough to climb to the second bolt and attach the rope to the second quickdraw.

The views from the wall were absolutely insane and we stayed as late as the sun allowed. Eventually it was too dark and we headed back down to the car. This first day sparked something in us and we decided to take the practice easy and buy the rest of the gear later to be able to actually climb to the tops of routes and we went to bed tired and satisfied.

The next day we decided to go back to Le Pantalon and climb up to the second quickdraw again and get used to the feeling of climbing. We made it quite a long session again and headed to bed early to be ready for the next day when we travel towards Puy-Saint-Vincent.

Today we slowly start our drive towards Vallon-Pont-D’arc, where we have a camping booked for the 5th of September. The first stop is Puy-Saint-Vincent where we found a great climbing site, the walk up to the wall was quite long and adventurous, but we got there eventually. It was quite busy and I felt very awkward learning with people around. But I got over it and started belaying, Julian accedentily backclipped and a nice person around pointed it out. We thanked her, fixed the mistake and kept going a bit more. Eventually we decided to walk a little further with hopes of finding a walkable toprope anchor. Fortunally we did and Julian installed the toprope which meant we could at least top a route a few times before heading to the place we would sleep.

We contemplated trying to find another route to climb, but at this point I think we maybe untangled the rope about 12 times in 3 days and we were so done that we decided to leave. We did try to tie up the rope in such a way that next session it wouldn’t take at least 20 minutes for us to untangle (spoiler: we failed, and hope this is a skill you just learn as you go…).

We drove towards the place we would sleep in Puy-Saint-Vincent. A very cute village fully oriented towards wintersports, which meant the village was almost completely empty this time of year. Through Park4Night we found a place to sleep, the parking deck of the wintersports, ski-resort at the top of the village. The resort was empty and the parking free, a very clean toilet was present within the parking garage and we settled for a very quiet night with an amazing view!

Tomorrow our way towards Vallon-Pont-D’arc will continue.