Friday was our last day of riding and it was a stellar ending to a great vacation. We rode up to one of the glaciers, the Glacier d’Argentiere. We rode all the way up to the valley to the lift and then took it part of the way up the mountain. The rest of the way…we climbed! It was another brutal climb with loose babyhead rocks and plenty of grueling gravel. One of the guides actually turned to me and said, “I hope to hell you guys want to see a glacier.” Hahahah I couldn’t believe the absolute beauty when we got to the glacier though. Oh my god, that is easily one of the most fascinating things I have seen on a ride. As we ate lunch, pieces of the glacier would come crashing down in spectacular fashion. It sounded like dynamite going off as it resonated down the mountain. Apparently those glaciers are going to continue to melt away, and in 25 years it is estimated that they will be gone. That is a real tragedy.













The descent started out very technical with giant rocks comprising the trail and plenty of danger.









Then it hit the steep ass singletrack with more rocky, stepped switchbacks that required a lot of finesse. I am proud to say I mastered that trail and had very few dabs. The gravity dropper worked like magic and I was in love with the trail. We ended on another very cool section and bam, that was it. I was sad to be done riding there, really sad.

Mountain biking has taken me to many places I wouldn’t otherwise visit, and shown me parts of the world that I truly appreciate. Through all the blood, sweat and tears I have been continuously impressed with what this sport has done in my life.

Second to last day in Chamonix

Thursday brought clear, perfectly blue skies and I was pumped to ride. Good thing, because we had a doozy in store for us. We rode a series of rooty and rocky singletrack all the way to Montroc and then continued on up to the lift The “bubble” as they call it there, took us up a little ways and then we climbed for 35-45 minutes the rest of the way to the top of the Col de Balme. There is a little stone restaurant up there and at the top of the Col is the Switzerland/France border, with a sign showing the border. This was just a stone’s throw away from the very monstrous climb we had done Tuesday and I could see the singletrack at the top where I thought we had been starting to descend. We had lunch and then started the descent down into Switzerland.







This was a VERY cool descent that reminded me a lot of some of the riding here in Oakridge, Oregon. It starts out in the open - high up on the Col and then drops drastically via a set of switchbacks.





You can see some of the others in our group waaaay down there.





No joke, that’s what we had just come down.



Heading into the dark forest soon.







The singletrack continues on into the dark in the trees; rooty, and rocky with some really scary fast sections on the side of the cliff.





It lasted forever and dropped us out in a tiny town where we then rode back on the road to Chamonix.



That was a brutal road ride back up and I was totally dead by the time we reached the chalet.

The next day was a rest day and we needed it after Tuesday’s epic. Today would be my first day of not riding in 12 days. We decided to take a train up to the Mer de Glace and play tourists. Glaciers are really fascinating – we don’t have many in the US but the Chamonix area is rich with them. The Mer de Glace (sea of ice) is the second largest glacier in the Alps. The train takes you up, and then we took a Gondola down a ways, and then hiked down into the glacier.









Some lady admiring one of the rooms







Later we rode the Alpine slides. Last time we were in Germany we had fun on them, these ones were a bit more risky. They had signs that said “Brake here” and they should not be ignored. A couple of us tested the limits of those little sleds and dangit, you can totally go off track with them.

Another self operated ride at the little park.





This place had a couple pretty good beers. Coming from Oregon - home of soooo many microbrews, we were disappointed overall with the beer in Switzerland and France. The wine was good to make up for it though.

Tuesday was really a very difficult day. I don’t know that I’ve ridden anything that demanding in quite awhile. I have no idea how far it was, only that it was an all day ride with a large portion of the time spent climbing. Once again we couldn’t see any of the surrounding mountains through the fog really – just glimpses here and there. We rode up out of town towards Montroc on a series of fun singletrack sections, then took a fun little trail around and down into the next valley to the base of the climb. Here we started a climb to the climb. Haha The real climb was an all out, serious incline. It switchbacked up and up and up, then more up, steep sections, more switchbacks and then finally to a lift.



This was only the halfway point but we stopped to regroup. At this point it started drizzling and the wind kicked up a notch. Perfect. We climbed some more and some more, some really steep pitches and of course more switchbacks. We arrived at another lift where I ducked under the building to eat a sandwich and wait for others. At this point a few people decided they were too cold and didn’t want to go any higher or climb any more and turned back. The rest of us pushed on…for more climbing. I kid you not, this is the most climbing I think I have done in several years and I have done a lot. It was a brutal grind to the top where I thought we would start a decent, but we climbed on some singletrack even further around to the other side of the mountain. HAHAh – we had to descend soon. Sure enough, we did. It was completely fogged in and raining so I got no pictures, but the singeltrack was really cool. It was a rocky little ribbon with switchbacks slashing down the mountain. We were above the treeline but soon descended into it and continued the fun descent. We ended up popping out on the road up the valley from Chamonix and rode furiously for the cake and coffee/tea that awaited us every evening upon our return. It was really the hardest day of riding I have done in quite a while and I would love to do it again and take some pictures. We all hit one of the local bars pretty hard for some cocktails and beer that night.

Monday was a big ride up to Lac Vert and then we continued up to where Derek and I added on the extra credit loop up to some tiny little village that I can’t remember the name of. This is at the base of that climb which was very very steep. Granny gear climbing for 30 minutes at least.

The descent after that was downright dangerous in spots and then opened up into a rip roaring section that was truly a blast. It was overcast again and dark in the forested sections so I didn’t’ take many riding pictures.









I know this one is a bit blurry, but it at least shows what most of the descent looked like. Obviously it is steeper in real life



We named the new section of trail we took that afternoon McSketch. It was a steep twisty leafy descent with plenty of rooty fun that everyone loved. As we neared the valley floor it broke out in a downpour. That was the only day we shutteled back to the Chalet.

Chamonix Part 1

Our next adventure was to stay in a chalet in Chamonix and ride with guides daily. 1050 was the tour company and at first I was ambivalent of the whole tour thing because I always fear they won’t go as fast as I want, or as far as I’d like. This operation rocks and I totally recommend them. The chalet is great, they serve you breakfast, fix you a giant sub sandwich for lunch, cake and tea upon return from your rides each day, and dinner with wine each night. The guides are very good riders, in fact, several of them race the Grand Raid Cristalp each year and finish VERY high. They were always faster than me on the descents, and most of them climbed my pace or faster so I was stoked.















Sunday we did a nice break-in loop that had a bit of everything. I didn’t take many pictures because it was overcast and drizzly.





I would describe the riding as pretty technical with root and rocky sections everywhere. Lots of the climbs were fireroads with steep switchbacks, or singeltracks with challenging roots and obstacles. 1050 doesn’t allow beginners and it was a good thing. This was some of the most technical riding I have ever done. We started at around 10:30 each day and didn’t get back to the chalet until 4 or 5 usually, so these were full day adventures.