Weather forecast said chance of rain but it sure looked sunny. After two fairly big climbs on the weekend I felt strong for the first time this year. Then I saw the storm clouds rolling in. 15 kilometres from home I decided to make a dash for it. 10 kilometres from home I started hearing the thunder.5 kilometres from home I got hopeful. 4 kilometres from home I felt a drop.3 kilometres from home it started raining.2 kilometres from home it started pouring. 1 kilometre from home the sky really opened up.500 metres from home i pulled over under a…
Author: Will
Will
Happiest while cycling uphill.
We drove to beautiful lake Annecy to ride the bike path and found that it was closed due to the annual marathon. And the park beside the lake was a zoo, so we got on our bikes and went exploring the other way. And we discovered a great national park forest route up to a col that I had never heard of (Col des Contrabandiers — translated: Smugglers Pass). The blurb in the first photo points to where we biked and took the other photos below. As we escaped the town we found this: The road ends at the col.…
Easter monday we found another hiking trail above our home. Up to about 4,500 feet with views of Lake Léman (Lake Geneva).
It is becoming an Easter tradition. For the 3rd time in the last few years we went to Alsace for Easter. Another tradition? It rains whenever we are there. Still the weather mostly held and we enjoyed two big hikes in the Vosges mountains up to 3 huge castle ruins. Imbetween we cycled through wine country. Click below to enlarge. Lots of old buildings have storks nests. The third picture below is a 15th century tower with a stork on top.
We live part way of Le Saleve, a little mountain beside Geneva. Our house is at 600 metres (2,000 feet, the top of the Saleve is at 1,340 metres (4,500 feet).
The snow has finally cleared enough that we decided to try and hike up to the top.
After only a few minutes we are quickly on a peaceful trail accross farm fields and through the woods.
At times it is a very steep climb but the views are fabulous. After about 2 hours we reached the top.
You can just about see our house
A farmer built this last century. We can see it from our kitchen window.
Hiking accross the top of the saleve and looking in the other direction are stunning views of Mont Blanc.
Well today was the first clear sign that the season has started —- I saw a guy ahead of me and had to chase him down. Exhausted. I also found a new cycling route. While riding along a road I’ve cycled a hundred times I saw a new VTT (mountain bike) route sign. A bumpy but scenic trail along (very) old farm roads along the French / Swiss border.
Cycling home from Switzerland on a small road in the woods, I took a turn up an even smaller road marked as a dead end just to explore and found an old chapel on the runins of a 14th century castle. There wasn’t much left of the castle …. the sign said it had been destroyed during the French revolution and the stones used by locals.
I love spring here. Finally warm enough to bike with shorts … yet the nearby mountains are still covered in snow. Good two hour ride into Switzerland and back. Time to get back into shape.
Doreen is training for the Geneva half Marathon in may (she did the full marathon last year, and immediately retired from marathon running). Her training demanded an 80 minute run – and I decided to join her. We didn’t break any speed records, but at least we got out.
We just arrived home after a week skiing at Les Arcs France high in the Alps. We stayed in a great resort – Les Arcs 1950 (all parking underground – leading straight to hotel and a quaint village above. (click any photo to enlarge) Unfortunately, we had too much snow. It took us 5 hours to climb the last 20 kilometres. We bought chaims at the bottom and I learned how to install them about half way up. 5 kms from the top a bus got stuck ….. yuck. This was three and a half hours longer than it took…