Once a week treat

A journey of utilising a small village chairlift that is only open for one day a week

Over here there is a lift that is only open on Tuesday, so when the weather plays ball it's time to get up and gain some easy height to access two of the very best trails around all of the Alps.

A bit of pushing straight up a piste and a traverse around the hillside lead us to a col with breathtaking views back across the Beaufortain and Massif du Mont Blanc. In the other direction you could see south into the Isere region. Somewhere below in the clouds was Albertville where we'd eventually finish off for the bus ride home.

The trail from the col traverses across aplages on singletrack before hitting a gravel track that skirts the hillside for several kilometres linking up all the local farms and huts. This is cheese country after all. It's by one of these farm's that we cut off up through a field to find a trail head that just begins out of nowhere when looking on the map. It's strange, because it's an amazing undulating balcon of a trail. It is however about 1 hour from the lift station.

another ribbon of delight

After traversing, don't miss the turn downwards into the some of the tightest swtichbacks around. You must do this section to then be rewarded with the choice of two amazing trails. These really are some of the best around, many people who've been down rate them as the best, topping les Arc, all of Destination X and even topping the best in Europe according to one guy.

Fast tick, loam tick, flowing corners tick, technical sections tick, long, hell yeah!

The two trail's converge 4/5 of the way down and end in a small village which then requires an 8km flat road ride into Albertville to get the bus home. The descent is usually so well received people are not bothered at all. There is also a nice water fountain at the bottom to cool off and re-fill bladders with.

After the excitement of that for one day only I had to put up with trails and views like this in 30.C temperatures:

Comments

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