Skip to main content

Horrendous traverses into delightful descents

solo mission today led me to Dorenaz to check out the trails


There seems to be an ongoing theme, the Valais region of Switzerland keeps pulling us over the boarder.  On Sunday we skied what this season was considered quite nice snow in a 40 degree couloir above Finhaut, and today I was near Martigny to sample the trails on offer using the Dorenaz gondola.  The beauty of spring is that you can mix winter sports and summer ones.

About 10 minutes from Martigny you'll find a tiny lift that can hold up to 10 people whilst your bikes are suspended underneath.  I had two journeys up when it was only me.  The maximum number of people that were in a cabin today was 5. A school girl returning to her village high above the valley, an old farmer boy coming to do maintenance on his 'alpage' fields & some other old dears.  It's a strange place.  Very Swiss.  The yellow Poste bus has a priority parking space right next to the lift that runs year round almost every hour.  How, why, what, where and when I'm not 100% sure.  But in recent years mountain biker's have been building official DH tracks.

And of course, being in the Valais the number of potentially good dotted footpath lines on the map is ridiculous.

I started on the downhill course which is well known to be steep.  Call it the new bike, or perhaps because it was the first run of the day, but I didn't really feel it.  Maybe after a few runs it'd go better when you had an idea of what to expect.  Maybe on a proper downhill bike that could handle repetitive steep steps and drops...
Views back to Mont Blanc Massif
So it began, exploration and adventure time.  A tale of highs and low's. Carrying the bike around sketchy traverses tightly gripping onto handrail chains.

I'd found a few potential options on various bike websites.  They all started much higher up from the lift so as I started spinning up the road I kept an eye on the snow line.  Unfortunately I was unable to get as high as I had hoped for one trail so another sketchy traverse eventually lead me to 2/3 of the way down the singletrack.  Brown POW! Deep leaves covered the trail that meandered down the steep hillside.  The switchbacks were perfect.  There was no need to nose manual or hop your way around, just flow around corner after corner.  Lower down, you cross over a minor road a few times on tight technical trails in light forests and then finish with this:
Wild garlic singletrack
The real gem of the day came on my last run that took me around to above Martigny town.  This was part of a descent that in summer can be started from 2124 metres.  I joined in at 1100 metres, and it still took me 20 minutes to get down to the bottom. In short this trail compares to the ultra special Albertville trails.  Where I started from was steep but it flowed with more perfect, not too tight switchbacks, then into a dry dusty trail swooping in, down and around before dropping you into a long rocky section in the open.  I thought I'd missed my right turn, but decided to carry on as the trail was so good.  Just rocky enough to be technical, but still very fast. The trail had seen recent maintenance to the drainage ditch's.  In Chamonix Valley they are built deliberately large to hinder mountain bikers, in Valais, they accept that mountain bikers are part of the outdoor culture and design accordingly.

I hadn't missed my right turn, a little uphill, and the trail texture changes. I was right in the open, just above the vineyards.  The surface was dry, hard and almost sandy.  A perfect enduro section, a little down, smooth across, a rock step, and more smooth ribbon singletrack to follow.
Too good not to show again
Dorenaz deserves some more exploring once the snow disappears above 2000 metres altitude.  For mountain bikers, after the lift another 1000m must be pedalled to get to highest 'goods'.  For downhillers, session-ing the trail straight out of the lift is also well worth a visit.  Get in the flow of it, and it'll be a great "vtt descente".


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What guides do between work in the peak of July

Summer is here, and after fantastic spring riding in Southern France and then all over Valais, Aosta and Haute Savoie with good friends it's been time to get back to summer guiding, taking hikers around the Tour du Mont Blanc circuit.  There's much worse things to do, but with three weeks off the bike I was itching to get back on some trails. With a carefully planned week between tours I was excited and made some plans to hit up some classic lines, and some new stuff too. It's mid July now, so in Chamonix valley you have to think carefully about where to go to miss the crowds, and to avoid going on the bike ban trails (July & August).  Luckily it's still easy to find quiet trails in nearby resorts, or to simply drop round the back of a hill away from the frontside lifts. It went a little like this: Day 1- La Thuile with Wayne of newly qualified French legal mountain bike guiding service  Chamonixmtb.com  . Enduro race venue at it's best, rough and raw.

Provence Posing

Early spring road trip with Team NL The Dutchies had work to finish before they'd start the mammoth 14 hour drive from under the sea to herb filled mountainsides.  Work for us guys in the Alps is more seasonal & temporary, as it is for some Easyjet pilots which meant that the native English speakers left for 'The South' a day earlier. Digne les Bains was the rendezvous location for Saturday night but this meant going so close to Gap and Lac Serre Poncon. The lure of a trail in the Haute Alpes ( the northern most department in the Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur Region ) was too much. 3 of us wild camped lake side with giddy excitement for what lay ahead. Rob & Ben knew each other from ski touring & paragliding, but had never ridden together, nor had Ben ever met team NL.  Rob and I briefed him on the impending fun. In the morning, a classic was called upon to give Ben his first taste of Southern singletrack. Mont Colombus, and a few hours later aft

Servoz storm destruction

Deep in Servoz below the Fiz 75% of trail is ok. But where it is washed away is really bad. Click here for photos What rode was as good as ever for this begining/end of season trail 1hour & half pedal from Serviz village.