End of the alpine season

A bivouac trip, a Valais loam fest and a Loriaz descent in one go...

During my last week in the Chamonix valley the weather was really good, so between airport runs I ticked off some really fast and dry trail rides.

Starting with an overnight mission to a Bivouac hut on a remote old farm in the Passy Parc Regional on the boarder of the Aiguilles Rouges. It felt so far from civilisation, despite the chaos of Chamonix being just one valley away. The most incredible part of the trip, bar Ben nailing some mega tech sections, was the location of the farm being where the sun first hits the valley in the morning.

I had been wanting to re-visit this descent for a long time and never quite got round to it. With a new and keen riding buddy we got even higher than before for some extremely steep footpath riding before hitting the loamiest descent in the area. A trail only ridden by highly skilled Martigny riders, and us... The lines are superb. One of the most grin inducing trails of the year!

We only had the afternoon due to work commitments, but Loriaz has to be ridden at the end of every season (like the start of every season). With light running out we made good time up the climb. I took some photo's at the top and the boys disappeared. I chased them down as they slowed at a junction to allow me to catch, and boom, Rich engaged his turbo. We briefly (10 seconds? 20 max?) stopped where there was a viewpoint before Rich was off again all the way to the bottom, shouting and hollering the whole way down.

"If that was my last descent of the season that was an amazing in-one descent to finish on" I said to the boys as we caught our breath, shared tales of near misses, amazing line choices and stretched out our braking fingers.

Bye Bye to Alps for 2016 (?)

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