I wanna do something stupid...

This is the phrase I used when talking about my 30th, I didn't want to go to a restaurant, or a bar...I can do that anyway, I wanted to do something stupid, something new and different. Perhaps drinking champagne on the summit of a mountain...hmmm now that sounds like an idea.


Route maps for the two walks

Thus, we ended up in Massif du Vercors which is a mountain range on the south side of the Alps (close to Grenoble) for a weekend of snow shoeing, summit climbing and drinking champagne.

I was joined on this crazy adventure by not one, not two, but twelve individuals who hadn't realised the stupidity of signing up to a trip called "let’s do something stupid". Maybe they didn't read the disclaimer. We had climbers from Marseille (Chiara, Pauline, Mathieu), people from work (Laurent, Michael), people I worked with in Australia (Julian, Elodie, Emilie), people from Switzerland (Claire) and peoples partners (Erik and Augustin).

The drive from Marseille is in theory 3hr however, unfortunately we decided to trust the navigational skills of Google (combined with the map reading skills of Michael) and we arrived 4:15 hr late. Upon arriving we discovered that those coming from other cities had managed to ignore Google and arrive on time and were close to starvation because the food was in our car.

Our accommodation was the Auberge de Combeau, which I'd kinda gambled on. I wanted something high up with views and snow and stuff. It turned out do be a fantastic little cabin up in the snow, miles from anywhere, with a wood fire and home cooked French mountain food (possible ground pigeon meat).



Dinner of roasted stuff.

Anyway, bread and water was rationed out to those starving individuals who were waiting for us to arrive and we quickly gathered to tag along with a guided group of retirees who where heading up Col du Chevre (the Goats Saddle). We were quickly left behind by these amazing fit grandparents as we struggled to figure out how to walk with tennis rackets attached to our feet. Our tendency to push our comrades down the slope rather than concentrating on climbing it probably didn't help matters. We traversed around the side of the mountain and finally made our way up onto Les Hauts Plateaux (The High Plateaux) to magnificent views across the Alps and the Massif. Champagne was removed from packs and opened to the singing of happy birthday (although with a lot more snow ball throwing than is traditional), and Michael managing to pull a cake with candles from one of the bags (no the candles were not lit inside the bag)

Summit Champagne and Birthday Cake

We then traversed across the Plateaux and tumbled down the far side and back to the Auberge. The retirees had long since tired of our silliness and abandoned us to our demise. However, they had left a trail of bread crumbs for us to follow so we managed to survive. Upon our return we warmed ourselves with mulled wine, more champagne and traditional mountain faire. Michael and Claire eagerly suggested a crazy French game of Jungle Speed but everyone feigned exhaustion and staggering into bed.

Day two our objective was a bit longer, to the Sommet de la Montagnette. The walk up was somewhat dull (except for the amazing views, joking and silliness, interesting traverses, winter forests etc.). We travelled up the Valley du Combeau, to the Col de Greauson, and then mounted up onto Sommet de la Montagnette. The summit offered 360 views across the Alps which seemed to knock everyone senseless for about five minutes. Luckily we were able to bring them out of this stupor by feeding them more champagne. After a picnic lunch we loaded up and headed back to civilization and a 3h drive back to our respective homes.


Traverse under Sommet de la Montagnette

So thus, this is how the email of "I want to do something stupid" turned into an amazing adventure into the mountains. The setting was perfect, the weather was wonderful and it turned out exactly how id kind of dreamed my birthday taking place...something stupid :-)


Descent


Panorama shot from the summit, click for higher quality

more photos are here