Miesiąc: czerwiec 2014

Creux de l’Envers

We have been very unlucky when it comes to our weather choices in here. One thing I learnt: never trust the forecasts around. But it is frustrating really – not to be able to say if the day will be good enough to get out or not. Saturday was supposed to be all gloomy and rainy so we stayed home. To our annoyence, it was a beautiful day. So on Sunday, as soon as it stopped raining, having looked at the forecasts which said: „don’t you worry, it won’t rain any more” we decided to have a walk at the footstep of Jura. When we set off it was sunny but the clouds were kind of forming as you can see in these photos.

At some point it became a bit more dramatic so we started rushing back to our car hoping that the rain wouldn’t catch us (I mean, we can stand a storm, but we were afraid about our baby boy health). And then, suddenly, the storm began! I mean it all happened in a split second, it became really cold and really windy, heavy rain dropped and turned into hail almost immediately. Oh boy, oh boy, where can we hide? We even didn’t have time to react because almost immediately a car pulled over and a nice lady offered us a lift to our car. Thank you, nice lady, you saved us! Our son even didn’t get wet.

That last photo was taken seconds before the storm. Well, you never know about the weather in mountains!

Les Gorges du Fier

Can you spot an outline of faces in the photo above? Such marvels of nature can be found in Gorges du Fier – a beautiful site by the river Fier which has carved those narrow passes in the solid rock.
The footbridge is installed at a stupendous height of 25 m.

The trail started with a view over the Fier river, then through a rock portal into a narrow canyon where light reflexes extracted all different colours of the rock and water. After a while we reached „La Mer de Rochers” – the sea of boulders. We watched in terror a guy jumping to the gorge from the rocks. No, he’s not a suicider (although it surely looked like he was!). At the end of the trail there was a wild beach with plenty of people bathing in sun and water. Man, why didn’t we take our bathing suits? That’s a reason to come back again some day!

Mont Joly (2525 m)

Last Saturday I took Ania’s sister and cousin to Chamonix to see Aiguille Du Midi and Mer De Galce. I left them in front of the lift and went on my own to Mont Joly (2525 m). I chose this mountain because it was close to Chamonix, accessible in the current conditions and higher than the highest mountain in Poland – Rysy (2499 m). During my hike I found out that this mountain is also very popular because of a wonderful panorama to Mont Blanc massif. 

Family visit: Broc, Gruyères, Montreux

We are having guests this week – my sister and cousin have come to us from Szczecin. They will be here only for a couple of action-packed days. The very first one -a must on a map of the nearby attractions – Broc, Gruyères, Montreux tour. Radek did the exact same tour with our friends (see this post), now it’s my turn with family.
We started with a Cailler chocolate factory in Broc followed by Gruyeres cheese house and the village of the same name. Our last destination was Montreux- always beautiful, but truly spectacular by the sunset.

Discovering France and Switzerland in spring

My love turned into spring windstorm –
Into spring windstorm – my madness into storm –
Into storm – my ecstasy into dreamy thrill –
Into dreamy thrill – spring of May into roses. –
From windstorm my new love flows –
New love – from storm frenzy will explode –
Frenzy will explode – dream will bring up ecstasy,
Spring will rise from a rosy bath.

/Untitled, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska/

translated by Julia Waszczuk

Spring is here! After a not so fierce winter we got to experience flowers and bird songs pretty early this year. I am happy at this time of year because it means that we are able to make more walks and trips, thus getting to know different places. So here are some of the photos we took this spring.

Saint Genis Pouilly

Pregnin:

Yvoire:

Chalex:

Ajon:

Saleve:

View on Geneva:

Lovettaz:

Lausanne:

Biking to Le Reculet

Every time when I’m tiered walking down from a mountain peak, I think that this would be much easier on a bike. So this Sunday I went on my bike to Le Reculet to check this.

I rode by Le Tiocan, Col De Crozet, then through Jura and to Le Reculet.

Before I reached the summit I already knew that even if going down is easier on a bike, going up isn’t.

Ps -sorry that the photo quality is low (they are taken with a mobile phone)

La Dent d’Oche (2221 m)

This weekend I went with a group of CERN colleagues to La Dent d’Oche mountain which towers over the south of Lac Leman. Actually, it was not the first time I was in this neighbourhood as we did Pic des Memises with Radek just a couple of weeks earlier. Well, apparently Lac Leman doesn’t like me and hides its beauty from me because we didn’t have the best of weather (just like earlier with the Memises). Nevertheless it was a decent hike, with lots of technical parts and really nice company.

Once we reached Shalet d’Oche we could see Portes d’Oche (Door of Oche) which we would later see in close up on our way back. Also, the route becam way steepier and the clouds became to lower over the valley so we decided to speed up a bit not to be in the mist while on the summit. The route to Refuge d’Oche was not long from that point but pretty difficult, with vertical climbs equipped with chains.

The refuge was situated a bit below an actual peak so we didn’t stay long there. Only a glance at Lac Leman and off we go hiking to the cross – not a long distance but quite a challenging ascent.

We didn’t have a perfect view on the top but not the worst either.

 

From the summit our path continued down the loop to Lac de la Case (seen above), Col de Planchamp and Porte d’Oche. We went past adorable wild goats, made it through something that looked like a vertical wall, continued through rocky descents and got to the lakes.

 
One of the lakes was dry (it actually looked interesting because of the flora of a different kind that grew over the lake). The other one was on and rocking so we all dipped our feet in a warm but terribly muddy water. One last look at Portes d’Oche and off we went down to a car park.

Pointe d’Almet (2232 m)

At last… Let me tell you about my (first this season) a trully summer-like hike. With no storms, no hail, no fog, no mud… With a perfectly dry trail and super clear sky! And on top of that, the most awesome hike I have ever done so far. Ladies and gentlemen, Pointe d’Almet!
I went on this hike with CERN colleagues. We started from Col de la Colombiere and lost the route almost immediately (despite having gps coordinates and map!) We ended up literally climbing up a vertical wall without any gear. Pretty scary (a prelude to the later „really scary”).

45 minutes later we were basically still at the level of our car park, except a couple of metres higher. But the view was already very nice.

We continued on through roofs of the mountains in order to reach a ridge that would lead us to Pointe d’Almet. We lost our way again and ended up hiking through rocks and places we shouldn’t be hiking… We also had close encounters with bouquetins (wild goats with big horns). Fortunately they were friendly and understood that we came in peace 🙂

Once we entered the ridge we could see really marvelous views. Wherever we looked we saw something magnificent. Valley lakes on our right, Pic de Jallouvre and Aguille de Verte (that last one is known to us – see this post) on our left, and long and thin ridge in front and behind our back…

Soon the trail became even more demanding. We continued walking on a narrow path along the cliffs, frequently using our hands to find the balance and support in these difficult conditions. But boy it was real fun!

Cross of Almet was situated right after a tiny but deadly pass between two peaks. We really needed to focus and try not to fall into a chasm while crossing it. That was scary but once behind us, gave us a good deal of a sense of achievement. We spent some time by the cross and continued on along the ridge to actual summit which was situated some distance further.

Our hike continued in more or less the same conditions (cliffs, steep and narrow climbs, chasms – this kind of stuff) until we reached the end of a mountain with no path leading down. Bummer 🙂 Fortunately, the weather was good so we could make a cross-country descent through a grassy slope.

A rather rapid descent on a grassy slope:

Once down, we had still a long way to cover – we went along the footstep of the mountain that we earlier had gone through the ridge. It was nice seeing it from a larger perspective.
All in all we did 16 km but it’s not the mileage that made this trip my favourite hiking experience so far. A mixture of thrill, calm, snow, green, sun, chasms, grass, cliffs, rocks… I hope to do more hikes like that.

Open Cellars

Switzerland is mainly known for its watches and cheese. But they also make a lot of very tasty wines. They are so good that Swiss people don’t want to share them with the rest of the world and export just 2% of their production. Fortunately we live almost in Switzerland so we can taste wines in their origin country. 
So last Saturday there was an Open Cellars festival in Vaud region (close to Geneva). For 15 CHF you could visit every of more then 300 vineyards and taste any of their wine. And there are plenty of them!

So we went to village of Tartegnin where we were able to visit 6 wine makers and taste many different wines and some local food specials.

We really enjoyed the scenery and atmosphere of this festival.  To keep it for a bit longer we bought a few bottles and brought them home.