Sunday 1 February 2015

In search of the Alpine Winter

This January, I hit the Alps for the first time in winter, or at least during the season thereof with a little winter weather thrown in for a bit of good measure. The purpose of the trip was to undertake the IML (International Mountain Leader) winter training course with Plas-Y-Brenin. The venue for the course was the wonderful Auberge Nordique, Le Grand-Bornand in the Massif des Aravis area of the Haute-Savoie. This is a wonderful part of the Alps with very easy access by train from the UK, which is of course, my mode of choice for excursions to the near continent and beyond.

On the outward trip, I overnighted at Rowan's student house in Twickenham, always handy to have a relative in the London area ;-) (thanks Rowan). This set me up for the 07:01 Eurostar. Various options present themselves for the 4 km transfer between the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon. On this occasion I decided to opt for the number 65 bus as I had well over 2 hours between Eurostar and TGV. I much prefer the bus to the RER, not least because on my most recent summer excursion, I had my mobile phone pickpocketed at Gare du Nord RER station! It was a rather solemn day to be crossing Paris as the tragic Charlie Hebdo attacks had recently taken place and it was also the day of the arrest of one of the protagonists in Northern France. As a result, the streets were very empty and there was a strong media presence at the Place de la République. The 65 bus deposits you conveniently onto the Boulevard Diderot, with a view of the magnificent façade of the Gare de Lyon. It was rather damp in Paris and typically I was in need of finding a toilet so I wandered to a nearby café for a mid-morning drink and snack. Very close to the Gare de Lyon is the Coulée Verte or Promenade Plantée, a disused elevated railway that has been converted into a 'green corridor' walkway. The route offers great views of the Parisian architecture above street level and comes under the directive of the 'Jardins et Parcs' department of the Marie de Paris. I had a wander along the walkway, admiring the Parisian upper storeys with my drag along case in tow prior to boarding the TGV for Annecy.

Limestone pavement above le Chinaillon (Le Grand-Bornand 1300 m).
For my first night in Le Grand-Bornand, I was staying at the Gîte d'étape la Chèvrerie on the hillside to the North of the village centre. Luckily, as common in most French ski resorts a free 'navette' or shuttle bus took me most of the way there, although there was still a good deal of uphill on road to be done to reach the Gîte, I turned down a lift from a passer by who ended up being the son of the owner of the Gîte - slightly awkward but I much prefer to be fully self sufficient as a non-driver who could never return the favour.

On Saturday, I was moving up-valley to the Auberge Nordique, the base for the rest of the week. I had a look around Le Grand Bornand village centre in the morning, followed by catching the ski-bus up to the end of the Vallée du Bouchet. I met up with Phil, my room mate for the rest of the week at the auberge for lunch and was then keen to get out into the sunshine. There had not been any snowfall of any significance since around the 20th December, so the South facing slopes were all rather bare. As a result, my walk up through zig-zag paths at head of the Bouchet valley was largely on mud and gravel! At around 1500 m, I joined a forest track, and finally got the snow shoes on and plodded on up to the Col des Annes via the Col de Borneronde. The snow was mostly firm with a shallow breakable crust in places.

On Sunday morning, a series of relatively light snow showers passed through in the morning. In the afternoon, I caught the ski-bus via Le Grand Bornand to le Chinaillon (G-B 1300 m). This is largely a sprawling mass of ski apartments, giving direct access to the skiing on the North side of Mont Lachat. From the village centre, I took a 'sentier de découverte' (nature trail) on a short circuit up and along the top of the limestone scarp that overhangs to the north of the village.

Vallée du Bouchet & Chaine-des-Aravis from near les Confins.
The course itself, started on Monday morning in the auberge, with 12 candidates joined by Simon Hale from Plas-Y-Brenin and John Jones from Glenmore Lodge. We had a range of informative outings on the snowshoes, covering topics ranging from avalanche awareness and transceiver-shovel-probe use to the softer elements of the winter Alpine environment; flora, fauna and perhaps more appropriately for the time of year, the tracks, trails and signs of the latter. Overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, there was some fresh precipitation; just about snow above 1000 m. As a result of the fresh snowfall at altitude, we headed around to La Clusaz in order to catch the télécabine up to the Plateau de Beauregard (1600 m). We stepped off the gondola in the latter end of the snow showers, so had an hour or two wandering around with our goggles on and hoods up! The fresh fall had put down several centimetres of powder, so the snowshoeing on the plateau was really quite genuine.
By Friday, we all felt fairly wised up on our winter knowledge, and spent the morning undertaking a final group avalanche rescue scenario, with a multiple-victim burial search near the Chapelle de la Duche.

Snowshoeing in the Col des Annes area, Pointe Percée and Massif-des-Aravis in the distance.
Typically, by the evening of Friday, heavy snow had come in and by early Saturday morning there was around 30 cm of fresh stuff piled up on every level surface and signpost outside the Auberge. Aside from there being a bit of sleet and slush down in the City of Annecy, I was soon out of the snow and speeding North on board the TGV to Paris. Unfortunately, I arrived at Gare-du-Nord to find all Eurostar services to London cancelled due to a fire on board a shuttle train in the tunnel. All turned out well though as Eurostar covered an extra night of Parisian accommodation and I found a good little bistro for some food in the northern quarters of the city.

The Auberge-Nordique and Vallée du Bouchet after a top-up of snow.