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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072 |
15th March 2015 Hiking - Walking: Sommand to Praz de Lys - France Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: 5.8 (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Saturday 14th March – Travelling and little hike **** Sommand We spotted lots of birds while we were doing our exercises including a goldcrest:) Packed up and left our spot and headed off down the Valley Verte through Villard and with a little detour up a road cut off by snow, arrived at Les Brasses which is another ski area on our map. It was heaving!! We couldn’t believe how many people were up there especially when the pistes we could see were partly brown with mud!! All became clear when we carried on down to Viuz en Salloz in the valley where there was a promotion board saying 16 euros for an adult to ski on Saturdays! We quickly visited the Casino for milk the carried on and up the windy road to Sommand. We had looked down on this ski village from our picnic up on the Col de Chavan the other day. We had a good look round and passed the quite full car park and the largest number of camping cars we have seen on this holiday! We drove up to find a good parking place at the Roche Pallud where we are on our own:) After a late lunch we walked down the pieton path into the village and by that time all the lifts were closed and there wasn’t very many people about at all. We looked at all the walk signs and went into the tourist information to see what walks they suggested so we could make up our minds what to do over the next few days. We watched two ski tourers set off up the Haute Pointe which is next to the Col de Chavan and through watching for them through binoculars we saw some Chamoix up on the slope:) We have also seen crossbills really close today, in a puddle near the van!! Brilliant sunset as we walked back to the van. Sunday 15th March – Hike (snow shoe) **** sunny periods then cloudy – Sommand to Praz de Lys 5.8 n. miles Leisurely start and exercises outside as the muddy car park is frozen:) Can’t think of anywhere else you could do your exercises outside in the warm sun and snow while watching crossbills feeding on pine cones, see cross country skiers whizzing past on the piste running along the edge of the car park and see huskies pulling a sled on their own piste just through the trees!! Marvellous. We had our breakfast at lunch time basically then got ready for our snow shoe walk. We decided to walk from our car park down the pedestrian piste to Sommand then take the route 4b which passes through the Col de La Ramaz and carries on over into Praz de Lys. It was a really good piste but still quite tough as it was very steep up and down in places. There were several others doing the walk as it is Sunday but not crowded by any means. We saw the now expected crazy ski tourers up on the peaks above us. On our way down into Praz de Lys we saw a flock of at least half a dozen goldcrests in two pine trees. We watched them for quite a long while and managed to take some photos even though they move so fast! We were really flagging by the time we reached the end of 4b in the village of Les Moliettes but carried on down route 1 into Praz de Lys itself and made our way to the tourist information to find out what time the Navette arrived to take us back to Sommand. We decided we were too tired to attempt the return journey and we didn’t have enough time left to do it before it got dark!! Luckily we arrived at 3.30 and the last bus left at 4.10 so by the time we ate our lunch the bus was there. It was very posh and even had seat belts! We paid 3 euros for us both and enjoyed the journey down the valley past yet more cross country skiing areas – there are miles and miles of it and really hard steep pistes too! We stopped for a while in Taninges then up through Mieussy to Sommand – a total of over 20 miles! We walked another mile back up to the Roche Pallud and the van. In total we walked over 6 ½ miles and were away from the van for over 5 hours. The weather wasn’t quite so good today, sunny this morning but clouding up and very misty over the peaks in the distance. photo gallery here |
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