Easter skiing, Les Houches, France, 2013
Wordless Wednesday – 26 February 2014
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Category Archives: Mountains
Italian Alps
The boys and I headed to Courmayeur, just over the Italian border to the south of Mont Blanc for a week skiing.
Cresta D’Arp, Italian Alps
Cathar castles: Montsegur
The Cathar castle of Montsegur sits on top of a limestone peak (or pog in Occitan) at around 3000 feet. Here several hundred Cathars held out for 10 months against the besieging French army of over 6,000 men in 1243-44.
Montsegur
Cathar castles: Puilaurens
One of the southernmost Cathar castles, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Puilaurens sits on a 700 m high rocky outcrop.. Perhaps the best-preserved of Languedoc’s many cathar castles of the area, it offers breathtaking views of the surrounding valleys. Very atmospheric! Puilaurens was originally built by the Visigoths
Chateau de Puilaurens, 2002
Cathar castles: Peyrepertuse and Quéribus
Peyrepertuse 1996
The Cathar country in the foothills of the French Pyrenees is one of my favourite places. I first went there in 1992 while living in Montpellier, then again in 1996, 2002 and most recently in 2011 with my family. I have pulled together a few photos from these trips and this first post features Château de Peyrepertuse and the nearby Château de Quéribus. Continue reading
Looking up the Valais towards the Dents du Midi
Of all the photos I’ve taken in Switzerland, this is one of my favorites. Its taken from the balcony of Hotel Victoria in Glion, a village above Montreux on the northern end of Lake Leman. The Rhone flows down the Valais (towards which we are looking) into Lake Leman and then flows out of the lake at the other end, in Geneva.
The snow-capped mountains in the distance are the Dents du Midi (height 3257 metres or 10,686 feet). Beyond the Dents du Midi are Verbier and the Grand Saint Bernard Pass into Italy.
Fresh snow in the Juras
Having spent Christmas-New Year in Australia, only got onto the snow for the first time last week. Everyone was telling me not to bother as it had not snowed since Dec 13 and the snow was not in good condition. But I woke up on the morning I was heading up to the Juras and checked the snow report to find 4 cm of fresh snow had fallen early that morning. So headed up to the Col de Faucille with the boys to find all the trees covered with a light cover of fresh snow and the skiing was great.
The Juras are to the west of Geneva, and not as high as the Alps. Col de Faucille is about a 30 minute drive from home. The photo on the left shows the view looking across Lake Leman (and the villages north of Geneva) to the Swiss Alps. Altitude is about 1500 m where I took this photo.
From the top of Mont Rond (alt. 1534 m) later in the afternoon we could see the French Alps to the south (near Grenoble) rising out of the clouds:
We skied until it was almost getting dark. Apart from the joy and adrenaline of the skiing, the views and the snowy forests around us were spectacular.
View of Mont Blanc from top of Grand Montets
This is my current header image, a photo I took in 2008 at the top station of the Grand Montets ski field, near Chamonix in the French Alps. I am looking towards the Mont Blanc massif from an altitude of 3300 metres (over 10,000 feet). This what skiing is all about: above the clouds, spectacular views and long vertical drops.The Argentiere Glacier is below and behind me. From here its 2,200 metres vertical descent – nonstop skiing if you avoid the crevasses. On my descent, I saw one person ski into a crevasse. But more on that later.
Mountains and rivers 