Nathan writes :-
The itinerary I suggested for this outing began at the Archette car park, up to the Col de Porte and then down to the Couvaloup-de-Crans restaurant for lunch. The return leg was around the mountain rather than climbing back up and over it. There was an optional quick climb to the Dôle after “encouraging” liquid refreshments at the CAS Hut.
The outing was tarnished by the fact that our restaurant decided to close for 10 days. Unfortunately I was not able to persuade them to exceptionally open just on Thursday for our illustrious group. We each had to carry our lunch up in our back-pack, at least most of us did.
MétéoSuisse led us to believe that there would only be very light snow and only in the morning with very little wind.
Seven of us met at the Divonne car park for our contribution to the saving the earth effort by travelling in only 3 vehicles. Two more met us directly at the Archette. The nine of us (eleven if Kobie and Nessie are included) set off a bit after 10:00 under a cloudy sky, with almost no snow either on the ground or falling through the air.
Soon after though, the ground was covered with a white layer and indeed a light snow began falling. As we progressed toward our objective, gaining altitude, the white layer got deeper and the snow began falling more intensely. Snow-shoes were not required but some of the steeper places were somewhat uncomfortable.
When we arrived at the CAS Hut there was considerable snow falling. With the low cloud cover we were not motivated, even after appropriate refreshments, to climb to admire the non-view from the Dôle.
The wind was no longer a gentle breeze when we crossed over the pass on to the western downward slope. The gusts were over 50km/h! Fortunately they subsided as we descended.
We all made it to the restaurant with no casualty. As expected, it was closed but they did leave the tables and benches on the terrace for us. Some of our more dedicated members cleared off the snow so that lunch would be comfortable albeit cold except for the few moments when the sun took pity on us with a bit of warmth.
After a lovely lunch, in spite of some complaints about the slow/snow service, we began our return through the forest. Being at a lower altitude the walk was more relaxed with neither wind nor significant snow falling.
It was occasionally a little slippery where the snow did not cover the wet leaves but we managed to make it back to the car park safe and sound.
Kudos to the group for their intrepidness to have undertaken the hike and finished it with “nary” a complaint in spite of the poor weather, lack of a restaurant and a couple of treacherous passages.
Participants: Mervyn Powell, Philip Jenkins, Nicolas Ulmer, Peter Taylor, Mike Muller, Mark Warren, Rob Pashley, Richard Saynor, myself, Kobie and Nessie.
Walking distance: 10.5km
Climbing distance: 580m
Nathan Finkelstein
Posted by Peter T
