Tuesday 27 March 2018

Refuge des Marmottes, Beaufortain - French Alps

Well, after spending a fantastic spring weekend climbing and surfing on the island of Anglesey, the weather has taken a turn for the worse in North Wales. Time for us to move on to pastures new. Got packed up once again, but this time with ski kit. It seemed a bit strange to have had a glimpse of sunny spring weather and then return to The Cottage to pull out the winter gear back out of the stores. In a whirlwind haze of packing and travel, we left Wales with a minimalist rucksack each and a set of skis; alpine bound...


To be honest, details of the journey are best forgotten. A smooth exit from the UK, ended in a long and slow journey from Geneva, after a few road closures and some dubious sat nav decisions. Having crawled through rush hour traffic in lake side Geneva, we found ourselves not on the main road, but instead, crossing several (very nervously) snow bound mountain passes before finally reaching the beautiful Refuge des Marmottes, at the end of the road in the Beaufortain Massif. Huge sighs of relief all round as we moved in and collapsed into bed.


The tiny refuge looked perfect for a couple of ski tourers. The only problem was that it had been empty for a while, so was freezing cold. There was a pretty techo looking thermostat on the wall, which we fiddled with enough to wake up several hours later, parched, dehydrated, sweating and splendidly warm! Underfloor heating! Yeah!!



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