Col du Lautaret - 18 September 2022

Hoping didn’t help much! Even though we were both really tired, neither of us sleep well, maybe over tired! Right outside a church, which carried on tolling throughout the night. I heard until after 2am- and then that rotten alarm went off at 6.30am! 14° again this morning, might have to up my 4.5 tog duvet at this rate.

Another bonus, we have new agm leisure batteries since we last travelled so, with the inverter on this morning, I could use my hair drier.

So, we have a little ongoing competition regarding fuel consumption. At the end of each of my 3 hour stints yesterday I was at 26.2, Tintin is lagging at present with 25.9! It’s even less today, but we’ve only been mainly up a mountain and not down yet!

Co-Pilot hasn’t been useful today. Tintin ignored his suggested route, which had us going up Alpe d'Huez for no good reason. It thought the tunnels ahead were too low for us. Had a few ‘really?’ moments - the first tunnel going towards La Grave had a height restriction of 2.5m, and we’re 2.9m, however we saw a vehicle we thought was higher than us coming the other way. Plus, Tintin had watched a moho blog showing the drive. So, we continued on. Some stunning views along the way, with colours that if painted would look wrong.

It’s a day of feeling spectacularly insignificant amongst such mountains.

After a two hour drive, Tintin arrived at La Grave - unfortunately no parking for the big beast, but on the roadside near the end of the town, there was one last space available - so in he went.

We were prepared in our jeans, had coats, hats, gloves etc - but was a brilliant day for it, not too windy or cold at the top.

A young couple came up to us at the kiosk and gave us a free ticket as they had one spare - however - the lady at the kiosk wouldn’t allow us to use it, so we paid our €60 to go to the top and return. Having read the leaflet later, it appears today is the last day of the season - so weren’t we lucky!

It takes around 30 minutes for the Glaciers de la Meije cable cars to go to two levels, one at 2,400m and the top at 3,200m.

As a comparison, we cycled to the top of Mont Vendoux at 1,909m, the highest French mountain is Mont Blanc at 4,809m and Mount Everest is 8,848m.

Each stage has six trains with five cars. There were so many men taking their bikes up - utter madness coming down there - so steep!

There is an artificial ice grotto, which you get to crossing rubber mats to prevent slipping. I think we should have paid an extra €11, but seems we were tagging on the end of a group.  It was well worth the visit, apparently it changes every year, with passionate art sculptors doing their thing.

We didn’t walk around that much, but it certainly took its toll on our hearts - they were pounding after a short uphill walk!

As we haven’t eaten hot food in days, decided to have a pizza sitting out in the sunshine. Really good, thin base, very tasty - although I have to confess to not finishing mine. I only mention it, as it must be a first!

Whilst eating we saw a few black birds - had to check in our books what they were, but we reckon Alpine choughs - lovely sounds.

We thought about walking down from the second stage, but would take about two hours - and to be honest - think we’re too tired!

After a restorative cuppa, Tintin drove for about 10 minutes up to a random carpark with stunning views for the night.

While we were writing the blog 3 paragliders had a go to launch right beside us. Had some success but not ideal conditions.

As the sun was going down I put the drone up to see if I could get any decent photos. I'm not a great photographer so I usually leave the camera on auto. So photos of sun bursts etc are out. Anyway, here's a few photos.