Explore europe in a campervan

Last week we were invited to a party with a difference - halfway up a mountain.  The evening almost didn’t happen when we all nearly missed the last chairlift.  We didn’t realise we were driving all the way round to the other side of the mountain - not just to the nearest piste, but we were very lucky that the lifty’s took pity on us and even helped to load and unload all the bedding and other general ’stuff’ that was going up the mountain with us.

The party was happening up the hill from Bellevaux, which is part of the ‘Roc d’Enfer’ ski area - not quite part of Portes du Soleil but just over the hill.  The restaurant usually closes just after the chairlift as there is no other access apart from walking/skiing UP the piste (which some crazy people who finished work late did).  Next door is a refuge, which is a mountain hut that anyone can use.  This was the accommodation for the night for most though, as there was a lot of people, we were planning to go down the mountain to sleep in the campervan.

The food was great, as was the atmosphere.  We ate tartiflette, which is a traditional Savoie dish consisting of potato, cheese, onions and bacon - perfect filling mountain food!  There was a Caribbean theme for the night which is why I have the Jamaican flag painted on my cast courtesy of Rab. Much wine was drunk, before and with dinner.  Yes, afterwards too.

The descent wasn’t very fast.  I had a quick go on my snowboard in daylight to see how it felt and decided to take it very easy later and just do a ‘falling leaf’ rather than make full turns as my balance was totally off with only one arm.  Simon decided that walking was an even safer option so we ended up walking down the piste carrying our boards!

We woke up the next day to LOTS of fresh snow.  Despite being just over the hill from St Jean d’Aulps, the town next to Seytroux, we had a 20 mile, windy drive.  So the chains went on and we crawled at no more than 20mph.

All was fine until Simon gained a bit too much confidence in the traction of the snowchains.  We had all of our bedding in the van so he decided to drive up the (very steep and not cleared of fresh snow at all) road to the door of the chalet to save making a couple of trips.  Although the rear wheels, with the snow chains, gripped pretty well the front wheels lost grip totally and we slid backwards down the hill for a good five metres, ending up diagonally across the track, with one snow chain come off!  Very scary.

Simon managed to get the chain back on the wheel, we dug out around the wheels and hacked up the hard-packed, slippery tracks to try to get some grip to get down.  Somehow he got the front wheels straight, but found that the whole van slid as soon as the brakes went on.  Using only the handbrake he managed to, very slowly, reverse down the track to flatter ground where we parked and were very relieved to leave the van.  Lessons were learned.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Diary, Campervan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.