Alpine Break

The Escreins valley is a dramatic remote valley and a paradise of flora and fauna just to the south east of Guillestre. In fact the Rif Bel, the torrent that flows past our house, starts up at the head of the Escreins valley. To get into the valley you either have to walk up the footpath from Guillestre or you can take the small road cut into the cliffs on the south side of the valley, airy to say the least. In 1964 it was turned into the reserve naturelle du Val d’Escreins and then later in 1977 the park boundaries of the Queyras national park were redrawn to include it.

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This trail starts out with a long hard climb from Arvieux at 1500m to Col de Furfande at 2500m. It is pretty constant gradient and was a fairly arduous 2h30 slog. The forestry trail that we climbed up is open to Vehicles though up to 2155m so you could cut quite a bit off the climb. Read the rest of this entry »

I had already read about this ride so when Stew mentioned that he was heading up to ride it I jumped at the opportunity to tag along. There were two other local bikers, both called Pete, as well as an Irish kayaker called Barry in the team. Read the rest of this entry »