Saturday, August 06, 2011

La Peste's Day in Annecy: Randonnée Le Parmelan

Aloha All, and Mahalo for following the antics of La Peste and me in France this year. Today started with a very high overcast, like Mont Blanc high! So we went for just a Liiiittle hike to the top of the six thousand foot Le Parmelan, which is a mountain ridge that will soon be my XC target, as I'm trying for a different destination every time I fly to expand my horizons.

Just a short two thousand foot climb to a plateau with a 1,500' vertical granite rock face, fantastic views to all of lake Annecy Peaks, and more important it was a recon mission as I could see my route all the way from Dents Lanfon to La Tournette and back to Col des Aravis and the whole Chaine des Aravis! It was a perfect day to hike with high overcast and nice cool south breeze (storm coming). It was two hours hiking up with a nice relaxing one hour lunch stop, with 360' views of the Alps! Also Mont Blanc was visible in the distance...

The sun came out for a bit on top and then in came the weather from the south. You could see it coming fast in the distance so we packed up and hit the easy decent in 1 1/2 hours down. Just before the end at the car the drizzling rain started so we donned our rain gear and made it to the car dry. Yep, brought 4 Pelforth Brunes in a cooler to relax with before the 15 minute drive home to Annecy le Vieux.

Still High overcast but no rain at 6pm. Hoping for the best tonight because literally thousands of people are walking to the lake now to secure a good spot to view the festival of the lake tonight! A two hour fireworks show and sound and music to go along. We will also walk the block and a half to the lake to view the extravaganza!

Jeannine's brother is visiting from Switzerland tomorrow so no flying. It's supposed to be one more day of inclement weather before Monday, and the rest of the week is forecast to be sunny with light to moderate winds … so stay tuned for an exciting read to come, as it's Chamonix or bust!!!

Aloha again, and I wish you monkeys were here to enjoy the brewing festivities.

Mad Dog et La Peste

5 comments:

Brazilian Ray said...

Hike and fly... Sounds like X-alps!

Anonymous said...

Little my okole! Don't fall for it. No such thing as "little." Little to her is anything less than 6 hours.

Donna

Alex said...

What a great little hike, and it was followed by my favorite French beer, Pelforth Brune!

I can't wait for the next chapter of your adventures! Les aventures du Monstre et de la Peste!

If anyone wants to try to contact Mad Dog (le Monstre) or Jeannine (la Peste) using Skype, you can try them at Skype name jeannine_marks. I highly recommend it - Mad Dog can carry the laptop around and show you the view from his balcony.

Also, Mad Dog's free land line is at 033456743648. You can call and let it ring once or twice and then hang up and he'll call back.

The best times to call or Skype seem to be during the morning or evening when it's the reverse time there by exactly 12 hours, like either 8 AM or 8 PM.

Ka'a'awa Larry said...

Nice pictures and accounts of your trip. I'm slobbering all over my keyboard recalling what it's like there. You keep up the posts and I'll keep slobbering. We've all got to make another pilgrimage sometime soon.

JK said...

Way to capture the adventure, Mad Dog! Thanks for sharing.