A winter week in the Vercors

I’m not the type of hiker who keeps going to the same region time after time – but rather like to explore new areas on every trip. The Vercors, a wild karstic limestone plateau in the French pre-alpine ranges with summits along the eastern rim peaking to 2000-2369m, is kind of an exception to this rule. I crossed the Vercors with a bunch of friends in winter 2007 (my first winter trek!) and returned in 2009 for my first solo winter trip. Last year, Fre joined me for a first first early summer reconnaissance of the Mont Aiguille – Grand Veymont area.

When I started making plans for a snowshoe flap with Björn, Marjolijn, Siegried, the Vercors was on our list again from the start. The huge advantage of the plateau is that one can design beautiful varied routes with only minimal avalanche danger, and there is a whole bunch of small mountain cabins where you can spend the night in adverse weather conditions. So, as our 7-day trip started to draw closer and the weather forecast looked complicated, we decided to drive to Col de Rousset, the most direct access point to the interesting southern part of the area.

It was the most varied trip I have made in the Vercors so far, with a few less classic routes. The weather shifted from spring conditions to a few windy, dull days with snow and rain, and finally to beautiful sunny weather again. We adapted our route to the conditions to get the very best out of the trip – and I have to say we were pretty successful in doing so 🙂 Enjoy!