Hi All,
This summer we went again to the Val Durance area in France for a 2 weeks sport climbing adventure.We stayed in the neighborhood of Guillestre. Val Durance is called after the river the “Durance” that runs thru the area of Briançon and Guillestre in the Hautes-Alpes.
Our original plan was to do lots of sport climbing, but it became more a mix between hiking and climbing. In many occasions the hiking was extremely steep and exhausting but in the end it was great fun with great views and the weather was good.
Our resting day, was a steep hike in the Ski village Risoul doing the vertical trail “very steep” to the summit. Very nice and blue sky’s. We made some video’s and pictures there. The walk back was descending steeper and longer than expected. A nice refreshment in the touristic ski resort was a real threat.
During our 2 weeks vacation we had heavy rainfall and San her air matrass became leak so we had to visit Briançon to buy a new one. Strikingly the world cup of lead climbing was going on where Adam Ondra made his victory in a wonderful show. We enjoyed that tournament.
Again we visited magnificent crags from which the views were stunning.
Mont-Dauphin: Shade and sunny areas, conglomerate rock, sometimes technical and hard.
Jo Trango: New area for us, long ascent since you had to leave the car down below. Nice area but became to quick sunny and too hot for real serious climbing.
Le Ponteil: Always a top location. Great technical vertical routes and adventures long single pitches with great overhangs. Experienced some rain and thunder but achieved to manage some classic routes there.
Simoust: One of our favorites locations. Less crowded than Rue des Marques and super long exhausting routes, still a lot of development is going on.
Grand Bois: Long story, as we missed one day of climbing sincw we could not locate the crag good enough but too much hiking and wrong decisions along the way. A couple of days later we found it but were still searching for 2.5 hours. Climbing was good but we were too tired.
Saint Crepin: Our favorite, nice ascent to the crag, great views and quite unspoiled routes and very quit.
Rue des Marques: Both we still have problems with this area, too many people so very crowded and the routes are full of chalk. Nevertheless great climbing
Rocher Gafouille: Nice crag with great setting above the town Briançon.
If you read our blogs you must have noted that we started a You Tube Channel called 2 Small Adventurers. Small because we are not biggest climbers.
We offer people to watch our adventures which is more than only climbing but also all other kind of activities. We encourage you to watch our videos.
We hope that you enjoy the video’s and if you have any comments please let us know. To support us making videos and blogs please subscribe and ring the notification bell so you won’t miss another video. It’s all for free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT6gN8jKZSI&t=77s
Our channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKV27nPiEusYylUz-wP4Euw
Thanks for watching
Jan-San-Climbing, 2 Small Adventurers
