It was cloudy in the valley today so we decided to venture in to Switzerland to try out Bravo Lapp – a route recommended to us by Henri Bouillet, a great friend of Smiler.
We drove through Martigny and then on up to Les Granges, a tiny village at the end of one of those crazy alpine roads with a hundred hairpin bends. The sun was out so we’d made a good choice.
The hour long trail down to the bottom of the route was an adventure in itself. Following various red dots, and losing them from time to time, we descended gullies, built bridges, crossed streams and traversed precarious slopes. Two and a half hours later we eventually made it to the route. Now we know the way, and with less water in the stream, we probably could do it in an hour.
The 8 pitches were fantastic. The harder ones felt harder with a rucksack, but is was all good rock – and bolted. Bolts and red dots are quite nice, but I’m still glad we don’t have too many of those in the UK.
The descent was also a bit of an adventure – traversing a massive cliff on an ancient two foot wide path made from stacked stone and crossing more streams.
An excellent day.
looks a great spot….. 😎 😎 must make a visit next time I’m in the area.
Any cakes eaten? 😆
Amazingly we have only had one cake each this weekend!
Everything is so expensive we were trying not to spend on luxuries… but as we’re working today, despite the glorious blue sky, we might just have to take a lunch break and find something yummy to buy.
That bridge Pete’s on has a certain ‘Himalayan’ quality to it 😮
Yeah, I know what you mean!
But what do you think of the “bridge” in the first picture? You can just see the faded rope strung across above the broken log in the stream! 😯 We spent half an hour here throwing boulders into the stream to make stepping stones…