To Thonon les Bains: Over Col de la Columbiere

June 21, 2015

We awoke this morning with a sense of excitement and anticipation - last pass of the tour, and Lake Geneva tonight! Tours are always like that at their closure - after living intensely in them for weeks somehow it is always surprising to realize it's almost over. This morning Rachael awoke and said she'd been thinking about the office for the first time in a month.

First though, there's the small matter of Col de la Columbiere to attend to. We have a fairly longish day ahead of us (and our hotel wants a ridiculous 14 euros for breakfast) so we hit the streets early and were pleased to find a breakfast cafe open this early on a Sunday morning. We were surprised to feel how cold it was out - it must have been in the mid-forties when we first left the hotel for breakfast but it warmed up quickly.

Leaving La Clusaz, we continue descending for another few miles, finally bottoming out just before Le Grande Bornand, the base town for the southern ascent to Columbiere. From our side it's a fairly leisurely climb - although it rises over 2000' in a bit over six miles, it is never too steep until the last. We were both pleased with ourselves at how easy the ascent seemed today - I'm sure it would have felt like more of a challenge over a month ago. We can really see the effect of doing this for a month straight.

The climb itself is wonderful - after breaking out of the trees it doubles back and ascends toward the face of an awesome limestone megalith before finally following its base the final steep mile or so to the summit. The top Columbiere is another stunning spot, and one of our favorites. It reminds me again of how amazingly diverse these mountains are - each major pass we crossed has been unique, feeling like nowhere else in the world we've ever been. It makes me hope we can find a way to return to this region again someday and take in some of the ones we missed on this pass through.

In Le Grand Bernand. I'm not familiar with the purple jersey. What cycling honor does it represent?

An udderly charming fountain in Le Grand Bornand

Starting the countdown on the last big climb of the tour

Rising above Le Grand Bornand on the climb to Col de la Columbiere

Looking back at Le Grand Bornand from the climb of Col de la Columbiere

On the climb of Col de la Columbiere. I love how the ivy has infiltrated the fractures in the face of this cliff. It must be spectacular when it reddens in the fall.

High point of the day, and the last real summit of the tour.

Looking south from the summit of the climb of Col de la Columbiere

At the summit of Col de la Columbiere. What is it with Savoyards and their cows, anyway? This is the third bovine buffoonery we've seen today.

We loitered around the top for a bit, admiring the views, warming ourselves over a cup of coffee and snack at the cafe, and watching a steady stream of bikers arrive. Most of them come in from the northern side, and look like they are part of a massive organized ride because they all have the same trophy cycling jersey on with the Route of the Grand Alpes mapped on the back. Finally we drop off the north side, into a steady stream of these bikers - I'm sure we passed a couple hundred of them as we descended, strung out over three or four miles, and all hard at work - the northern ascent is a much tougher climb.

For us it's all steeply downhill, and our work is all in keeping our nerves under control - this was probably the most unsettling descent of the tour. It's steep and winding, as they all have been; but we are on the down-cliff side of the road, and down it is for a fact - it feels straight down in many places, and there is no guardrail and zero shoulder for most of the way. The roadway has a slight slope toward the edge in many places, giving the sensation that you could easily drift sideways and over the edge. It feels pretty busy too - there aren't many cars, but they all have to thread the needle between us and the oncoming stream of uphillers.

It unsettled both of us, and we were happy to see the bottom. It had a lingering effect on Rachael, I think - for most of the rest of the day she biked pretty far toward the center of the road, even when on the flats. Here's the video of this unnerving descent.

A constant stream of bikes arrived at the summit.

Beginning the descent from Col de la Columbiere: steep, narrow, winding, precipitous, and busy. It put our nerves on edge and was the most discomfiting descent of the tour. Absence d'Accotement = no shoulder, which is an understatement; at places the cliff seemed to drop straight down from the narrow, shoulderless road with no guardrail.

On the descent from the climb of Col de la Columbiere

Finally reaching bottom, we pulled off into a small park and found a picnic table in the sun and out of the wind to break out the bread and cheese. It felt wonderful to lie there on the bench for awhile soaking up the sun and look above it at the mountainside, watching cyclists slowly etching their path upward across its face.

Rousing ourselves again, we continued gradually dropping down-valley for a few more miles before starting up the other side toward our final, modest summit of the tour: Col de Jambaz. There wasn't much to the summit itself - it seemed little more than a rounded rise in the road after the nonstop challenges of the past month - but it was a pretty ride with a few surprises - an attractive old bridge, the surprisingly monumental little village of Jeoire, and the short, steep-sided Gorges de Rille. The gorge and its rock formation seemed misplaced - enlarged a thousandfold, it could have been in the Vercors, so perhaps it's a small breakout of the same geologic formation.

The coast to the lake at the end of the day was a bit of a disappointment though. For weeks I've been imagining cresting the last ridge and dropping down to Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) into inspiring views across the lake. We of course descended through a gorge though, and the imagined views didn't exist. We didn't see the lake at all until almost inside the town limits of Thonon.

The old bridge (dated 1788) across the Griffe at Marignier

The tower of Saint George Church in Saint Jeoire

Today's ride: 55 miles (89 km)
Total: 1,260 miles (2,028 km)

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