Dinner up the Mountain La Crapahute
Mark Dalton and his restaurant La Crapahute are a local legend. Nestled just at the bottom of the skiable part of the Valley De La Manche Mark’s restaurant is available for group bookings in the evenings during the winter for a mon of 10 people. We took a group of 20 staff and friends of Mountain Spaces up for the evening towards the end of the season.
Getting to the restaurant is a 20min walk up from the end of the cleared road and you can hear the restaurant before you can see it (I won’t spoil the actual surprise). It’s not to far to go with kids and gets the appetite going ready for dinner.
Dinner is a simple but tasty affair with Savoyard specialities the only dishes on the menu, and I have to say one of the best potato gratins I have ever had. Mark’s a great host full of stories, games and tricks, including going to find two of our group who got lost on the way up on the snowmobile.
Dinner time!
Liv and Carla from Mountain Spaces
That’s an egg Mark (in the red) is about to throw into the fondue pot via the ceiling to mop up the last of the cheese.
Remains!
Mark and Rupert the bear at the bar
No caption will do this justice, book for yourselves and go and see.
Cheaper and considerably more dangerous than a sledge on the way home.
Valley De La Manche 2012
Not an epic day out in terms of loads of hiking or insanely steep or difficult terrain but still one of the most special routes in the whole of the Portes du Soleil as far as I’m concerned.
People out for a weeks holiday are often hesitant about off piste for a variety of reasons, they don’t want to ‘waste’ a day hiking, the cost of a guide and avalanche equipment, or they mistakenly think they aren’t good enough. I would definitely recommend anyone who has a chance to get a guide and give this route a go, it’s a 20min traverse round from a lift so no height to gain and as long as you’ve played around on the side of the piste a bit before you’ll be fine putting your turns in.
Col de Coux
About a week or so ago I rode a route with Jamie from All Mountain Rental from Morzine up to Avoriaz, down to the Mossettes lift, down into Champery, up to the col de Coux and then down some of the most technical single track I’ve ever ridden in the Valley de la Manche.
The last part from the col back to Morzine was really spectacular. I didn’t have the soul stealer with me so it seemed like the ideal place to go back to for a walk to take a bit more time to take the scenery in and take some pictures.
We drove up the valley and parked up past the Nyon cable car so we could walk the route I’d ridden down. We stumbled on the wooded section which, on a bike, is on a par with the old Super Morzine run under the Super Morzine bubble. Super steep technical root garden down big muddy chutes. Look for this sign on the way down.
From the wooded section we carried on up the road to the refuge at the Lac de Mine D’Or
From the Lac it’s a short climb up a fire road to the start of the single track running up the valley, there’s a couple of different routes to the top, we chose to walk up the exposed grassy slope to get the most of the views.
From the col itself you can make out the single track running up from Switzerland and Champery, the route we came from by bike.
Sat right on the border. One leg in Switzerland one leg in France, mon dieu!
On the way back down we chose to follow part of the GR5 route that runs from Belgium to Nice, the alpine part of the route is something we’d really like to do from start to finish.
Final river crossing at the bottom before we re-joined the path back to the refuge at the Lac.
Definately one of the better walks we’ve been on, lots to see, varied terrain and gaining the climbing split into sections rather than one big slog.
+ excellent walk, awesome views
- quite busy in parts
= One of the best half day walks we’ve been on 9/10
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