Dwight Peck's personal website

Pointe de Poêle Chaud, 2003-2005

A few more photos for the bin


You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

16 March 2003

Up we go through the forest, and today Dr Pirri will be our guide.

We've reached the col between Pointe de Fin Château and the Pointe de Poêle Chaud, so . . .

our guide is celebrating.

The Pointe de Fin Château

Ditto

Windy on top. La Dôle is in the distance, and the Pointe de Poêle Chaud is directly behind me.

Dr Pirri and the Pointe de Poêle Chaud in the distance; we've decided we've had enough fun for one day and are starting back down now by another way.

La Dôle and the Pointe de Poêle Chaud from the Pointe de Fin Château, 2003


16 May 2004

It's May 2004, and the snow's nearly gone now on the southern sides of the mountain. We're back at the Pointe de Poêle Chaud for a brisk direttissima march straight up the forests of the northwest side of the summit.

Out of the forests now and persisting upwards.

A glance back at the Pointe de Fin Château to the northeast as we hurl ourselves upward with a kind of reckless abandon.

A last bit to the radio station at the top.

From the top of Poêle Chaud, La Dôle to the southwest.

La Dôle, 16 May 2004.

Sneaking down the southeast side, Pointe de Fin Château in the background.

Another look at La Dôle, with the recently restored ancient stone wall in front of it.

And another, May 2004. God, that was fun!

The Pointe de Fin Château


1 May 2005

Rendezvous with destiny -- it's a year later, 1 May 2005, and we're back for another brisk march to the Pointe de Poêle Chaud, once again lunging up through the nearly trackless forests from the north.

Whilst clawing our way up through the overgrown 35%-slope forests just above the "F" in Fin Château on the map above, declaiming loudly about American politics and doing our Scott McClellan imitations, we heard a heavily-Swissified voice from the dense thickets calling out in English "Are you on a path there?" Well, we were not, and neither were they -- a very good-natured but rueful Swiss couple who had read their map wrongly and pushed their mountain bikes straight up through 200 vertical meters of dense undergrowth in search of the path they still hoped to find somewhere up there.

We'd be more likely to have found a bicycle in a refrigerator than on the forested side of the Pointe de Fin Château.

That's the Pointe de Fin Château in the centre, and our wandering cyclists were down in the forest to the left, and may be there still.

Dr Pirri, on the fast track to Poêle Chaud

Long hillsides up Poêle Chaud from the north

Dr Pirri is once again on his way up the last stretch to the radio station at the top of Point de Poêle Chaud.

-- Are you coming?

The last push to the top

The end is in sight. No, not yet.

Now the top is in sight. Telltale hints of the amateur radio relay station La Glutte not far off, 1 May 2005.

We're here, time for lunch. We found a chocolate bar in the bottom of an old backpack, though the sell-by date read 1997.

The nearby point of La Barillette, with its Swisscom communication tower, overlooking Lake Geneva and France on the far side.

La Glutte 'gatoring on us

Dr Pirri heading home again, 1 May 2005.

Pointe de Poêle Chaud

A walk up in the fog (6 October 2013)

Pointe de Poêle Chaud in bright sun (11 March 2007)

Pointe de Poêle Chaud in roiling clouds (2 April 2006)

Basic Poêle Chaud (2000)

Pointe de Poêle Chaud (November 1999)

Poêle Chaud in icky weather (March 2002)

Seasonal dashes up (2003, 2004, and 2005)

Nearby La Dôle

from SwitzerlandMobility (http://map.schweizmobil.ch/?lang=en)


Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 1 February 2005, revised 16 November 2013.


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