|
 Dwight
Peck's personal Web site
Pointe
de Poêle Chaud
A
few more photos for the bin
May
2004
It's
May 2004 (the 16th of that month), 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!
From
the Carte National de la Suisse, 50,000 scale: 260, St.-Cergue.
The frontier of France to the south and west is marked by +++++++. 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.
The end is in sight. No, not yet.
No, 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.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 1 February 2005, revised 11 September 2008.
|
