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Pic Heavy: Vacation in the Alps and Southern France - Mtbr.com Forums
So we started our vacation in Mittenwald, Germany, right on the German-Austrian border in the Tirol region.
We encountered some bad weather and trails definitely not as good as the magazines made them out to be.
Almost like a scam to bring tourism to the region.
However, we went a few minutes north to Kruen, and found some fantastic trails out there wtih the elevations, rocks, and long, winding downhills we were looking for.
This location was definitely more along the lines of what we were looking for, though it seems the biggest purpose is to ride and climb for the views, not to hunt around for something technical.
Also if note: when the weather was horrible in Mittenwald, it was great in Kruen.
Something to note for those going to this region.
One day, the weather was bad enough that we decided to drive to Innsbruck, Austria.
All those are included.
This is the view from our place:
The water that runs through here is clear and green.
I don't know if it's a particular form of algae or minerals.
Looking back on our village, only about 100 meters up from it:
The clearing for the Walchensee along the way:
Kind of a tiny waterfall running through:
Still climbing: the mountain above the Walchensee picture:
Walchensee from higher up:
My girlfriend informed me that this little mound was moving, and it sure was- it was made of ants.
Luckily, they were very tolerant.
Most insects here are extremely tolerant.
No stings, nothing.
Even the bees just flew around, kept their distance, and never required a swat out of the way.
Our route down.
While it looks smallish, it's actually quite a big distance.
High speeds, sharp switchbacks, and low traction.
The view of the Wettersteingebirge, which also contains Zugspitze.
Part of the Karwendelgebirge.
We're staying at the foot of this range.
Probably Karwendelgebirge again.
Just snapped it on the way down.
Scharnitz, a small village on the Austrian side of the border.
We also took a disappointing tour through there that was "highly recommended" by the German bike magazines.
The Golden Dachl, made from a crap-load of gold tiles:
Mountains in the background:
Mittenwald Village, back in Germany:
We rode along this river going up.
Really incredible scenery along the way.
Our initial destination was somewhere in those clouds, about 1,600m up.
Getting closer:
At the cloud line, Eppzirler Alm, with a small church, cows, dry river bed, and a small Hutte.
I saw this huge snail on the trail.
This one got lucky.
He had a buddy that was a crunchy pancake.
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Some shots from Biarritz, France .
After a 16 hour drive, we met up with the rest of the family here.
We're kind of being lazy, but we did a warm up ride around the city.
Tomorrow might be a ride to Spain, or in the Pyranees Mountains.
It's hot and we're lazy and my gf really digs the surfing.
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Nice pics JC!!!! Great holiday it looks like also.
The one pic where you or someone else is riding through the river rock bed, there are a couple of "brown looking" rocks amongst the white boulders..
.are they rocks? they almost look like a sponge or something like that .
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[Quote: =Jerk_Chicken]The water that runs through here is clear and green.
I don't know if it's a particular form of algae or minerals.
[/Quote: /]
It's the minerals.
Meltwater like this (in areas such as these generally icefields and glaciers) contains a lot of 'rock flour' - ground up stone - that turns the streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes it flows into a milky color.
Usually on the blue or green side of turquoise.
And great shots!
Always neat to see more of the world
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Thanks for the info, North!
The camera unfortunately didn't capture the water color to the fullest, but the idea is there.
Wicker,
They were rocks, perhaps of different types.
That bed was dry as hell, but had some water running alongside, well away from much of the plant life.
Cowpies everywhere, too.
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Thx JC..being here in the middle of the pacific it can be rear expensive to go and travel outside the states..thx for sharing the pictures
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Awesome! Nest time I go I'll leaving the road bike at home in favor of my green little Ventana.
mbb
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Wow...thanks for lots of great pics, JC!
Looks like a blast indeed.
Have great time in the rest of the trip!
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Amazing pics. Thanks for sharing
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Amazing pictures.
Thanks for posting and telling the story.
Looks like a very beautiful place worth visiting for sure.
Ride On!
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Very nice pictures, looks like a good trip.
I like the random cows chillin on the hills too...
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Awesome
Looks like a great trip.
And some of those mountains look pretty steep = )
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Nice I am heading to Garmisch in a few days to stay for a week.
But I will be on the motorcycle so no mt.bike for me unless I can rent one.
My main goal of course is to tour the around on the motorcycle.
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You'll be somewhat local, so I wouldn't pass on Innsbruck.
Apparently, the roads to Mittenwald and to Innsbruck are frequented by motorcyclists (evidenced by their death-defying passing antics on the roads I was on).
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Outstanding - Looks like a fantastic vacation
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You've got some nice pictures there.
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My condolences. That looks awful.
Glad to hear you endured.
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We did a ride today close to the French-Spanish border.
Fantastic steeps, rocks, speed, and at the top, we met up with ponies.
Lots of them.
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Tomorrow's destination is going to likely be Cauterets , in the mid-Pyranees.
By chance, I took a look through a brochure I picked up a few days ago at our campground's tourism office, then read through carefully and saw "take the lift up...take your mountain bike down".
So I decided to start searching through google, and there's more there than I can manage.
It will be a long, early drive, and the weather is changing (heavy rain right now), but it could possibly be worth it.
For those looking for destinations in the Pyranees, I'm going to provide some links to help out:
A page from The Rough Guide To The Pyranees:
link
A random mtb tour page that contains related info:
http://www.dyh.fr/produit.asp?prod=517&c=EN
The profile of the region on a mtb resource site:
http://www.downhill911.com/trails/tr...p?guestid=1417
(if the link doesn't work, just type "cauterets" in the field and then when the map comes up, you can select "relief" to see the profile of the region)
Some vids from Dailymotion:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x60...uverture_sport
http://www.dailymotion.com/related/x...72656c61746564
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Amazing pictures.
I really need to get over there.
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Wow, looks like we found the real deal.
Here's some more links for info on this place:
Video+info on the bike park:
http://ho5park.com/new/pages/index.p...&station_id=20
Looks like there are two legs to the lifts.
One to about 1850m, then another to about 2400m, plus multiple levels of trails down and around, xc to dh.
Base is about 940m.
More video and details:
http://www.cauteretsblog.aktaes.com/...erture-du-lys/
Hopefully the weather holds out.
Supposed to be clear tomorrow!
Small sample:
We don't do the big stuff, but the rockies and smaller jumps are what we look for.
We might end up going to 1850, then climbing up to 2400, provided it's bikeable.
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Great pics. Biarritz is one of my favorite places.
We go to France every Sept.
And are skipping Biarritz this year in order to check out San Sebastian.
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Do any riding while you're out here?
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Nice trip! I'm of to switzerland on monday, can't wait!!!
do you know this site?
http://ffc.fr/a_VeloLoisir/a_SitesVTT/index.asp
it shows all the mountainbike areas in france
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Makes me want to sell everything and go travel until the $ runs out.
Unfortunately, that would be too soon.
re: the green water as below:
That is glacial silt;
All streams from glaciers sport that turquoise colour, it looks so inviting until you get into it to cool off.
That takes about, oh, 1 second.
Temp. is usually a few degrees or less, above freezing.
It can also occur in lakes like this one: Lake Louise in Canada
You lucky bastidge, enjoy the trip, I'm envious as he//.
Jim
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Wait until you see today's pictures...
...before then, dinner with the family calls.
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Ok, so here are the pics from Cauterets.
The riding was fantastic, although a bit muddy from a couple days of heavy rain.
Regardless, the riding conditions were quite good.
There's a ton of variety from full on DH and FR to very technical singletrack that needs slack headangles and more travel, though some were doing it on hardtails.
I don't know how well, however.
A pick for heading down is the 3 trail, when it splits from the 5.
The three has more manageable features.
The 5 is super-technical, and one aspect I didn't like as much as the 3 because the turns were 90 degrees and over lines of rocks, plus lots of obstacles that really weren't bike friendly, in addition to some walking sections down steps.
The 3 just flows better.
Another thing is if anyone goes to this park, they have to watch the people who put the bikes on the hooks on the second leg when one must take the chairlifts up to 2400m.
The kid that worked there wasn't paying attention and on the first trip, he only put my bike up by the front tri and the second hook was resting against the seat collar.
The second time, he did my bike right, but now reversed things and put my gf's bike on wrong, two chairs away.
The Intense in front of us was also hooked the same way (in the pic, but hard to see).
The next time we came down, we complained, and the woman working with him chewed him out about how we were right (he may have thought we were being **
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Great pics, thanks for the stoke!
Keep 'em coming...
5 weeks and counting until our (wife and myself) trip to Paris (4d), Portes Du Soleil (5d), Chamonix (4d).
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Keep the stoke coming?
Ha!
I'm home now! Drove 23 hours only on ham sandwiches a can of Red Bull, and a can of Full Throttle (which ****ed my vision up early on).
I recommend anyone in that region go to Cauterets.
They also have bike shops rending DH Scotts with 888's.
Also, while in the region, Lourdes is not so far away, should you be into religion and historical places.
We went through. Nice towns.
I posted as much info above as a reference because it was difficult for me to find appropriate info myself.
If anyone uses a nav to get there, use PLZ (Zip Code) 65110.
There's another Cauteret in the region, but not the one.
It happened that my nav was set to Northern Europe, which removes Spain and Portugal, so as we got towards that area, it was misdirecting us and not finding streets, so the border for the database was not the political borders, but regional, based on how they plugged them in.
Buy gas in spain.
It's like 30 cents a liter cheaper than France.
And when you get into town, look for the "Telecabine" because there are a bunch of different "tele...." stuff to look for.
So that capped off the vacation.
I have still another week, but I'll just do some work at home.
I could have stayed out there for a few more days, but I got what I needed.
Four countries: Germany, Austria, France, and Spain.
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Excellent pictures, JC, thanks for sharing.
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Great pics. Looks like an amazing trip.
God I miss home and traveling around EUR.
JC, where is home for you?
Are you based in Europe?
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Awesome photos, so love seeing pictures of other areas of the globe, great work JC, keep it up...
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Great pics & looks to be a great time.
It took me back to my time in Germany.
The Zugspitze...that's the one with the tram ride up & a train ride down via tunnel...correct?
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Wow, what a trip.
Thanks for sharing.
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Have to plan a visit out there sometime.
Looks awesome!
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Looks like a great trip.
Thanks for sharing with us.
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Pity it's threads like this that people will miss out on now.
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Quote: : Pity it's threads like this that people will miss out on now.
My thought also, tis why I am asking why?
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These are some good jpegs though.
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Quote: : bunny My thought also, tis why I am asking why?
One of the best threads I've seen in passion.
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Beautiful places...scenery is absolutely stunning and the towns look so quaint!
Too bad JC will not be posting more of these- they certainly enrich MTBX.
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I can only image that the pics just dont capture the stunning beauty thats there.
However, JC...absolutely beautiful pics.
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Awesome pics! Looks like a great vacation.
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I miss Jerk_Chicken, he was the best.
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Damn shame you were banned JC.
Will miss your trenchant insight and stoke
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Did you get in that river?
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Quote: : damn shame you were banned JC.
Will miss your trenchant insight and stoke Seriously?
He was really banned?
While I didn't agree with everything he said (and seriously, who could) he sure was good entertainment and definitely one of the 'characters' of the site.
He sure has alot of passion for biking and is at least willing to back up his opinions.
Bummer!
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Quote: : Seriously?
He was really banned?
Bummer! http://www.f88me.com/showthread.php?t=12479
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Yeah this was one of the best threads on this site in a while...
JC definitely contributed a lot on this site...
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Great post, I really appreciate the pics and the insight.
Sounds and looks like an EPIC trip!
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Wow, I visited the Zugspitze area in the early 70's, thanks for posting the pics, they brought back tons of wonderful memories.
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Brilliant! Glacial rivers are so enchanting and so incredibly cold.
Good epic shots with the cloudy mountains
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Jerk Chicken banned?What reason?
BTW, JC, next time just leave out Germany and come to Slovenia
Marko
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Gorgeous. I used to do business travel in that area (Immenstadt).
Looks a lot the same.
I really loved it over there!
Thanks for all of the great photos!
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OMG those pics rock, hopefully one day I can get over there.
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