Bit of a let down to end the Alps chapter with Bonette closed

Just a random peak with some clouds playing on it

Well today didn’t go as planned, and I have had to miss out on climbing the Bonette which is a real shame but out of my control. However, I did get to ride a big red bike, see some people playing petanque, and saw more of the country today whilst looking for a place to stay. Not as expected today, but certainly not bad.

Well this morning at breakfast when checking the weather, I saw that Bonette was expected to be at -2 degrees, with a wind chill of -4. Vars, which I was going to be climbing beforehand enroute to Bonette, was supposed to be 6 degrees in contrast. I thought that -2 was outside the range of my clothes that I had and would be bordering on dangerous if I gave it a go, but thought about waiting until Vars to make the decision – maybe the weather man was being overly cautious? This was really my one shot at it as the next three days at least it was expected to snow up there and that was definitely not the weather for me.

So off I toddled and headed for Vars. The climb started straight out of Guillestre, where I had stayed, which was good as it made clothing choices easy – dress for climbing, don’t worry about warm clothes. The road winds its way around the side of a hill as you head up which gave some nice views down to the valley below.

After 10kms you start hitting the villages for the ski fields, which is nice as you get a few short little downhill breaks to give your legs a quick rest. My climbing legs were feeling a bit rubbish again today so I certainly was glad for the short respites.

As I was heading up I put my arm warmers on as things were starting to get a bit cool. The temperature was about 8 degrees which when huffing and puffing is normally OK, but with the wind today it was actually quite cold. Then as I was leaving to town of Vars the temperature dropped to 5 degrees and so I stopped to put my gloves on as well. Unfortunately, I think overall my body is fatigued a fair bit so I don’t have the same oomph as I did a wee while ago, so it was also hard to push hard enough to generate enough body heat to counter the cold as well. 

It is only a few kilometres from Vars to the top, which you can see easily enough and comes as no surprise. By the top it was 1.5 degrees and the wind chill was horrific! Luckily there was a little café type place up there though and I rushed in with the remainder of my warm clothes to get warm. Unfortunately, as it is not winter yet I guess, the fireplace was not on and the place felt a similar temperature to outside. Oh well, at least they have coffee and I’m out of the wind. Moments later a German speaking couple that I had overtaken just before the top come in looking for some warmth too it seemed. From what I could understand in the very little German I can speak is that the lady was not happy about how cold it was and in protest refused to do anything the guy offered to assist her to warm up. So he and I enjoyed a hot drink while she stewed.

After getting fully dressed and being semi warm I went out for photo time then headed down the hill.

The downhill was really good! Nice roads, some great twists and turns and maybe even a little warmer? My hands were quite cold, as were my feet, but not as bad as coming down Stelvio so I could still enjoy it thankfully.

I got to the bottom and had made the decision that if I was freezing with all my warms clothes on up Vars, then I don’t think it would be a good idea to attempt Bonette considering it was predicted to be even colder and it was also 700m higher. I was quite gutted with making the decision as it meant giving away one of the climbs I really wanted to do, but I kept telling myself that it is that time of year so I should expect this type of thing. I continued down the valley, which took me past the turnoff to the Bonette, as this led to Ventoux, the next major one I would like to climb.

The cool thing was that as I was heading down, I came across a sign that took all my ill feelings about the decision I made away.

The choice was not mine after all, I could not climb Bonette even if I wanted and I was not going to hang around for three days to wait for the predicted snow to stop just in case it did reopen!

So I continued on, still with feet like icicles, but at least the sun was fully out now and hopefully things would warm up soon. Before long I came across a lovely bike that I just had to ride, right at the intersection where the Bonette starts.

After the wee ride on big red I hopped off and continued on. A few days ago I had made a rough plan as to how I was going to get to Ventoux, so I just started following that and hoped it would get me there. Any kilometres I do today are just less I have to do tomorrow.

The route took me down a quite busy main road for most of the afternoon so I was feeling good about finding a place to stay. The road went through some small towns here and there, and I even managed to see some people playing petanque.

Around 4pm I did my usual thing of starting to look for a place to stay. The next town had absolutely nothing. As did the town after that. I started to feel a little ‘oh no’ moment coming on. I looked at Mr Garmin and the closest place he know of was 10kmss down the road. I had a look at the map and thought it could be a possibility. Unfortunately it wasn’t. Not a place to stay anymore. Oh dear. So I looked for the next big town kind of on the way I was heading, and it was 12kms away. Right, I will head for there, and if anything pops up beforehand then winner! Nothing popped up.

So I arrived in the biggish town, looked at Mr Garmin who told me where the different accommodation was. Unfortunately the first place was no more. The second was now only a bar and not a hotel as well, but the guy kindly gave me directions to the first place. I thought that maybe I had missed something, so I went back but no, it was defiantly no more as indicated by the bordered up windows. I then just happened to see a camping ground sign out the corner of my eye, and only 300m away. Great, give that a go. After the third 300m to go sign I found it, and as luck would have it they had a room. Awesome!

So not a day where everything went to plan by any means, and was quite gutted to miss out on the Bonette but it is what it is and now I am looking forward to Ventoux. I must admit, I think I would have started to get worried if I did not find a place to stay in Laragne Monteglin, where I did, as it looked like there was only one more big town down the road about 15kms away or a long ride to the city of Gap. Lucky it didn’t come to that! 

 

Highlight: Had a smoothie today. Been craving something like that for a long, long time and today found a place that did them. Yay!

Lowlight: Missing out on Bonette.

Lesson Learned: I guess I will try and find a way to see if the passes are still open or not. I hope there is something online for that.