A Cool Way to Buy a Baguette, Plaine Joux
Zagan the motorhome’s facing off with the awe-inspiring, timeless hulk of rock, snow and ice which is the Mont Blanc Massif. It’s 8:30am and the sun’s already hot on our windscreen up here in one of the official motorhome parking areas at the Plaine Joux ski resort, complete with electricity, loos and showers (N45.95109, E6.73913). It wasn’t the easiest drive to get here, but it was very much worth it. We’re in a Tolkienesque landscape folks, scenery to rival Norway’s best, and that’s saying something. I’ve been lucky enough to stare up at the mighty Mont Blanc more than once in my life, and to even have a walk around the Aiguille du Midi next to it, but it remains a magnetic scene, magical, seriously inspiring.
So, that drive! Back at Albertville we found this place on park4night, complete with a fistful of five star reviews, mostly one-liners about the epic view of the mountains. Popping it into our satnav with a (comically optimistic it turned out) top speed of 90kph (about 60mph) resulted in a predicted journey time of 90 minutes. Sweet. Had I thought back just a day or two I’d have remembered hearing one of Pete Matthew’s podcasts (meaningfulmoney.tv) where he explores various human psychological weaknesses, including ‘anchoring’. ‘Anchoring’ operates something like this: someone (or something in our case) tells you a journey should take 90 minutes. Later on, you find yourself on a long twisting detour in the Gorges de l’Arly, or reversing up a mountain road to let an oncoming lorry past or sitting about for half an hour while your glowing brakes cool off having had to slam them on to avoid embedding yourself into the side of another lorry at a hairpin bend. All the time you’re thinking ‘we’re 3 hours into a 90 minute drive here’ when nope, it was always going to take over 3 hours, it’s just that you’re ‘anchored’ to that original, unrealistic number.
It’s done in selling too: if you place a £100 price tag on a bottle of vintage wine and ask passers-by how much they’d pay, they offer maybe £90. If you pop a £50 tag on the same bottle and repeat the experiment, folks offer about £40. The exact same bottle! We humans are weird, irrational things eh?
Anyway, I ramble. When the brakes had cooled off just south of St-Gervais-les-Bains we crossed the motorway and plunged into an (for us) incomprehensible mass of ‘white’ roads, with no obvious route upwards, generally two lanes but not the ones we took! If you’re heading up here, follow the ‘recommended itinerary’ route signs folks, even though they don’t say where they’re pointing to. Drive to Plateau d’Assy and up to Plaine Joux from there. The tarmac should be smooth, as there’s an army of hulking machines relaying it as I type. We didn’t mind being woken up by ’em this morning, the views of the mountain are the very best first thing, before the clouds obscure the tops.
Arriving here we found ourselves parked up next to Ted, an Australian chap who is the cool baguette buyer referenced in the title. Ted, who refers to himself as ‘an old grandad’, is staying here for a few weeks. Each day he checks the weather forecast for the following day. If all’s good, he gets up, pulls on a rather large backpack, walks 200m to the edge of the steep hill facing Mont Blanc and walks off. He’s a paraglider (and runs a paragliding school), as I guess you guessed, and has flown various other methods since his youth. Depending on the thermals he flies around the valleys for potentially hours, before landing far below, buying a baguette and getting a lift or the local bus back up here. That’s a wonderful way to do your shopping if you ask me!
Chatting later Ted told us about the Red Bull X Alps competition. In it athletes compete to fly the full length of the Alps, running back up mountains to take-off areas each time they land. Yep, Ju and I might be jogging up some of these hills but these guys are doing it carrying a huge backpack, and for days on end. They sleep as little as possible. The event’s taking place as I type, you can see who’s winning here: www.redbullxalps.com/live-tracking.html. It looks bonkers.
If you don’t fancy launching yourself into thin air, there’s plenty more to do up here. Walks head off for miles into the Passy Natural Park to my left, or for a shorter detour down to nearby the Lac Vert in among the trees (which has a lovely little path around it). The restaurants are open and have one of the best views in the entire world. You can rent an electric mountain bike and save your legs, or run the mountain trails if you’re feeling fit (be warned: they’re steep!). Or you can simply sit and admire the vista, why not, it doesn’t get any better than this.
We’re staying here tonight and then rolling back off the hill tomorrow (assuming the road’s finished and open), visiting a friend in Chamonix before heading closer to Switzerland. Our campsite outside Bern’s booked so we’ll get a motorway vignette and plough across the country on Friday. The Formula E race is on Saturday, which we’ll go and watch before getting back in the van and heading slowly across the Swiss Alps up towards Zermatt. We’re already pondering Switzerland’s massive prices, having paid **cough** **cough** Swiss Francs per night for the Bern campsite already (we never normally book but the ePrix’s filled up Bern’s other campsite), and knowing bin bags cost about £3 each. The country’s a beautiful place to be though, our finances allow for some additional costs, so we’ll enjoy it anyway. That said, we’ll be well stocked with grub, LPG and diesel before crossing the border!
Right, time to go watch some men and women fly off a mountain! Ju’s currently out running and we’re planning a mountain walk later on, so I’d best get the sunscreen on too, it’s roasting hot, even up here at 1340m.
Cheers, Jay
Hi Ju and Jay We stayed at that aire a few years ago. We were lucky enough to stay there in April, when it was free. We stayed in a field, just beyond where you are parked, and had a great view of Mont Blanc. A Belgium, in another van, was an expert on Mont Blanc and we spent a lovely evening with him and his wife, as he explained and showed us, through a telescope, the highlights of Mont Blanc. We also had entertainment from the army, police and mountain rescue who spent an afternoon lifting each other on and off the mountains in a helicopter that landed not far from our van. Lovely walks from there and so many good memories for us. Enjoy your stay. Paul and Anita Redman
Happy days Paul! Another van’s enjoying that same spot in the field at the moment so we’re holding station here. We’ve got lucky being next to Ted, he’s an interesting chap, amazing the people you get to meet eh? Cheers, happy travels, Jay
A great post
Hi Jason,
I have to agree with you, Mont Blanc is really impressive! We have just come back from 2 months around Europe, we attended the 58th Europa Rally on the Croatian island of Mali Losinj 6-10 June. We then had to get back fairly quickly as the the boss has a hospital appointment so we came back via Italy and France doing what we don’t like to do, big distances. Our route took us through the Mont Blanc tunnel, it also stung us 65 Euros for the privilege! Still time was of the essence as we blasted across Italy and France.
Have you done the Grossglockner pass in Austria? We waited around of 5 days for it to open on our way south but had to make do with a lesser route and another tunnel, still fantastic views but not the big one we were hoping for. Good luck to you both with the runs and I enjoy reading the blogs.
Cheers
Mike
Hi Mike
That Mont Blanc tunnel’s a pretty amazing way to get through the Alps though eh – great to do it that way at least once in a lifetime just to get the sensation of rolling through so many tons of rock above you. Nope, we’ve not driven either up or down the Grossglockner. We’ve heard great things about it, but just never been in that neck of the woods in summer. One day. Unlucky with the closure – we had a similar experience at the Col de Lautaret last year, but we only had to wait 2 or 3 days. Luck of the draw sometimes.
Thanks for the comment, much appreciated, cheers, Jay
Unbelievable blog/resource – thank you! So rare to find such high quality content from seemingly genuinely down to earth people…must be an East Midlands thing! We are taking on (attempting) the drive up to Plaine Joux tomorrow in our 1995 Hymer B584…I’ll be visiting the local Eglise early to say a few prayers. We are cheating and taking the toll road as far as we can but very grateful for the route info/tips.
All the best and thank you again for a great and entertaining resource.
David and Emily (Campingcar novices).
You’re welcome guys, enjoy it up there! Jay