Notre Aventure Française, 2013: 4th October, Chartreuse and The Alpes (continued)

Thursday 3rd October, L'Alpe-d'Huez

L'Alpe-d'Huez has been on the Tour de France list of famous ascents since 1952 and this year's 100th edition saw the Tour doing the ascent twice on 18th July. We did it once today in the Citroen DS3. It was on our must do list and took us out of Haute-Alpes back into into Isère region of the Alpes
The TdF record to ascend the 14 km stretch of 21 hairpin bends and climb 1803 meters is 37 minutes and 35 seconds - we probably beat that by a few minutes only.
Each of the 21 hairpin bends is numbered, with the elevation and previous winners' names to that bend on a board. There are more names than bends. The Macquarie Pass hair pin bend has nothing on any of these.
The climb leads you to the ski resort of L'Alpe-d'Huez which has uncountable ski lifts, lodges, apre ski bars, restaurants, airport and everything else that a world renowned ski resort has. It has 295 kms of groomed ski trails, but yesterday it appeared we were the only ones there apart from the locals, amateur bike riders challenging the ascent and staff preparing for the winter season.
The alternate route down from the top is via the the Route du Col Sarenne, a sealed road without the hairpins, travelling through more beautiful country and quite safe according to the Tourist Bureau lady. I wonder what her version of unsafe is? It was extremely narrow with steep drop offs without barriers and vehicles moving in both directions. There was an open topped vintage car (MG types) rally on the way up and we stopped and let a few pass - would hate to meet a truck on the way up. But I then remember that the Tour de France competitors have been descending by this route since the descent was included in 1975 but without traffic in the opposite direction. I believe the brave ones can get up to 80 kph - breathtaking!!
But it was worth doing and adds to the adventure and again it provided more different sights, tiny mountain villages, huts, picnic and viewing areas, waterfalls, wild flowers, avalanches and snow clad peaks.