GT Newperson CycleTours

From the 7th to 14th June 2003, the Tour de Trièves will be based in a gite at Ruthière in the Trièves region between the eastern edge of the mountainous uplands of the Vercors and the high Alpine peaks of the Écrins National Park.

The gite consists of two apartments in the same building. Each apartment has either two or three twin bedrooms and one double bedroom, a large kitchen/dining room, a laundry room and an enclosed garden.

Four kilometres from the gite is the train station of Clelles-Mens with connections to Grenoble. The village of Clelles, the local centre, is further 2 kilometres and the nearest town of Mens is another 14 kilometres.

Ruthière is 980 metres up just outside the small village of Chichilienne with about 200 inhabitants at the foot of 2086 metre Mont Aiguille, where the first mountaineering expedition in France took place in 1492 when King Charles VIII heard tales of supernatural manifestations at the top but found wild flowers and a herd of chamois.

Behind Mont Aiguille is the 2000 metre high and 60 kilometre long mountain ridge, topped with peaks like 2541 metre Grand Veymont, along the eastern edge of the Vercors with the High Plateaux of the Vercors beyond at 1300-1400 metres.

Tucked between this ridge and the 1500-1600 metre ridges of Crête des Rôchers de la Montagne de Gresse and Crête de la Ferrière is the high valleys of the Gresse river.

Between the PreAlpine limestone of the Vercors and Hardstone of the Écrins lies the Jurassic limestone depression of the Trièves, into which the Drac and Ebron rivers have cut their deep valleys.

Beyond the Drac river valley are the Alpine regions of the Écrins, Beaumont and Valbonnais. The Parc National des Écrins was created in 1973 and is France’s largest, at 227,000 acres including 30,000 acres of glaciers, numerous mountain peaks above 3000 metres and more than 1000 kilometres of footpaths. There are roads into the centre of the park but none that go through to the other side. The Valbonnais is located around the deep valleys and wild landscapes of the lower Bonne valley and its tributaries which run into the heart of the Écrins. The Beaumont region with the town of Corps as its centre lies beside the central Drac valley on the route used by Napoleon on his return from exile in Elba to Grenoble.

Photo page.