A rendezvous with Jack beyond the Arctic Circle

After the exhausting last few days, I have to admit that I was really looking forward to the approaching low-pressure area and the well-deserved rest days. Especially since there was no campground in Montgenèvre, but rather affordable accommodations. The only annoying thing was that my spoke still wasn't fixed, so I had to go back down to Briançon, 600 meters lower. Once again, I had to visit several bike shops until finally one had a spoke in the right size. Fortunately, the mechanic also installed it right away.

Now I just had to make my way back to Montgenèvre. Supposedly there was a bus in the afternoon that would also take bicycles. However, no one could confirm this for me. So I had a choice - either make use of the last dry hour or wait for the bus and if it didn't take bikes, pedal up in pouring rain. Well, since I preferred the low-risk option, it happened that on my rest day I cycled back up 600 meters and just made it to my dry accommodation before the rain started.

The next day and a half, it rained continuously. Perfectly in line with that, I even managed to get a one-room apartment and could comfortably watch the spectacle outside from a safe distance. It was a good thing too, because I don't want to imagine what it would have been like in the tent after the temperature drop and torrential rain. You don't have to experience everything.

Weather improvement was announced for Sunday, and I was determined to tackle the second planned day tour in the area. I wanted to go to Mont Chaberton, the towering border mountain between Italy and France. And as befits a mountain with such a location, there is of course a quirky and tragic World War II episode associated with it. The Italians had the grand idea of building a fort on the summit of this mountain as early as 1891 for future war games with the French. Equipped with eight towers, the summit has looked like it has a crown ever since. The fort was supposed to be used for the first time by Mussolini in 1940 in World War II. However, the clever French had already discreetly set up some cannons to monitor the fort. As soon as the fort was completed, the French fired eight shots and quickly destroyed it. Bad luck for Mussolini, and it's actually quite a shame that the French couldn't put up as much resistance to another wannabe warlord of that time.

Thanks to the fort, there is still an old military road leading up to the summit at a lofty 3,136 meters. That's where I wanted to go. But since the weather was only slowly improving, I didn't start at the bottom of the military road, but took the shortcut up above the Montgenèvre downhill trail. It was really frosty that day, and even from below you could see the snow-covered heights indicating that reaching the goal was anything but a given. I made it to the junction with the military road at 2,800 meters by bike. But then it was over, and I had to trudge the remaining 400 meters in deep snow, sometimes up to 20 centimeters high. After the Mediterranean joy a few days ago, I felt like I had just crossed the Arctic Circle. And my clothes were not designed for it. Especially in my half-shoes, my feet soaked with snow gradually turned into stiff frozen icicles.

But the ascent to this strange place was definitely worth it. The view was limited due to the remaining clouds, but the half-collapsed fort and the remnants of the eight towers had a unique, morbid charm surrounded by wintry mists. As I got lost in the freely accessible and gigantic complex of World War ruins, accompanied only by the lonely echo of my footsteps, I thought that Jack from The Shining would feel very much at home here. He could indulge in his favorite activity of terrorizing unsuspecting visitors like me. But before it came to that, I preferred to make my way back home and reached my bike slightly chilled. I returned via the trail I had come up, which was quite demanding, to my cozy, warm apartment that I now highly appreciated.