In January 2017, I left on my first ever winter hiking trip. We had a great time in the High Fens and I knew it was something I would want to do again. A couple of months later, Servaes contacted me with the question if I wanted to join him on a week-long winter trekking in the Vercors at the end of 2017. This trip quit a big step up from the one in the High Fens, but with the experience of Servaes, I wanted in. Once I told my mother I would not be home for the New Year’s Day dinner but instead, chose to spend that time in a tent somewhere in the mountains, we started the preparations.
I still haven’t found the time to write a full report about this trip. For now, I created a quick photo report. Hope you enjoy!
In A Nutshell
Type of hike | Point-to-point |
Start – Finish | Col de Menée – Richardière (Chichilianne) |
Duration | 6 days |
Distance | 40 kilometres |
Elevation | +1.657 m -2.004 m |
Time of year | December |
Location | Vercors (France) |
Photo Report
Practicalities
Maps
The map we used during our trip was the IGN 3237 OT (Glandasse – Col de la Croix-Haute).
Need this map? Atlas & Zanzibar – travel bookstore and a partner of the website – is selling it!
5% reduction for KBF members by the way! ☝️
Gear
It’s pretty clear that for a trip like this, it’s important to bring good gear. On a summer trip, gear failure may cause at the very least an inconvenience. During a wintertrip, bad gear can be very dangerous. So please, the pictures above look nice and fun, but don’t take a trip like this too lightly.
When you are not sure about your gear, I would advice to rent gear instead of buying something that might perhaps, if the conditions are could, just be good enough. There are a couple of good places for renting gear in Belgium. I rented my gear for this trip with Servaes from Outdoor Animation (Leuven). He rents snowshoe’s, pulka’s, sleeping bags and mattresses specifically for winter.
Here a photo of my bed during the preparations.
Camera
I have gotten a couple of questions lately about the camera that I use when going on a hike.
When I was looking for a camera, this was my checklist:
- Easy to use (for quick shots)
- Manual modes for more challenging shots
- Ability to shoot in RAW
- Not big or heavy
- Delivered good quality photos also in low light conditions
I debated long between the Canon Powershot G7 X Mark II and the Panasonic Lumix LX15. Finally I decided on the latter one. Super happy with it! If you buy a camera through one of the links above, you support me and my website! Thanks a lot 🙂
Found any use in this article? Help me stay awake while writing with a virtual cup of coffee! ?
Hey
Great trip – looks amazing!
would you have the trail recorded in GPS format (kml or other)?
Thanks!
Hi Jacob! No I don’t. It was also a bit on purpose because I would not advice – anyone – to exactly follow our track. I myself would not do it again the same way, that’s why I refrained from adding the track to the article. Send me an email at noplacelikeoutside@gmail.com and I’ll give you some more specific information 🙂 Wouter
Was an amazing trip, Because of Wouter I bought some items like the knife and the saw and gained a friendship for free 🙂