This was a journey of 26 stages accomplished over 32 days between 9th Feb and 12th March 2015. David Hamilton and Venetia Wingfield did the entire trip. Nick Hellen joined the team for stages F01-F06, Partick Bird for F07, and Andre Axelrod for F15-F17. Claire Marvin was driver of the support vehicle, providing resupplies of food & fuel, and making accommodation bookings. Distances and heights were measured using a Garmin GPS Map62. Distance, ascent and descent were measured daily. The information recorded is: distance covered 486km, ascent 29,207m, descent 27,800m.
Of the 31 overnight stops 16 were in valley accommodation (hotels & gites), 7 nights were spent in 4 different unstaffed huts (winter rooms), 6 nights was spent in 6 different staffed huts, and 2 nights were spent in a private chalet. 3 of the winter rooms were French Alpine Club (CAF) huts (Refuge Merveilles, Refuge Rabuons, Refuge de Vens) and one was private, Rifigio Mario Bezzi.
Due to the difficulty of obtaining food and fuel along the route in winter a support vehicle was used to deliver supplies to the team. This also enabled spare clothes, ski equipment, climbing equipment, maps etc to be accessed. We met with the car at: Sospel, Col de Turini, Le Boreon, Isola 2000, Larche, Montgenèvre, Plampinet, Aussois, Val D’Isère, Le Thuile, Courmayeur. Without this support the trip would have been a lot more difficult and a lot less enjoyable.
The route taken is described in individual stages below. For each stage there is a map of the route and a link to download a GPS track in a .gpx format. This is a track of the route taken and is not necessarily the optimal route. This track data should be used along with the notes to identify the best line for travel.
A short article giving a summary account of this journey can be found at
