Vercors Week: Day 3 – Mountain Karting and Day-off BBQ

Connor, Jason, John, Miranda, Scott, Steve, Tom, Yolanda

The day started for Tom with a 6am call from Steve requesting their pickup from Molieres – they’d survived and were making a brew in the car park. 45 minutes later he pulled up to see two corpses, Steve laid on the gravel covered in an emergency blanket, and Connor half asleep propped up against a fencepost. Their various kit items were strewn across the car park in a semi-orderly way as if their organisational obsessions had started a job their bodies couldn’t finish. They scooped it up and piled into the car and we headed down to base camp to sign them out, and chauffeur them back to a well deserved cuppa and nap.

A lazy morning followed as we nursed our aches and battered gear, then ideas began circulating about using the gondola at Villard for an easy downward walk. It was then revealed that we could Mountain Kart down from the gondola, arms were twisted and everyone committed.

We headed up to the car park and bought our tickets, the sun now beaming much hotter than we’d had so far. The kart man wasn’t happy with Jason’s sandles and sent him to get a refund and a passenger ticket instead. The rest were given silly net hats and briefed in Franglish.

We headed up in the gondola to some lovely views at Cote 2000 (which was a lie, being more like 1850m up). We lined up and battle commenced. Overtakes, off-roading and some powersliding saw us all speed down the final hill to the finish line…but where was Yolanda? Steve helpfully told the staff ‘Un person perdu’ (‘One person lost’) as if reading out the survival stats for our group. The chap got us to wait 10 minutes, after which a search and rescue guy came over to take a description of her and quiz us about her driving style.

A nervous wait that was soothed by ice creams, when suddenly Yolanda appeared bedraggled across the plaza dragging her Kart. She’d taken a wrong turn it seemed, ending up on a steep boulder track, and had finally realised this when the track started going uphill. A lady pointed her towards a different track down to town, and she’d popped out on the other side of some apartment blocks. She was rewarded with an ice cream, and we decided we’d had enough adrenaline for the day. 

We split up, with Tom, Scott, Connor and Steve heading to Croque Montagne for some extreme shopping via the stunning Bourne Gorges, while the others headed to Intermarche to stock up on BBQ goodies. Due to poor planning, we’d failed to leave the house keys with them though, and they began dehydrating while locked out. In an act of empathy Steve got their minds off their thirst with orders to pre-light the BBQ.

Tasty meal and a lazy evening, with boat preparation and an earlyish night ready for tomorrow’s planned trip – the Grotte de Gournier.