The GTS Chronicles - Getting Two/True Sportscars - Delivery Adventure - 2020-2023

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Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023 - The French Alps

Lots of highs and a particularly depressing low

The small and functional dorm-style room at the Hotel Le Monte Pente proved to be more than sufficient for a good night's rest. We awoke, eager to explore more of the amazing high-alpine scenery of the Haute-Alpes of France.

Hotel Manager Davide was down in the breakfast area of the Hotel, preparing coffee and croissants and cheese and cold cuts. He recognized us immediately and greeted us with a bright cheery hello. There were others here in the breakfast room, but only a scattered few. Given the size of the hotel building, it was clear that the place was nowhere near being full. I'm guessing this place is packed and hopping in winter, when all of the surrounding ski slopes are fully operational.

Davide had told his young son about the guys with the two flashy Porsches, and he (the son) had been keen to come and have a look. We brought them both outside into the cool morning, given them a little tour of our two 718s, which were still safely (and tightly) parked in the shade near the entrance.

Hotel Le Monte Pente

Today was essentially planned to be a carbon-copy of yesterday. Explore northward, cutting through the heights of the French Alps on the best and funn-est possible twisties we could find. Then find a place to stay within a day's drive of Zurich, Switzerland, so that the next day, we could reach the airport there to execute the next GTS Chronicles crewmember swapover.

After finishing the morning Porsche show-and-tell (we'd done that three times now on this trip!), we loaded up our luggage and headed north out of the town of Vars. The day was perfect for driving - sunny and a little cool. Just perfect. We were happy it wasn't a weekend day, too, since it was slightly frightening to think how clogged the high passes might be on a weekend day with this weather, in August.

As a final task before heading out, I wanted some shots of our two Porsches in front of the hotel. And so, as official GTS Chronicles Crewmember (tm), Brian grabbed the camera bag and gear and headed across the street to get some morning shots of the cars parked next to the hotel (note to reader: remember this for later).

Vars Lookout

Off we went. Just setting foot outside of Vars was immediately rewarding, for just outside of town to the north was a beautiful roadside pullout with a grand view of mountains to the north, including most prominently the Barre des Ecrins, the Cime de la Condamine, and the Point de l'Aigliere - all of which are prominent peaks in the Dauphinè Alps of the French department of Hautes-Alpes. We had planned to generally bypass the central part of this range, which is actually fairly impassable, by sticking to highways a bit to the east. Was going to be super exciting!

The most expedient way to make progress northward from Vars would have been to descend all the way into the Haute Durance Valley and just book it up the N94 arterial highway. But that would not have been the "funnest" way, so we did not go that way. Instead, we branched off onto the D902, which headed northeast into a steep V-shaped valley.

Said V-shaped valley was home to a rushing mountain river - the Guil River - and the highway stayed right next to this river, right at the bottom of the valley, for many tens of kilometers. Although the highway was generally wide and passable, there were a few tunnels and narrow spots along the way. And on either side, steep rocky cliffs shot skyward. This whole stretch of valley is known as the Gorges du Guil Canyon.

The Focused Driver

We encountered a cool bit of automotive culture as we drove through the Gorges du Guil: an old Renault 4, a very popular and common micro-car of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s. The Renault 4 has a very distinctive - and if you know cars - a very french - shape: sits a little low in the front, a little high in the back, has a rather sharply-sloping flat rear hatch, and has a few weird stylistic touches - the slightly angry two-headlight face; the mismatching shapes of the windows along its sides. Once you understand the Renault 4, you can't help but immediately recognize it from a kilometre away.

Anyway, we see a cool little Renault 4 go screaming past us the other way down the highway. Then about fifteen seconds later, another. Wow, rare. Then we see two more coming towards us. Ok, wait. Something is going on.

Soon a stream of Renault 4s are coming headlong towards us, screeching and buzzing and sometimes honking their horns at us, little buzzah, buzzah sounds. We notice many of these cars have stickers and logos on them, or are somehow souped-up in some way. Clearly there's some sort of classic car rally or something going on. We begin to honk and holler in reply as the little microcars whizz by. Very cool. (a little bit of research later on reveals that this was the 2023 running of the 4alpes rally, held yearly for aficionados of the little cars. You can view their webpage here (https://www.4alpes.com).

Luke's Thoughts

[on the lovable Renault 4...]

we see what must be a group of over 100 old Renault 4s (my Dad's all time favourite car), all decked out in rally gear ... part of a huge car rally trip by the look of it, lots of honking and flashing of lights and waving hi, by them and me! Clearly a group like that appreciates fine autos out being DRIVEN! I'm grinning from ear to ear each time one rips by and think of mum and dad intensely. There are times on this trip when I think they would just love to be doing what we are doing.

Gorge du Guil canyon

Renault 4-fest

The 4-stance

Definitely 4alpes

We continue up the Gorge du Guil canyon, occasionally stopping to snap a quick photo or video clip of the rugged narrow canyon.

After about an hour of driving up the narrow canyon, we come to a major branch in the landscape. Straight ahead, the Guil Valley continues, although the highway number changes. To our left is another valley - the Queyras valley. This higher, wider, more alpine valley has a road running through it that will - at the valley's head - climb in a no-doubt beautiful and fun manner to the Col d'Izoard - one of the famous passes in the French alps, and frequently used by the Tour de France cycle race.

Towards Col d'Izoard

Town of Arvieux

The drive up the Queyras valley was quite different that of the Guil. Instead of a forested, narrow canyon, we were in a wide, alpine valley dotted with little villages and settlements and fields and ski resorts.

Luke's Thoughts

[on pacing Andrew...]

I cannot keep up with Andrew when he's pushing hard, i think simply because he goes faster than I am comfortable doing at the moment. I mean I have driven go karts as fast as he has, and been on the track with him chasing him around at similar speeds, but if there's one thing I have noticed over the years of doing all that, it's how much quicker he gets to a feeling of comfort to be able to push more and more. It takes me a lot longer.

The transition from placid valley-bottom hamlet road to twisting mountain highway was quite abrupt: one moment we were toodling past a quaint little neighborhood of chalet-styled houses, the next we were curving up the headwall of the valley. We had started the ascent to the Col d'Izoard!

The notes of our four-litre flat-sixes deepened and strengthened as we got up to highway speeds and tackled the sweeping curves. Beautifully-paved switchbacks allowed us to get right down to our relatively tall first gears and power out, right up to our 7800-rpm redlines. Such a glorious sound!

La Casse Dèserte

We remained in the forest until about the 7000-foot / 2150 m elevation level. Here, we broke out into the open, in an area of interesting terrain. Sandy, loose slopes were punctuated by craggy tan spires of rock. This spot is rather notable and has a name: the Casse Dèserte. The rock is a combination of dolomitic limestone and gypsum that erodes into this striking, almost desert-like landscape. The spikey crags even had their own name: they are called cargneules.

It was immediately obvious that this Casse Dèserte area was a good spot to do some action filming, and we pulled off to the side at a small pullout. But the traffic: ugh! It was actually difficult finding a spot because it was so bad. It was full-spectrum, today, too: vehicular, motorcycle, and cyclist. August in the Alps always runs the ~~risk~~ likelihood of congestion!

Roadside Training

I had noticed that Brian was still not completely comfortable with the core operation of our main camera, and I wanted to be sure we got things right before Luke and I did some back-and-forth runs. We got out the tripod and the video panning head and balanced the long lens using our cheese plate and lens holder. Then we went over the settings: 1/30s or 1/60s for video, explained the various ways to focus. Then we practiced, having Brian do some still and panning shots of unsuspecting tourists driving along the highway on the other side of the basin from us. Once we felt he had the hang of it, it was time to do a few runs.

Roadside Training

Set up for panning

Up and down Luke and I then went, trying to slot ourselves in to and out of the endless flow of tourist traffic while doing so. There were cars and people everywhere. We were also a popular target of the "photo-hunters" - local photographers who spend the whole day at a particular corner and just snap photos of everything and everyone, and especially anything flashy-looking, which clearly we were to them. They would rapidly scramble to attention, click-click-clicking as our two shiny Carmine-Red Porsches cruised by.

Posing for the cams

Boxster in the desert

Boxster GTS and La Casse Dèserte

After the Casse Dèserte, we packed up and continued north towards the height of land, the Col d'Izoard, which was only a handful of switchbacks and only a few minutes' drive away. This was even more packed than the Casse Dèserte had been, and any thoughts of stopping and doing photo work here evaporated as soon as we saw the crowds. It simply would be unworkable.

Crossing over the pass, we began to descend towards the north. Immediately a new amazing panorama of mountainscapes opened before us. Unfurled before us was also a new delicious set of mountain twisties, winding downwards into the Ravin d'Izoard - the Izoard Ravine. The tourist traffic was a little less intense here, and the way the road wound down across the landscape so irresistible, that we stopped to do another set of photos and videos of The GTS Chronicles running up and down the twisties.

Running up to Col D'Izoard

Busy summer traffic

A few turns further down into the Izoard Ravine and we encountered a sturdy structure with pseudo-fairy-castle vibes. This was the Refuge Napoleon - a mountain hut; the french equivalent of the Italian rifugio.

We were getting a bit peckish by this point and we decided that this would be a good place for lunch (all decent mountain huts in the alps have a restaurant and are open for lunch during the busy tourist season). We picked a safe parking spot at the far, far end of the packed parking lot, and wandered inside to get a table. After an outdoor patio lunch - a patio packed with visitors of all sorts - we headed back to the cars. In the entranceway, I noticed lots of little pictures and plaques on the walls. Several of them were of various Porsche sportscar tours. cool.

Rifuge Napoleon

Past Porsche Visits

The Porsche Raid

Time to move on. We looked forward to the northern descent from Col d'Izoard, and then to cap off the day's fun driving, I had another pass further north on our itinerary.

A particularly excellent little stretch of mountain road (although it may not look like it from space)

Just below the Refuge Napoleon we encountered a short stretch of *the* most delicious twisties. They were just the right combination of tight, then really tight, then gentle arc, then really tight again. And so on. It's strange when I now look at the overhead satellite view of these curves; they don't look that much different than countless other curves I've analyzed on maps. But on the ground, from the glorious twin-fendered viewpoint you get from the driver's seat of a Porsche sportscar, it's a different world: Snaking, sweeping, diving, cambered, and with a combination of tight and less-tight bends that allowed us to work our 718's excellent 6-speed gearbox from first to second to nearly redline and then back down again. And all with excellent sightlines.

Needless to say, I wanted to try and capture a bit of this magic. We mounted the two Go Pros onto the cars and we deployed crewmember Brian at a strategic location on the side of the road. And then - with strict instructions to Luke to stay close, as I wanted both cars in the frame - we enjoyed a couple of excellent runs up and down this stretch.

There's nothing quite like the combination of stunning mountain scenery, a responsive and nimble car underfoot, and a friend - in his own car - to share it with. Hearing the intermingled sounds of our twin flat-sixes crescendo-ing, shifting, decrescendo-ing, blipping. Paradise.

Really tight stuff

On that bit of excellent road

Really tight stuff

After our photo shoot, we enjoyed the rest of the twisty ride downhill, north from col D'Izoard - and without any photo stops. I was feeling like the media capture was starting to bite too deeply into our day, and I just wanted us to enjoy some pure, unadulterated road-trippin' - at least for a bit. So, no cam stuff for a while.

Down, down from Col D'Izoard, down to the town of Cerviéres, where we made a left-hand turn and headed down a lower valley. Soon we arrived at the local hub of this entire mountainous area - the small city of Briançon. Briançon is at the junction of the main Durance Valley, and the smaller but higher Lautaret Valley. Our objective was to go up this smaller valley until it ended, then switch to a small high-altitude (and twisty) road leading up and over another promising-lookg pass: the Col du Galibier.

Up the Lautaret Valley

Crossing through Briançon was uneventful - it was a matter of proceeding slowly through the busy summer streets of the city. On the other side, we began following the main highway leading up the Lautaret Valley - a wide, scenic sub-alpine valley with gentle terrain and a mostly-straight (and very busy with traffic) road. I stopped to do a little aerial flying to catch our two cars heading up the valley here, and nearly lost comms with the drone as I lost orientation and flew the drone quite far away from me, rather than to me. Still don't know how I didn't realize that for as long as I did. Must have been distracted.

Below The Meije

We followed the highway up the Lautaret valley all the way to its low col, which itself has a small town located on it. From here, we turned off onto the D902 - the highway leading up to the Col du Galibier. Immediately we transitioned from wide and mostly straight arterial highway to small mountainous backway.

The scenery unfolded as we gained elevation. We were completely in the alpine now, with meadows on either side of the road. There were some really big mountains near here - most prominently, the massif of the Meije, which was clearly very high and which sported some serious glaciers on its sides - the first real sighting of actual glaciers so far on our trip. This spot called for a little more aerial photography, as well as a few lookout stops. As in most part of the French Alps, there's amazing scenery here.

Mountains of the Cerces

The road up to the col was indeed excellent and twisty, but we could take advantage of basically none of it. It was clogged with all forms of traffic, and the going was very slow. There is a bypass tunnel going *underneath* the pass a few switchbacks below the highpoint, but just to say we did all of the climb, we stayed on the surface road. We inched our way up to the pass itself, which was also very busy, with parking lots full and people everywhere. We did not bother to stop here and add to the volume. Instead, we inched over the top and immediately began our descent down to the north of the pass.

The road was / is pretty excellent on this northern slope, and as we got farther away from the pass itself, the traffic seemed less (although the number of cyclists, if anything, seemed higher). We got Brian set up at a good lookout point with the camera and did some photography here.

Col du Galibier

Grange Du Galibier

Descending from Galibier

The drive down was fun, and the traffic was not great - but still better than it had been near the pass. We had to be mindful of the many cyclists on the road, especially on the downhill, where they were fairly fast on the straights, often in the center of the lane, and couldn't really take the sharp turns like we could in the Boxster and Cayman. It made it hard to pass them safely, so frequently we just wouldn't bother and stayed behind them.

The northern descent from Galibier brought us to a new major valley - the Maurienne Valley. We had crossed also into a new French "department" - the Department of Savoie.

We didn't yet know where we were going to stay for the night, and I needed to get on that. We spotted a good roadside picnic area just before the valley town of Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, and we stopped there for a late afternoon snack and to give me time to scour the internet for a good place to stay.

Passing through Valloire

Late afternoon food-and-search stop

Interestingly, the most promising nearby spot, after a few minutes of looking, happened to be in Italy. We happened to be pretty close to Italy, and on a main expressway that could bring us over the border and to the right area in a fairly short amount of time. Also interestingly was that - even though the accommodation was in Italy - it had a very french name: the Relais des Alpes.

No matter, though, the pictures were nice - some sort of old hilltown house renovated to a modern standard, and lots of nice interior decorations and furnishings and appliances. And very reasonably-priced. This minor detour into Italy would work, too: I could see on the map that there was an interesting-looking mountain pass nearby that led right back into France, allowing us to (the next morning) continue with the French segment of our itinerary.

The Frejus Tunnel

To get to our French-named, Italian-located apartment, we had to drive eastward on the main highway in the Maurienne. This highway essentially connects directly into Italy via a tunnel - the Frejus tunnel. All good, except ... The Frejus tunnel is a toll tunnel. And hoo, boy, it was expensive. Forty-seven Euros for a one-way pass. The deal is better for a return run, but ... we weren't coming back this way. Nothing for it but to pay!

Relais Des Alpes

From the tunnel crossing into Italy, it only took us about fifty minutes of driving down the Susa Valley to reach the little mountainside town of Giaglione. It took us a few circuits of the steep little streets of the town to find it. The actual building was new, but was sandwiched in hap-hazardly with other very old buildings on small, narrow alleyways. The area immediately near the right building was no place for two Porsches, but we had read the lodging description carefully and soon located the relatively spacious nearby parking area that was provided - in sight of the apartment and with relatively little chance of encroachment by other cars.

Awkward Unloading

The path to get into the apartment, which is on the second floor of the light coloured building on the left in the images here, was not obvious. In a side alley and through a nondescript side door, not well lit, to a lockbox that gained access to a dimly-lit stairway that led to a not-well-marked door that, finally, opened into our apartment. It was quite spacious - an entire level devoted just to this apartment, with several bedrooms and a large kitchen-dining-living room, and ... a nice long set of balconies looking out over the valley. And a kitchen window that allowed us a good view of where our cars were parked. Pretty nice place!

As I was finishing my unpacking, I started getting ready for my now-regular evening media processing. I kept my used media cards in the front pouch of my camera bag, and so I went fishing for it.

I couldn't find it in my pack, nor in the gear in my bedroom. hm. Must be in the Cayman. I walked back to the Cayman and started rooting around. Boy, things had gotten disorganized. Typical. There's always a degradation in packing discipline as a trip progresses.

Still wasn't finding it. Maybe I had placed it behind the seats? No. It wasn't in Luke's Boxster, I knew that for sure.

A little doubt, and a little fear, started to creep into my mind. Where was it? This bag didn't just have my media cards, I realized. It also had my premium wide-angle zoom lens. And also I realized, it had the spare key to Luke's Boxster. Plus possibly some other gear. "Oh, God. Please, please let it be here - somewhere", I thought.

After a trip back up to the apartment, where another round of slightly-more-frantic searching occurred, then another visit to the Cayman for another going-over, I had arrived at the full-on sensation of a sinking dread in the stomach: we had left the bag somewhere. Shit. Where, though? Was it during one of the several photo stops where Brian had been taking pictures from the side of the road? Could it be on the ground near the crags of the Casse Dèserte, near Col d'Izoard? Could it be at the lookout just beyond the Col du Galibier? Somewhere else? It could really be at any number of locations. Maybe the Refuge Napolean?

I went into a depressed and angry funk. What a blow. Not only was a couple of thousand dollars of photo and car stuff gone, but losing actual filmed media was an extra-special burn. It would mean a big hole in The GTS Chronicles story, and that for me was a real disaster. The whole thing was a real disaster.

Luke's Thoughts

[on the loss of the bag...]

Somewhere between breakfast at the hotel and now, here at the next one, the camera bag has gone missing. Not with his camera in it ($5000) thank goodness, but with a new lens ($1500) and some memory cards [ and Luke's Boxster's spare key fob - Andrew ]. It's somewhere between here and where we stayed last night. Crap. Andrew is understandably upset and unapproachable right now. There's not a lot we can do tonight as the hour is getting late, so we all turn in grumpy and frustrated with this turn of events.

(to read more of Luke's thoughts from this day, check out his blog post)

Luke and Brian could easily sense my mood, and gave me a wide berth for a little while (side note: really I should have been filmed, Brian! Even if I started swearing at you. Especially if I started swearing at you. This is what good trips are made of).

Eventually I started engaging Luke and Brian on figuring out what had happened - and what we should do. I quizzed Brian about what he recalled doing and handling at the various stops. He couldn't remember any situation where a camera bag was left on the ground. We didn't use the lens involved at all during the day's shoots, so that lent credence to his recall. Maybe we had not left the bag at any of our mountainside photo stops.

We didn't recall bringing it out at any of our lunch or picnic stops either. So ... maybe it was back where we started in the morning? Maybe at the Hotel Le Monte Pente in Vars?

I thought briefly about our options. It seemed a real long shot to figure out where the bag went and to actually manage to retrieve it. Maybe we should just move on and I should chalk up the loss. But the memory cards. and Luke's Boxster key. I didn't want to think what trouble and cost that would take to replace.

At the very least, I thought I should initiate a message back to the Hotel in Vars, ack to our wiry, friendly concierge Davide, so I quickly crafted something and sent it off:

Andrew Lavigne Aug 2, 2023, 7:05PM
to 2196325158-hwva.p6yt.xd2c.vns9
Subject: Lost camera bag

Hello Davide (or to whom it may concern at hotel monte pente).

This is Andrew Lavigne (one of the Porsche guys who stayed in room #1 last night). I think I may have left a black camera bag at the hotel. It has a camera lens in it and some memory cards. Is it possible you found it? I do not think we left it in our room (#1), but maybe we left it in the lower or upper eating/dining rooms.

If you could have a look outside of the front door and also in the upper dining area or lower dining area, that would be great.

My mobile number is +33 683461007 and my email address is andrew@alavigne.net

Thank you very much
... Andrew

-----
Bonjour Davide (ou à qui de droit à l'hôtel monte pente).

C'est Andrew Lavigne (l'un des gars de Porsche qui a sèjournè dans la chambre #1 hier soir). Je pense que j'ai peut-être laissè un sac photo noir à l'hôtel. Il contient un objectif d'appareil photo et des cartes mèmoire. Est-il possible que vous l'ayez trouvè? Je ne pense pas que nous l'ayons laissè dans notre chambre (numero 1), mais peut-être l'avons-nous laissè dans les salles à manger infèrieures ou supèrieures.

Si vous pouviez jeter un coup d'oeil à l'extèrieur de la porte d'entrèe et ègalement dans la salle à manger supèrieure ou la salle à manger infèrieure, ce serait formidable.

Mon numèro de portable est le +33 683461007 et mon adresse e-mail est andrew@alavigne.net

Merci beaucoup.

Luke and Brian were supportive. If we needed to take a day to search, then let's take a day to search. I myself was undecided. And it was now too late in the evening to do much about it, in any case. I just wanted some sleep.

The day had been warm and humid, and we had discovered that the apartment - as nice as it was - did not have a functioning Air Conditioning system. We opened the windows to the long balcony to get some air. Unfortunately, this also let in a bunch of little biting gnats or something. Great.

I went to bed in a pretty foul mood. Hot, sweaty, and disappointed. And I couldn't even turn down the covers to get some ventilation, because of those blasted pests.

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 02 - click map to view

Interactive trackmap with photo points - August 02 - click to view

August 2 - Drive Data

Start Time: 9:08a.m.

End Time: 11:55p.m.

Duration: 14h47m

Distance: 216.7 km (134.65 mi)

Average Speed: 14.7 km/hr (9.1 mph)

Start Elevation: 5447ft (1660m) *

Max Elevation: 8609ft (2624m) *

Min Elevation: 1635ft (498m) *

End Elevation: 2306ft (703m) *