2009 05 30: JAPAN : Echigo Yuzawa: Mantarodani:
Pics Available. Commentary Coming Soon.
2009 06 07: JAPAN : Echigo Yuzawa: Yomogisawa:
Pics Available. Commentary Coming Soon.
2009 07 05: JAPAN : Yuzawa: Kedozawa:
Pics Available. Commentary Coming Soon.
2009 07 29: FRANCE : Briançon : Torrent Des Ayes :
A quick evening Toc fishing session in the upper reaches of the Torrent des Ayes. This would be my last river fishing session for this trip to France as I would break my finger a couple of days later. Beautiful little stream with crystal clear waters. Some trouts of the Orceyrette lake sometimes move downstrean and can make for an interesting fishing session. This time I only caught a single brown trout. A little chubby fellow which had obviously been raised in a local pisciculture and released there recently. Not a wild brown trout but always fun to catch.
2009 07 30: FRANCE : Briançon : Le Lac Du Puy Vachier:
Note: duplicate from the hiking section.
An easy hike from the 1st stage (Peyrou D'Amont) of the La Grave's cable car. Nice early morning views of the lower glaciers. A couple of people were parasailing but the lack of thermals meant they headed back down to the village pretty quickly (elles sont ou ces p*tains de pompes?). The trail to the lake goes down a bit from the cable car station before wrapping around the mountain towards the refuge Evariste Chancel. From there you have nice views on the plateau d'emparis and a few small villages hanging over cliffs. We stayed at the lake and did not hike to the refuge for lunch, instead we had a couple of saussicon sandwiches (old skool :-) )by the water. It was deserted early on, but the ease of access meant quite a few people showed up by lunch. We met a japanese family who were working in Russia for the embassy and were spending their summer holidays nearby. They were quite shocked when a dodgy-looking frenchman came by and started speaking in Japanese to them. The kids especially had a good giggle (they were probably laughing at my japanese). I went fly-fishing around the lake and caught about a dozen small truites arc en ciel (raimbow trouts / Niji Massu) and saumons de fontaine (Arctic Chars / Iwanas). I released them all into the lake. Life is rough...
2009 08 05: FRANCE : Briançon : Le Lac Des Cordes:
Note: duplicate from the hiking section.
A nice steepish hike above the plaine du bourget which is istelf above Cervieres (on the road to the col d'izoard from Briançon). One section involves hiking with the help of cables which was good fun. You then reach the vallon gras, below the ''deversoir'' du lac des cordes. It is another 45 minutes to the lake which is large and beautiful. It is quite popular as many people access it from la plaine des fonds via the col des marsailles which is not as steep. By 3pm everybody was gone and we had the lake to ourselves. I went fly-fishing all around it and got a couple of hits on dry flies, but once again the fish were small saumons de fontaine. Some vairons were in the roseaux while some alevins of brown trouts were in the stream near the deversoir. I went to a nearby small lake for a walk and found some baby marmottes frolicking in the sun. Meanwhile gliders were doing their things, dancing with the cumulus. On the way back to the car we came accross a lady sheperd with her dog asking if we had seen her goats. We had seen them as they were just at the top of the ridge in the vallon gras. She hikes up there every evening to coral them back into their pens in the valley to protect them from the wolves. It was another good day which was sadly the last outing for me before going back to Tokyo.