76 Off to the Col. Most boring one so far despite being gorgeous.
I then dropped down the other side (East) into Italy and then on to Bardoneccia.



Bardoneccia is a small town that supports a ski resort. The skiing is done on a mountain called Mont Jefferau to the East of the town. I had previously planned (programmed into TomTom) a route up the mountain and over the other side. The problem I now had was locating the exit point from the town up the mountain. The actual trail is well used but unfortunately on this occasion, not by me.


79 I thought this was the trail – wrong (again). On this occasion the sign is not a prohibition but a well intentioned warning.


This trail went almost straight up the mountain and was so steep that I could not turn around and had to keep going. It started out looking reasonable but soon turned nasty with loose boulders all over the steep track. It was the direct route that the Unimogs take between lift stations. Despite being loaded the Ten performed very well and I only stalled it once, fortunately it was pointing up at the time. I really had screwed up and I was crapping myself – again I was alone and being stupid.
Fortunately I got to the lift station and went to look at the piste map to figure out where I was and promptly dropped the bike due to being knackered and a poor footing. I forgot to take a piccy but….

36 Piste rash. How many people can say their bikes have Piste damage ? Fortunately not much.


Other than 2 dents in the pannier there was no further damage. Not bad despite being laid completely on the side of the pannier.
I then had the problem of where to go next. I found a down trail having decided to abandon the mountain. After a few minutes I found a substantial trail and thought “hey, I found the right trail”, - wrong again. I followed this vehicle track to the right for about a mile them it stopped suddenly at some culvert works and I was presented with this..

80 This was a single track on a steep slope.

My mind again was saying “should I”, “shouldn’t I”. I could see knobbly tracks along it but they were likely from unladen dirt bikes so it obviously went somewhere. The devil won and I set off in fear. After about 500m the track returned to a normal two wheel trail and I was able to relax a bit.

26 Then suddenly the track opened up onto a flat area with old military fortifications on it.


33 I thought this funny. It states (in German), Pig German, Austrian and Swiss Motorcyclists, go to your home.
I suppose that means I can stay then.

35 So I did. I set up camp on a flat bit.



82 Mine isn’t the first XT here either.

37 I checked out the damage to the panniers. The bike was completely on its side and all the weight supported by this bent in (right) pannier. Sorted with a big foot.

44 My un-programmed second GPS tells me the height and that it is likely to get really cold.

I am a bit sad (OK - a lot sad) when it comes to gadgets. SWAMBO bought me a Garmin Vista to replace the one I lost in the Amazon some years ago (long but good story) but it had no useful road planning features. Some years later she bought me the TomTom but that is useless for trail planning so I had to take both – that’s my excuse anyway.
49 52 A couple of pictures of the sunset.



Bed at 8pm, nothing else to do.
Effective mileage for day 128 (205km)

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We are now retired....so....... lots of this and this and no more of this or this