Just back from the Stella Alpina, the link below has some photos.

Went out through Belgium, Germany into Switzerland and then italy.

Did more mountain passes and hairpins than I can remember. Did some of the trails around Bardonechia as well as the Sommellier. Then headed down to Tende in France to do the start of the LKGS.

http://s295.photobucket.com/user/Nic...%202013?sort=9


The highlight of the trip was on the trails around Tende, sharing the trail with walkers and mountain bikers and only waves and smiles in return. Asked a few walkers for info on the trails, all positive replies "Yes! Very good for motorbike, very good!"


Nick.

Very nice piccies Nick, i was in some of the same areas in Swizterland. Shame though we couldnt get to meet up

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Plough on

Nice photos Nick.

Many places look familiar.

What day were you at the Le Fort Central (the fort above Tende) on the LGKS? I ask as I camped there Monday night after coming through the LGKS (this was the finish for me) and I think in photo 109, I can see the remains of our fire

I will add some photos shortly.

You clearly arrived much earlier to the refuge at the Stella than us. We arrived about 6ish on Saturday night and as the place was full, we camped in the far right hand corner from the point of entry to the area (ie water crossing).

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Dale,

We were there on Monday morning just gone, around 11'ish. There were a few camp fires around. We had planned on camping there on the Sunday, but took to long to get down from Bardonecchia.

How was the LGKS? Did you manage the south and north sections? When we arrived at the gate there were a couple of locals coming down and said that there was snow blocking the route and would be very difficult to pass on bigger bikes, they were on WR250's.

We did Sommeiller on the Saturday morning and then went onto Mt Jafferau. There were people arriving all the time we were there. Several people that camped at Bokki on Friday went there early on Saturday.


Nick.

Maxwellnumbers,

I think you were a day or 2 infront of us, maybe next time !!!


Nick.

Nick,

We were 4 bikes in total, each with a GPS track of the LGKS loaded and oddly, we had 3 different gpx tracks of the LGKS! The guy I was travelling with and I had the same trail (by coincidence), the other two guys, who we were due to meet at the start, each had different variations! Amongs ourselves, we couldn't determine the North and South differentiation and from what we could make out, we believe we rode the full trail at about 80klm long finishing at the Fort above Tende.

The bikes in the group included an XT600E (running TKCs) and a V-Strom (Heidi's & 3cm lowered!), both of which were running without luggage as they were camping in Tende, a R1200GS fully loaded (including an alloy box converted to a fridge and worn out TKCs) and myself on the XTR with soft bags all round carrying the same gear that I had been carrying for 4 months (ie laptop) and best worn Michelin T63's.

We crossed the snow, it was about 30m wide. A bit of manhandling to get the 1200 across and a lot of manhandling to get the Strom across. No issue for the XT and a bit of help required for me as I was last across and the trench was quite deep by then. You would have got across easier than us as in the direction that you were heading the snow was on a slight downhill for you.

Bloody scary though as it was on a savage side slope and the penalty for failure was huge!

We met a guy in Dolceaqua (south of LGKS) who had ridden his loaded 990 Adv across the snow solo, in the opposite direction to us, and he was sure we would get across. The trail was fairly easy with the exception of the snow and a 5klm section between the Fort and the refuge which was quite rough and or very slippery.

All in all, a great experience!

Sounds like we missed each other by about 8 hours. I think we arrived 7ish on Monday evening.

Unfortunately, I didn't ride any of the other (offroad) trails around Bardo as my mate was more keen to do the LGKS [again, for him] than the local trails. Sounds like next time for me

Cheers,
Dale

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