Chamechaude, Le Neron

Chamechaude - 2082M

1769M Prominence

45.28778, 5.78811

July 26-27, 2025

14.2KM

1124M Ascent 1105M Descent

Le Neron - 1298M

672M Prominence

45.23467, 5.71025

July 27, 2025

11.9KM

855M Ascent, 1173M Descent

After a solid day of hitchhiking from Switzerland back down South to Grenoble, I came up with the idea to bag a few peaks in the Chartreuse Park. I caught one final hitch up to the Hamlet of Le Sappey En Chartreuse, and then I followed a fairly well indicated GR along dirt roads. After an hour or so of hiking I stopped to set up my tent for the night, just above Col de Porte and to the left of a ski slope at 1400M. After a sightly uncomfortable night due to my lazy set up, I got going up the main trail to summit Chamechaude. Chamechaude is an ultra, and the third most prominent peak of the French Alps, mostly due to the fact that it sits quite far away from the main heart of the Alps, and is more so in the pre-Alps. The trail up was very easy to follow. A reasonable amount of switchbacks took me up through the forest, and then through some grazing land. At 1790M I reached a cool rock feature named Monolithe de la Folatiere. From here yet more switchbacks took me up closer to the summit ridge. From here one short section with a fixed cable took me up a blocky chunk of rock that lead to the summit. It was not particularly challenging, but I still kept my wits about me as the rock was quite polished and slippery under my sightly wet shoes. Unfortunately on the summit views were not so spectacular. Clouds had come in early in the morning, and I only got the odd view down below, particularly in the Southern direction. I took a bit of a break on the bluffy ledge that plumets down on the East side of the peak, and then started making my way down. Heaps of people were starting to make their ascent as I was descending. This is quite clearly a highly frequented peak, as there is even a bus leading up to the col. After descending the same trail I had come up, I made way back down to the Col de Porte where the road is. I then continued hiking down the valley a bit further in the direction of Le Neron, the days second objective. Once in the Village of Sarcenas I hitched a ride to the Hamlet of Le Charpen with some very lovely people. The hitch kind of breaks up the continuous day out, but the two peaks were still in the same day, so I will include them both in this report. Once in Le Charpen, I made my way up some logging roads, some were more overgrown than others. This eventually lead to a trail that took me across the mountain and to the North ridge. The trail was easy to follow even if it was slightly overgrown with prickly holly plants. Eventually this trail teed into a slightly more established trail, and started taking me up the North ridge towards the start of the ridge traverse that I was planning to complete. After taking a lunch break in the forest, I made my way up to the beginning of the traverse up onto the bare ridge. The ridge traverse was an exceptional route up and down craggy bumps for over 3 KM, with constant views over either side of the thin ridge. To the west was a slightly less exposed and forested face, and to the East a broad bluff that continued the length of the ridge. Many sections involved some quite hands on scrambling, while others were just very exposed hiking along a thin ridge. The route was easily followed by chasing the blue dots painted on the rock. The summit itself was not even indicated, as there were so many bumps on the ridge of similar elevation. After traversing the ridge to its southern terminus at Pre de Rencurel, I found the trail again in the bush. There was a section with a fixed cable and a bridge suspended over the edge of a cliff, but this was far from the most challenging section, and I am not entirely sure why there was even a cable here. I then hiked my way back down through the Hamlet of Narbonne, and finally into the city of Grenoble where I had booked a hostel for the night.