Short trip through the french/italian alps

[BlueGerbil]

We (3 guys from Germany, driving a Jeep Cherokee w/ a TenTrax trailer, a Jeep Wrangler and a Jeep Grand Cherokee) went to the italian and french alps once again.

Our goal was to reach the upper station of the Bontadini funicular on the italian side of the famous Matterhorn. With it´s height of 10933 ft it´s the highest point in the alps and in europe which you can reach with a 4x4. At least it´s the highest point known to the public.

It was a roundtrip of about 2000km in 4 days, the Jeeps worked flawlessly, the weather was great (you´ve a time window of about 2 weeks in the whole year to reach the point due to snow) and we did it!

Afterwards, we did some more wheeling in the french alps, visited some old fortifications, found some geocaches and spent a night on the former "highest reachable place", the 10007 ft. high "Col de Sommeiller" where the temperature was about 15° F.

Find all the pictures I took here: <Cklick me!>

 

[Co-opski]

Bravo. I enjoyed the photos of the alpintour, wonderful trip.

 

[Mc Taco]

Spectacular! Great photos, thanks for sharing. Made me forget the 100+ temps here in LA right now.

 

[jl8088]

Wow, Jeeps in Europe must be pretty rare, you're lucky to have one huh?

 

[Sgt Grunt]

I just got back from the Alps as well, spent time mostly in Gstaad. Want to go to Zermatt, but didn't make it this time.

Great pictures...:safari-rig:

 

[24HOURSOFNEVADA]

Thanks for sharing. Those are great.

 

[Harald Hansen]

Wow, Jeeps in Europe must be pretty rare, you're lucky to have one huh?

They're a bit rare, but have been marketed here for years and still are. A quick check with www.mobile.de (largest car classifieds site in Germany, I think) shows about 0.4% of vehicles to be Jeeps. Here in Norway a quick check of www.finn.no/bil shows the ratio to be 0.5%. So not excactly unknown, but here in Norway at least about as common as Jaguars and Porsches.

 

[BlueGerbil]

Yep, not exactly rare but "not so common" - we mainly got small, underpowered japanese diesel cars (with a whopping 1.6l of enfgine displacement) or big overweight SUVs like VW Touareg, Porsche Cayenne or the Audi Q7 with the ususal soccer moms in it.

 

[HanzoSteel]

wow great pics, thanks for sharing. Looks so barren, like your on the moon lol. I've never see terrain like that.

 

[BlueGerbil]

They're a bit rare, but have been marketed here for years and still are. A quick check with www.mobile.de (largest car classifieds site in Germany, I think) shows about 0.4% of vehicles to be Jeeps. Here in Norway a quick check of www.finn.no/bil shows the ratio to be 0.5%. So not excactly unknown, but here in Norway at least about as common as Jaguars and Porsches.

Greetings to Kongsberg, I´ve visited the silber mine in your town some years ago and absolutely love the country!

 

[Harald Hansen]

Greetings to Kongsberg, I´ve visited the silber mine in your town some years ago and absolutely love the country!

Well, thanks. We get a fair amount of German tourists, despite being possibly the costliest destination in Europe. A few expedition rigs too, but I never have my camera on me, of course...

 

[IH8RDS]

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing.