Arc en Cimes: the hundred highest road passes in the Alpine Arc
Presentation
This permanent tour by the Club des Cent Cols takes in the 103 highest (tarmac) road passes in the Alpine Arc, 81 of which are over 2,000 metres and 22 of which are between 1,900 and 2,000 metres. These flagship passes are accompanied by two dozen lower - but often equally worthy - passes that dot the route between the giants. All the passes are tarmac, except two which are less than 90 metres from the road.
Minimum altitude gain: 115,500 m; Minimum distance: 5,000 km.
Traced by Mario Labelle (Cent Cols no. 4889).
Course :
Theme
The Club des Cent Cols, founded in 1972, is affiliated to the French Cycling Federation under No. 6384, offers you this permanent walk based on a simple theme: "One hundred passes".
One hundred (four) passes, either to allow you to join the Confrérie du Club des Cent Cols in style, or to allow you to progress up the Confrérie's "Tableau d'Honneur" while filling up on "2,000", or in any case to help you discover or rediscover all the regions of this magnificent Alpine chain.
The hundred most important passes in the Alps, in four countries: France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
It goes without saying that this hike involves an altitude difference commensurate with the passes it climbs: more than 115,500 metres. However, what is perhaps less expected is that the distance involved is not negligible either. Indeed, the density of these major passes is rather low compared with certain hunting grounds such as the Aude, the Drôme or Corsica. So it's only after more than 5,000 km that you'll reach the finish line, an average of 48 km of pedalling per pass.
Special features
Round trip
To avoid making an already very long route even longer, we have decided - reluctantly - to offer some passes as return journeys, even though they are served on both sides by a tarmac road. There are 16 such passes, including the Iseran, the Lombarde, the Simplon, the Bielerhöhe and several passes in Graubünden. Purists are free to do these passes on both sides if they wish!
Seasonal preferences
As with all the Club des Cent Cols' permanent hikes, "Arc en Cimes" can be completed without time limit and in as many trips as the participant wishes. However, the routes to these high-altitude passes are only open for a short season, which generally runs from mid-June to the end of September, depending on latitude, exposure to the sun and the severity of the preceding winter.
Although this tour can easily be done in a single trip during the season when the passes are open, we recommend completing it over at least two years. The reason for this is summer traffic. From mid-July to the end of August, most of these passes become real tourist attractions, very popular with motorcyclists. Not only are the roads congested, but they are also extremely noisy and therefore very unfriendly. If you're keen to complete it over the course of a year, we'd advise you to do it in two separate trips: 15 June to 15 July, then 1 to 30 September.
Accommodation
Due to the size of the area covered by this tour, we are unable to provide an exhaustive list of accommodation. National and regional websites exist for each of the four countries taking part in this tour. In general, the regional sites provide more details than the national sites.
Controls
The route, which follows the Alpine arc from south-west to north-east, starts in Nice and ends in Salzburg. It is divided into 7 sections, each (except the first and last) starting and finishing at a pass. For each section, this table provides two lists of 6 checkpoints; on each list, you will need to have your route maps stamped at one of these 6 checkpoints, of your choice. Two checkpoints per section are therefore required, totalling the fourteen stamps needed to complete the 7 sections of the route.
Here is the list of sections whose numbers are to be transferred to the route maps (note: two route maps are required to collect these 14 stamps).
- Nice - Col de Larche (385 km, 9 cols, 10,365 m ascent; highest point : Col de la Bonette). After a symbolic dip in the water in the Baie des Anges, you begin the great adventure with this first section, which covers the southernmost part of the Alps and is exclusively in France in the Alpes Maritimes and Alpes de Haute Provence départements. The route is accessed via the Tinée valley, and takes in the passes radiating out from the Ubaye valleys. Loops are available from Barcelonnette.
- Col de Larche - Col du Mt. Cenis (535 km, 17 passes, 25,710 m ascent; highest point: Col Agnel). With this first foray into Italy, we soon discover one of the wildest and least touristy regions of the Alps. This region lies entirely in the province of Cuneo and includes the Arma, Maira and Varaita valleys, and has one of the few high-pass density sections, with 4 passes in less than 4 km. The return to France is via the Col Agnel; after the Queyras we finally arrive in Briançon, a useful base for climbing the neighbouring passes. Second entry into Italy, this time to visit Sestriere, the 2006 Olympic resort, and the Colle delle Finestre, the south face of which was tarmacked for the 2005 Giro. The brave will descend the dirt road to Susa, while those who prefer tarmac will have to return to Susa via an 85km backtrack that inevitably passes through Sestriere. Return to France via the long Col du Mont-Cenis.
- Col du Mt. Cenis - Col du Grand St.Bernard (900 km, 16 passes, 20,730 m ascent; highest point : Col de l'Iseran). We immediately get to the heart of the matter with the highest pass of the entire tour, the Col de l'Iseran, which we climb from the south and back. From valley to valley we follow the Arc, then the Romanche and the Olle, cross the Arc again, climb the Isère, touch the Haute-Savoie at the Col de Joly, and soon it's goodbye to France via the Petit St-Bernard. From Aosta, it's 150 km to the Colle del Nivolet, one of the most spectacular passes of the trip. This pass, located in the province of Turin 11 km from the Col de l'Iseran as the crow flies, can only be reached by road via a long diversions that crosses the entire Valle d'Aosta and climbs the Valle di Locana. With the 150 km return journey, this is by far the least 'profitable' route of the trip! But we'll soon be in Switzerland...
- Col du Grand St.Bernard - Splügenpass (1,030 km, 18 passes, 23,290 m ascent; highest point: Furkapass). First there's the Valais, where we leave the French language for the last time when we change from "Valais" to "Wallis", and then to the foot of the great mountain passes of central Switzerland, bordering the cantons of Valais, Bern, Graubünden and Ticino. Switzerland's water tower, these passes see the first streams flowing towards three seas: the Rhône (Mediterranean), the Rhine (North Sea) and the Ticino (Adriatic). A final push westwards to pick up a few scattered passes in the Bernese Oberland before pushing resolutely south-eastwards. A trilingual canton, Graubünden welcomes us in Romansh, then in Italian and finally in German, before the inevitable return to Italy via the Splügenpass.
- Splügenpass - Timmelsjoch (1,115 km, 19 passes, 23,880 m ascent; highest point : Passo dello Stelvio). The descent of the Passo dello Spluga is one of the most interesting from a civil engineering point of view, with its many tunnels, bridges, paravalanches and engineering structures (including a hairpin bend in a tunnel). This section begins with a tour of the southern passes of the Italian Alps in the provinces of Sondrio and Brescia, a region dotted with many famous lakes. Heading north, we tackle the mythical Gavia before descending to Tirano and finishing in Switzerland with an ascent of all the passes in the Engadine. Back in Italy, we're now in the province of Bolzano, the "Südtirol" of the Austrians, which offers us the jewel in its crown, the Stelvio. We are now ready to enter our fourth Alpine country, Austria. Two return passes, the Bielerhöhe, then the Kühtaisattel, gateway to the Ötztal. Finally, we head up the Ötztaler Ache valley to the Timmelsjoch (Passo Rombo), where we meet up with Italy again.
- Timmelsjoch - Passo di Stalle (615 km, 19 passes, 16,890 m ascent; highest point : Forcella Longeres). This final section of Italy is devoted to the Dolomites, in the provinces of Bolzano, Trento and Belluno. A playground for mountaineers, paragliders and cyclists alike, the Dolomites will enchant you with their magical, grandiose landscapes. It's a feast for the eyes, and your average speed will suffer all the more because you won't be able to stop to take countless photos... And it's through these magnificent landscapes that we are now leaving this magnificent Italy, so fertile with passes, on a little alternative one-way road. All that's left now is to finish off Austria. There are two possible loops.
- Passo di Stalle - Salzburg (455 km, 5 passes, 4,815 m ascent; highest point: Hochtor). From the Italian border, it's 180km eastwards to the next two passes, located on the Nockalm tourist route in eastern Carinthia. At Schiestelscharte, the most easterly pass on the tour, we are further east than Berlin, almost at the longitude of Prague. These two Carinthian passes can easily be looped from Spittal or Möllbrücke. At Heiligenblut, the long toll road with the equally long name of Großglocknerhochalpenstraße begins. This magnificent road, in the heart of the Großglockner massif, takes you from the state (Bundesland) of Carinthia to that of Salzburg, and will witness you crossing the final pass of the journey, the Fuscher Törl. Just 120 km to go and you'll be in Mozart's birthplace.
Main passes
(You can find all the passes on the route at Google Earth)
- Iseran pass
- Passo dello Stelvio
- Agnel pass
- Col de la Bonette
- Galibier pass
- Passo di Gavia
- Hochtor (Großglockner)
- Col de la Lombarde
- Fuscher Törl
- Colle del Nivolet
- Colle dei Morti (Fauniera)
- Col du Grand St.Bernard
- Timmelsjoch / Passo Rombo
- Forcella Longeres
- Nufenenpass
- Furkapass
- Berninapass
- Fluelapass ...
BCN and BPF sites on the route
As the majority of the route is outside France, the only BPF/BCN sites are the following:
- Col de la Cayolle (04)
- Col d'Allos (04)
- St.Etienne-de-Tinée (06)
- Col d'Izoard (05)
- Col du Lautaret (05)
- Col du Glandon (73)
- Col de l'Iseran (73)
Rules of the game for permanent walks
All participants in this permanent trail agree to respect the game rules governing it.
For further information
Contact the Head of Permanent Rides
Jean-Marc CLEMENT
10 rue de Normandie
31120 Portet sur Garonne
FRANCE
Tel: +33 (0)5 61 76 30 12
E-mail: [email]randos@centcols.org [/email]
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