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The Parpaillon saga

The Col du Parpaillon, Cape Horn of bicycle tourism - Jean-Pierre Cance CC n° 4778 - magazine n° 41, 2013

‘...What could have been a great Alpine pass before the age of the motor car...’

It's a historic part of French cycle tourism, ignored for many years by some cycle tourists. This ignorance is inevitable, given that competition equipment is sometimes wrongly used for cycle tourism and prohibits, or at least limits, access to the mule passes.

However, the tunnel has a remarkable history, with French cycle tourists visiting in 1901, after it had been built. In 1903 and 1909, Paul de Vivie, known as Vélocio, the inventor of cycle tourism, crossed the Col du Parpaillon tunnel with his friends, giving the site its rightful place in the history of cycle tourism.

The Parpaillon tunnel was built between 1891 and 1898 to link the Ubaye and Durance valleys...«. It was opened by Military Engineers, as were many of the passages along the way to the Alps. The Parpaillon's good fortune was that it was in competition with the Col de Vars, which linked the same valleys but at an altitude 500 m lower. When tarmac was introduced, it was only natural that the Vars pass should be given it! The Col du Parpaillon is therefore one of the last remaining examples of what a major Alpine pass could have been before the age of the car...». (Source: René Poty CC no. 530).

Three cycling friends, Régis the youngest, Luc the oldest and Jean-Pierre the oldest, waited for the right weather window to «attack» the giant Col du Parpaillon and its legendary tunnel from the south-east side of Jausiers...

The weather miracle happened on Tuesday 29 July 2008. At 5.45am, our friends set off in the direction of Condamine-Châtelard, to take the small road and then the path leading to the pass. The climb was 17.2 km, with an average gradient of 7.87 %, a maximum gradient of 10 % and an elevation gain of 1,355 m.

It's a tough climb for the first six kilometres from La Condamine before reaching the Chapelle Sainte-Anne.

After the chapel, the tarmac road turns into a dreadful dirt track and, above all, a rocky one, so worn out is it by 4×4s, quad bikes and off-road motorbikes. We even saw the protective sheeting of a single car... that's the state of this road which, since 1898, has been recognised as a fully cycleable route for ‘randonneuse’ type bicycles, including those loaded with panniers for autonomy, like ours...!

At the Tourist Office in Jausiers, we discovered, without further ado, that this route was a black mountain bike circuit and therefore considered very difficult... and we, with our bikes and panniers, loaded like mules, were in the middle of a climb... it has to be said mostly on foot.

Once he reached the tunnel, at 2637 m, Luc kept his word by unfurling the Tibetan flag over the entrance in support of an oppressed people...

After taking lots of photos, we headed into the tunnel with the electric lights on, but with bin bags on our feet to avoid getting water in the countless holes along the 468-metre crossing.

In the middle of the tunnel, we had to cling to the wall to let through a huge 4×4 registered in the USA, with six blinding headlights, driven by a 150 kg cowboy... You can imagine our state of mind at that moment!

After crossing the tunnel relatively easily, we climbed the «real» col (2783 m) above. We then made our way to the Col de Girabeau (2488 m) where, after lunch, we had to make the well-considered decision to return to Jausiers by going through the tunnel a second time, as the weather was becoming threatening and the path was completely broken, leading us to fear that our equipment might break. Our planned two-day hike, with a bivouac at the Col de la Coche, was postponed until another time...

We do, however, have one big regret, which is that we didn't make it all the way down to Crévoux to sign the Livre d'Or du Parpaillon. We preferred to err on the side of caution... knowing when to give up in the mountains is a sign of responsible intelligence... but that's for another time, perhaps!

But what a marvellous journey in the middle of a wilderness populated by marmots... No technical incident to deplore thanks to the use of equipment adapted to hiking!