Monday the 15th June was a day of two alpine passes for me. I had a commission from the organisers of the World Tour Swiss cycling race, the Tour de Suisse. This tour has a history of competing with the French speaking (but also in Switerland) Tour de Romandie and its route almost always sticks to the Swiss German speaking Cantons. For me, this meant adventuring over to fresh parts of the country that I don’t often get to visit.I was to spend Monday’s stage on the back of a motorbike and had been told that the Gotthard pass, that the race was due to ride up, was truly an iconic piece of road. I’d not heard of the pass until this week, but it was said that if it was in France, it would be one of the most famous cycling roads ever. The ascent, believe it or not, is cobbled. In terms of bike racing, it’s a little like Paris – Roubaix, but on a mountain. With time to spare in the morning, I decided to drive the pass before seeing it from the back of a bike later in the day. It’s really quite special, like nothing i’ve seen before, and of course cobbled as promised.
Having finished my days work, it was time to head back home. A quick google map search showed three possible routes, with me naturally choosing the shortest distance but longest predicted time. “Maybe it’s a mountain pass” I thought to myself. What followed was a 37km stretch of road up to the Passo Della Novena, which at 2478m is the second highest paved road in Switzerland. What makes this pass so special is that following a great day at work, I didn’t see a single car for the whole time. Incredible.
Tag: switzerland
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Swiss Alpine Passes
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Capturing Myself
Autumn is in the air and the landscape is changing rapidly, with the Alps currently looking near their finest. I had a clear schedule this weekend so I set myself the challenge of capturing myself in an action self portrait. Wanting to keep things in Switzerland, I found three locations that all offered something a little different aesthetically. This first image was taken at the highest point of Villars ski resort, just as the sun was setting on Friday night. Despite being one of the first stops of the weekend, I think this came out as my favourite shot.Saturday came around and I ventured just across the valley to the Portes du Soleil. All of the images in this blog post are self portraits, with a tripod mounted camera being triggered by a pocketwizard remote (look closely at the images and you can see one in my hand). Using a fast frame rate I was able to work around my shortcomings as an athlete, including having a goofy running stance, belly hanging out (which is very easily done in Compressport), or a horrible gurning face. It also meant that I could capture sequences that didn’t quite work out. Like this one.
This second day almost had an English Lake District type feel to it, with the terrain working perfectly as camouflage for my feline companion.
Sunday was all set to be a down day, so I didn’t expect to get much from it. Waking up to a blue sky but with the threat of the afternoon closing in, I quickly made my way right to the edge of Switzerland to the spectacular Emosson dam. I’ve been up here once before to Photograph an 80km trail race and was blown away by the views. Ideally I would have ventured higher up into the mountain range but time and weather was not on my side. It’s funny how I had to hike for about an hour on the first two days, whereas the dramatic views of Emosson were 5 minutes above where I parked the car…
So there we have it, 3 days of shooting and a couple of different results. All of the images carry a slightly different vibe, but as a group go to show of how beautiful Switzerland is right now. With the colours starting to pop, it makes me want to stay outside all day everyday.As soon as those first snowflakes start falling the trails will all be over until next year.