speedbird9 From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2008, 228 posts, RR: 0 Posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 1972 times:
Hi a little while back during august I went with my Explorer Scout Unit (big boy version of scouts) and we went down from the UK to the south of France and my leaders sent of us into the alps to hike and my group kinda got lost (mea culpa) any ways we spent the night on top of a mountain in the french alps outside a cabin it was quite new and has electricty and an outside source of running water that goes into a basin. we left from a scout camp was le Castellard-melan (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence)and the cabin was by a a gravel track. and it was called something like"le cabine" or "le cabane" the cabin was in a large field and all the time we could see this large sharp rock face that seemed to be made up of little shards of rock. The cabin was very close to the cliff edge as well
Our route : we left the camp and headed the main office (Scouts et Guides de France Centre Feux Nouveaux)and went a long the main road headed of onto a mountain path as the road turned left sharply and thats the last place we are sure where we were ( or so i can remember)
and ive been trying to find out were it was for ages and its started to get on my nerves
So if any french hikers/scouts or anyone who knows this area could help me i know its a slim chance but its been bugging me for ages!! and i dont know were else to turn
Thanks
Speedbird9
Is the customer always right? Michael O'Leary: no the customer is nearly always wrong
stealthz From Australia, joined Feb 2005, 5434 posts, RR: 49 Reply 3, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 1872 times:
I am not an expert on the Alps, certainly not the French alps but a cabin called "le cabine" on a gravel road near a rugged rock face and a field is hardly a lot to go on!
You should be able to locate the camp you started from, it likely has an address or you have directions how to get there, the time it took you to walk to "le cabine" will give you a fairly good idea of distance, so that is your search radius... shouldn't be too hard after that!
Cheers
If your camera sends text messages, that could explain why your photos are rubbish!
speedbird9 From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2008, 228 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 1841 times:
I think i just found it, i tried finding it before but couldnt find anything
Quoting stealthz (Reply 3): You should be able to locate the camp you started from, it likely has an address or you have directions how to get there, the time it took you to walk to "le cabine" will give you a fairly good idea of distance, so that is your search radius... shouldn't be too hard after that!
Baroque From Australia, joined Apr 2006, 15380 posts, RR: 60 Reply 7, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 1665 times:
Quoting speedbird9 (Reply 5): I think i just found it, i tried finding it before but couldnt find anything
Quoting stealthz (Reply 3):
You should be able to locate the camp you started from, it likely has an address or you have directions how to get there, the time it took you to walk to "le cabine" will give you a fairly good idea of distance, so that is your search radius... shouldn't be too hard after that! http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...359&spn=0.000917,0.002642&t=h&z=19
Now if you had taken a sample of the rocks just about 500m to the S and explained you were on a N facing dip slope, we could easily have worked out where you were!! (Wish Google was in stereo though).
speedbird9 From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2008, 228 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 9 hours ago) and read 1653 times:
yeah i pretty sure because if you zoom out you can see how the track sort of curves around it and recognised the trees (which i didnt remember earlier...sorry) and the distance from cliff and i remember the path coming and going past the cabin i also remember i also the distance from the track so yeah i'm pretty certain thats it infact i'm positive. Im also gonna find out if my friend who was in the other group who actually made it to the destination (a church and grave yard) if he can point out where i was supposed to be and see how far off i was
once again thanks for your help
Is the customer always right? Michael O'Leary: no the customer is nearly always wrong
Baroque From Australia, joined Apr 2006, 15380 posts, RR: 60 Reply 9, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 1634 times:
Quoting speedbird9 (Reply 8): and the distance from cliff and i remember the path coming and going past the cabin i also remember i also the distance from the track so yeah i'm pretty certain thats it infact i'm positive.
There was a super film called Du Pelvoux au Viso that made was in that area. Helicopter traverse up from the Pelvoux massif to Mt Viso.
Aesma From France, joined Nov 2009, 4813 posts, RR: 9 Reply 11, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 1560 times:
I was éclaireur until 18. It's "scout" in French, except that more common groups (catholics mostly) call themselves "scout". We were still using the same beige uniform with shorts and hat that Baden-Powell.
Anyway, I went several times in the Alps with my troop. I'm guessing what you call a cabin was a refuge, and usually they're called "refuge de something", for example refuge du pré Garreau in your case (just a guess). Didn't you take pictures ? Couldn't you get "unlost" by using you cell phone, or was that part of the idea ? In my time you wouldn't get a good reception but now it should be good. No GPS either ?
One thing we did was getting lost on purpose, and alone : the chiefs would blindfold us and bring us somewhere with the van and drop us with only a knife, up to us to get back to camp, and with a nice home made wooden spoon !
Once a member of a troop close to ours (the troup was so big it was cut in two) couldn't find his way home and the gendarmerie used an helo to find him, after that I think the practice was banned.
I'm guessing your hike was on a road or an easy trail, if you weren't with someone familiar with the mountain.
New Technology is the name we give to stuff that doesn't work yet. Douglas Adams
speedbird9 From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2008, 228 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (2 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 1517 times:
Quoting Aesma (Reply 11): Didn't you take pictures ?
i didnt manage to take a photo because when lost on the alps taking a photo was the last thing on my mind
Quoting Aesma (Reply 11): Couldn't you get "unlost" by using you cell phone,
i was with the leaders number and i kinda forgot my phone at the camp we did manage to get contact after calling the UK and getting the number(it took us longer because the only person with signal forgot to put the international dialing code) and it was getting dark and i took us ages to walk and by the time we found the cabin it was getting dark
were what you would call in the UK a "Tesco Value" scout group basically we cant really afford non essential equipment like GPS
Quoting Aesma (Reply 11): I'm guessing your hike was on a road or an easy trail, if you weren't with someone familiar with the mountain.
yeah we mainly went along a small but clear path and later a sort of gravel road but somehow we still managed to get lost
it was the first time our troop had been to the area anyways but the route had been set out by someone who new the area but we were sent out on our own. I'll see if anyone else took a photo
Is the customer always right? Michael O'Leary: no the customer is nearly always wrong