First, of course, I had to get over the Col, which gave me ample opportunity to reflect on how Europeans are Different Than Us when it comes to mountain roads.
By way of background, it's somewhat remarkable that I am in the midst of covering my 8th Tour de France. I have a few disadvantages as a Tour reporter. First, I'm claustrophobic. Not useful in the crowd scenes at the finish lines, which are rivalled only by the end zones in Central American soccer stadiums (where I've also been foolish enough to go). Second, I have no sense of direction, something that would come in handy while driving 3,000 miles in three weeks.
Third, I'm afraid of heights. REALLY afraid of heights, to the point where seeing someone ELSE standing at the edge of a sheer dropoff makes me nauseous.
If you've driven over any European mountain ranges, you know that the average person over here negotiates them at five times the speed we would. That's not what fazes me -- if someone's tailgating, I just pull the hell over and let them go on their suicidal way. No, what gets me is the people who drive up the Tour course on a climb like the Iseran, or the Col du Galibier, which we also summited Tuesday, and park their top-heavy camping vans at the edge of monstruous cliffs with no guard rails, apparently oblivious to the fact that one stiff breeze could send them pinwheeling, Thelma-and-Louise-like, to their deaths.
Then, they get out and stand there with their toes sticking out over the abyss.
I can't look at them.
So I waited until I was on the south side of the mountain to get out and take any photos, although I did snap this one of people playing in the snow near the top of the pass, from my car window, mind you, in a sheltered spot:
Creativity knows no bounds at the Tour.
The south side, as I said, was even more amazing than I remembered it. I hadn't seen it without snow since I hiked there as a kid. I did go back to Val d'Isere a few years ago, before the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, to talk to a young, then-unknown maverick downhill skier named Bode Miller. We sat in the U.S. team hotel lobby for about two hours and shot the breeze about his unusual upbringing. The next day he went out and won his first World Cup gold medal, so if you're superstitious, you can either credit or blame me for everything that's happened since.
In summer, the wildflowers alone are worth the trip. I probably would have stopped and gazed at them longer, but every time I got out of my car, I could hear the faint, percussive boom-boom-boom of the trashy music emanating from the publicity caravan behind me, sort of like an army of Orcs in pursuit of Frodo. As I explained in a previous post, it's absolutely critical for my Tour sanity that I stay ahead of the parade, so I got back into my car and left this lovely place behind.
