It starts from close to the little hamlet of Le Baume next to Saint Pancrasse, and proceeds through a number of quiet tracks to reach a very exposed panoramic viewpoint over the Grésivaudan valley below. This spot is called Chateau Nardent, although I’m not sure why - as I can’t imagine there ever was a Chateau here. I shot a quick bambuser video from Chateau Nardent on my phone (low quality).

At the moment, the snow isn’t up to much below 1500m - so I headed for Chamrousse (seemingly with most of the rest of Grenoble - parking was a bit of a pain).

There are 2 main routes at Chamrousse, the Circuit de Lac Achard (1700m - 1917m), the Circuit de Pre Gaudet (1430m - 1500m) and a nature path - Sentier Nature (1600m), however only the higher route was open this weekend. You can find the open/closed status on the Chamrousse website.

The path up to the pass runs to the west of a hunting area, although doesn’t cross into it, however I wouldn’t hang around there too much during November - and don’t act like a wild boar!

Once you get to the path it is a little exposed, but not too bad, and the path is easily visible. There is a little loose rock, but nothing unusually so for the region. A good pair of hiking boots and a little alpine common sense, and you’ll be fine!

A short but satisfying walk up to Charande. Whilst you can drive to the top of this ridge and park at the top, I felt like I needed something a little more challenging. I found that you can drive up from Autrans, up past Le Truc, and to the end of a farmer’s trail, then park in a small logging area. This lets you start walking at around 1200m, and head up to the ridge at 1600-1700m. The path was well marked on the ground, but not so well marked on the maps. I’ve since added the missing trails to OpenStreetMap.

From Grenoble get to the Vercors plateau via Seyssins using the D106. Just as you enter Lans-en-Vercors, turn left onto Route du stade du neiges towards Barnets. After around 4 km there’s a small car-park on the left hand side of the road.

After around 1km of walk, you’ll find the popular Auberge Allieres, from where you can start the climb up to the Col de l’Arc or to the Pic St Michel. I took the path to the Col (anticlockwise) then to the summit. There was some loose gravel on the way down, so next time I might choose to take the route clockwise, returning via the Col.

Ascent was around 700m, and total walking time around 3.5 hours, 9km.

The hike to the top of the Grand Veymont is a great one, perhaps because the Grand Veymont is the highest point in the Vercors.  It is approached from the village of Gresse-en-Vercors at 1270m with a good 1,100m altitude hike covering around 10km distance.