Wow! La Plaine-Morte or just plain old Plaine-Morte to us non-Swiss is up there as one of THE mountain bike rides in the Sion Valley and the world. To use a footballing analogy Plaine-Morte is Champions League standard.
I've been riding mountain bikes for some time now and this route is the full-package. Awesome riding combined with a fantastic experience out in big country, proper Alpine mountain biking. The high up stuff on the scree was superb - think the Lake District on steroids. Rides like this are hard work and not for everyone. But WOW! For me this is why I mountain bike. Where are the braking bumps on these trails? HA!
While waiting for the telecabin up to zero-point we got talking to a Swiss MTB guide who was taking a group down a different descent to what we did and we told him we were going to do a first descent from zero point back down to the lift station and then do Plaine-Morte. The guy was very surprised and strongly advised us against doing the first descent. He said that 'The classique' would leave us 'satisfied' and it did. All in all it was about 7 hours of ups and downs. Part 2 of the video to follow.
We started at the weather station at zero point and descended to vineyards of Sion and into Sion itself. The Sion valley and Brig look like the ultimate big mountain riding destinations and as a result we are going back next summer to bag 3000m peaks such as Bella Tola. Better to go in late July early August so that the snow has melted sufficiently enabling access to the high up stuff. The lift up to zero point also operates at strange times so do your research and you wont be disappointed.
6 сен 2024
