La Dent d'Oche (2221 m)

This weekend I went with a group of CERN colleagues to La Dent d'Oche mountain which towers over the south of Lac Leman. Actually, it was not the first time I was in this neighbourhood as we did Pic des Memises with Radek just a couple of weeks earlier. Well, apparently Lac Leman doesn't like me and hides its beauty from me because we didn't have the best of weather (just like earlier with the Memises). Nevertheless it was a decent hike, with lots of technical parts and really nice company.

Once we reached Shalet d'Oche we could see Portes d'Oche (Door of Oche) which we would later see in close up on our way back. Also, the route becam way steepier and the clouds became to lower over the valley so we decided to speed up a bit not to be in the mist while on the summit. The route to Refuge d'Oche was not long from that point but pretty difficult, with vertical climbs equipped with chains.

The refuge was situated a bit below an actual peak so we didn't stay long there. Only a glance at Lac Leman and off we go hiking to the cross - not a long distance but quite a challenging ascent.

We didn't have a perfect view on the top but not the worst either.

 

From the summit our path continued down the loop to Lac de la Case (seen above), Col de Planchamp and Porte d'Oche. We went past adorable wild goats, made it through something that looked like a vertical wall, continued through rocky descents and got to the lakes.

 

One of the lakes was dry (it actually looked interesting because of the flora of a different kind that grew over the lake). The other one was on and rocking so we all dipped our feet in a warm but terribly muddy water. One last look at Portes d'Oche and off we went down to a car park.