Printed from: http://braemoor.co.uk/chartreuse/general/notes.shtml on 21 Mar 2010
Copyright: © 1998 - 2010 John Gardner

A Walking Guide to the Massif de la Chartreuse

Credentials

One of the problems with the web is that the quality of information is variable, and it is necessary to give sites a "credibility check" before placing too much confidence in their contents. This section is intended to provide the reader with some of the background to the development of the site, so that he may make his own judgements.

The author first visited Chartreuse in 1968 as a member of a university caving expedition to the Cirque de St. Même area. His second visit was in 1985 when he went caving within the Dent de Crolles massif. Since then, he has visited the area every two or three years for two to three week long walking holidays. He has probably spent a total of nine months in the area. Visits have been confined to the period between late May and September.

This site was first developed in 1998, and has since been continually reviewed and enhanced as a result of further visits to the area, feedback from readers, and the availability of enhanced technology. The last major update was in July 2009.

Updating

The author is confident in the accuracy of most of the information contained herein. The walks on the hills don't change much, but the Regional Park Authorities are investing in new car parks, and sign-posting, so that level of detail can change from year to year. Forestry is also on a more industrial scale than it used to be, and some of the traditional paths on the lower slopes of the hills have been ruthlessly destroyed by forestry tracks. Readers are often kind enough to let him know of any inaccuracies or ambiguities they find.

The availability and prices of maps and literature is checked as often as is practical from web-based sources, and all hyperlinks are checked regularly using the very powerful XENU tool.

Site References

The following sites local to Chartreuse provide a link to this site, without comment.

The following are some of the sites that link to this site with comment:

  • ScanMaps – a Danish provider of maps and books: "en hjemmeside med rigtig mange gode turbeskrivelser og links til andre klatre - og vandresider."
  • Franceonfoot.com – a web site that does what it says on the label: "a thorough and informative [site] dedicated to walking in the Chartreuse region... This is a fine source of information for the walker"
  • A Dutch walking site – "Een Engelse site met veel informatie over dagtochten in de Chartreuse is ook zeer de moeite waard, met schitterende foto's."
  • A Dutch PDF file devoted to sangle walking says: "behoorlijke complete Engelstalige site over wandelen in de Chartreuse".
  • Les Petits Curieux – a site devoted to the Grenoble area: "Randonnées en Chartreuse et en Anglais. Très précis."
  • La Grange – a web site for a local gîte owned by Norman Clark: "A superbly informative UK site which describes many walks in the Chartreuse"
  • Keyhole Caving Club"an invaluable and well-researched resource".
  • Henck Joly's world wide walking portal: "A very complete and well presented description of this area"
  • The Virtual Tourist – a site that allows users to provide their comments on an area: "Here is a site that has a lot of information"
  • La Chartroussine – a web site for a local gîte owned by Philippe Locatelli: "A superbly informative UK site which describes many walks and the geography of the Chartreuse. A must to visit !"
  • Slackpacker – an American hiking web site owned by Rick Bolger says somewhat grudgingly: "Site is quite informative".
  • An entry in the rec.climbing.uk forum by Martin Carpenter says: "This anglophone site is excellent for Chartreuse".

Comments from readers may be found in the Guest Book.

Technical Notes

This site uses XHTML and makes extensive use of Cascading Style Sheets, and hence assumes a reasonably modern browser. The site has been checked for compatibility with MS IE V5.0 and later; Opera V6 and later; Netscape V6 and later; Mozilla 1.3 and later; and Safari 3.2.

The CSS and HTML code is validated using the W3C markup validation service. This is made easier by using a batch interface developed by the author in PHP.

The Guest Book was developed by the author, and is written in PHP and MySQL. The Photograph Album software was also developed by the author using PHP and XML

The site is best viewed with a minimum screen size of 800*600 pixels. Some use is made of JavaScript, but the site does not rely on it. Session cookies are used to help ensure that a guest book entry is not being submitted by spamming software. The pages are designed to be printer friendly, and only the main content part of the page will be printed - without the title bar and the menu bar. A PDF file  (3.27 Mb) of the print version of the web site with maps but without photographs, is available for download. A new edition is produced once a year.

Copyright © John Gardner 1998–2010

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