... some pictures from Stella Alpina 2003!
Due to private reasons, I have unfortuately not been able to stay the whole 2003 Stella Alpina weekend ... only Friday and Saturday, but this was already enough time to have a lot of fun :-)
In case you do not know about this event: "Stella Alpina" is an alpine flower similar to the Edelweiss and it is also the name of a giant, mostly non-organised motorcycle meeting (aka rallye) which takes place every (?) second weekend in July above Bardoneccia. "Aim" is to ride the gravel/dust road up the the plateau of the Colle Sommeiller (3009 m), which is one of the highest legally reachable points in the Alps. If you ride up there on Sunday morning, you can buy "trophys" such as souvenir stickers, T-Shirts etc.
The "usual" campground is close to Rifugio Scarfiotti (2156 m), which is located 18 km from the village of Bardoneccia (two third of this road is dust and light gravel). The ride from the campground up to the Colle Sommeiller is another 12 km on a barely maintained gravel road, whose surface offers everything between fine dust (or mud, depending on the weather ;-) up to crude gravel.
A problem not related to the road but to the huge number of motorcycles is that from Saturday afternoon on, there is a constant stream of motorcycles heading uphill ... thus, especially when you head down to Bardoneccia you want to be extra careful. The biggest "flow" of motorcycles is on saturday evening and everything from light motocross machines up to fat Harleys etc. has been seen there.
I have been there for the first time in 2002 and 2003 was not the last time ... ;-)