What's the highest you've ever driven?

[Cavcraft]

Crikey. Is that true about the highest road? Came screaming down there in the 2CV last year and very, very nearly cooked the brakes. They were just starting to fade as the sharp bends approached...

 

 

According to the internet it is, and we all know if it's on the net it MUST be true. Coming down it was always a laugh, just like the road between Bala and Dolgellau, where I really did cook the brakes on another Cargo and was forced to have a lengthy stop at Gwyndaf Evans' Ford garage.

[chaseracer]

2750 metres, over the Col de l'Iseran above Val d'Isere, in a very crusty Citroen GSA.  We'd practised by doing the Col de Vars and later that day topped 2800m on the Col de la Bonette - but that's not a through route.

 

Seriously light-headed by the time we got to Menton...

[Junkman]

During the summer I drove an old car up onto a pair of ramps without the buggers skitting away.

 

 

And we have a winner.

This has never been achieved before in the entire history of humankind, or elsewhere in the Universe.

[scruff]

Done Switzerland in the Series 1 Landy, would have to look up heights and that though.

[dollywobbler]

Have also driven up to glacier height in Norway in a Citroen H van. I don't recommend it really.

[KruJoe]

Krujoe: you must have had blood thick as jam to get up there by bike: how long had you been at altitude for before you tried that?

 

I was 18, and well prepared by the time I got to 5300m.

I'd spent two months in Nepal, 1000m-2000m, cycling lots every day, then flew to Lhasa, at 3500m, for a few days of gentle rides around the city, then set off across the Tibetan Plateau on the Friendship* Highway*. We crossed 5000m passes most days, and came down to about 4000m to sleep - GR9 for acclimatisation.

We had two nights in the Rongbuk Monastery (5000m), and rode up the valley to the snout of the Rongbuk Glacier, which comes off the north face of Everest.

From there it was three days downhill through the most amazing scenery back to Kathmandu at 1300m. I've never felt so alive; almost super-human. Truly, the trip of a lifetime.

[Largactil]

Nipped over this in my mental rental in February just passed...