Col de la Madeleine
	Height	Climbing height
	1993m Sign 2000m	1573m (from the D97 road) 1552m (La Chambre)
	Difficulty	Beauty
	4 (5)	3 (5)
How to get there	This is one of the more well-known of the French mountain passes, much because of the frequent visits by the Tour de France over the years. It is almost like an archetypical mountain pass, with almost equally long hard climbs from each side culminating with the summit which is located between high mountain peaks – these are also almost equally high on each side. The north climb has a slightly lower average gradient but is more irregular and therefore ultimately the harder side to climb. It starts at around 420m from the small D97 road. From the south the climb starts in La Chambre (441m).
Other comments	The valleys are nice on both sides. There is a bar at the pass. There is an alternative road up on the south side via Montgellafrey to west, which is more narrow and maybe a little harder (it joins the main road at the ski resort Longchamp (1650m) before the last part to the pass). There used to be an alternative road on the south side via Doucy, but it was so utterly destroyed in a landslide that it is not likely to open again. There is an odd, but interesting way to get to the pass from the south by going from near St. Jean de Maurienne (Pontamafrey) over the Col de Chaussy (1533m). The serpentines up through Montvernier are fantastic. This road is more or less gravel (still a good road) for 1-2 kilometres after Col de Chaussy, but then it is a fine asphalt road down to the Col de la Madeleine road. (One could possibly continue straight ahead on a gravel road to Longchamp to avoid the long descent to the Madeleine road, but the gravel road might not be faster.) [FR-73-1993, BIG 280]