Presles is the great limestone cliff band on the western edge of the Vercors, rising 200 to 300 m above the Bourne gorge near Pont-en-Royans in Isère. The grey and orange limestone, from compact slabs to steep, sculpted walls, carries several hundred multipitch routes, most of them bolted to sport standards and maintained by the local association VTNO. You drive from Grenoble or Valence to Pont-en-Royans, take the road towards Villard-de-Lans and then the RD292 up to the Presles plateau, where you park in the marked car parks after the tunnels (stopping in the hairpins below the tunnels is forbidden). The cliffs face mostly south, so spring and autumn are the main seasons; avoid hot summer days.
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Chrysanthèmes sector, Presles · 845 m
| Measure | Jan | Feb | Mar (usual season) | Apr (usual season) | May (usual season) | Jun (usual season) | Jul | Aug | Sep (usual season) | Oct (usual season) | Nov (usual season) | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily high °C | 4 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 23 | 18 | 14 | 8 | 5 |
| Mean daily low °C | −3 | −3 | −0 | 3 | 7 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 1 | −2 |
| Rain days 1 mm or more | 13 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 12 | 13 | 13 |
● usual season. 1991-2020 averages at about 845 m; rain is for a 10–25 km grid cell. Weather and climate data: Open-Meteo, CC BY 4.0.
France · Presles (Vercors)
A historic 1966 line at Presles, revived by VTNO in 2019 as an eight-pitch combination on varied, mostly unpolished limestone. Steep juggy walls, a technical 6c corner-crack and a magnificent 45 m dihedral are the highlights, with a couple of weaker pitches on poorer rock. Sustained and stiffly graded: obligatory 6b.
6cVIII-5.11b8 pitches250 m
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