CAF du Pays de Gex
What is the CAF Pays de Gex ?
The CAF du Pays de Gex
is one of about 200 clubs that form the
Club Alpin Français
(French Alpine Club, CAF), the founding member for France of the
UIAA
and still one of the 2 French representatives.
Together, the clubs forming the CAF have about 90000 members,
about 400 of which are member of the CAF du Pays de Gex.
The other French representative in the UIAA is the Fédération
Française de la Montagne et de l'Escalade (French Mountaineering
and Climbing Federation, FFME).
Membership of the CAF du Pays de Gex entitles you to reductions in
huts owned by most other Alpine clubs affiliated to the UIAA.
Membership also procures you an
insurance
for mountaineering accidents.
How to become member ?
You can become member by coming to the Permanence or by electronic
registration with the central CAF.
The CAF du Pays de Gex welcomes new members without restrictions,
but if you have not been member before, then you have to provide a
certificate from your physician that you are fit to practice
mountain activities.
Membership costs about 60 € per year.
Permanence
Every Thursday evening between 20:30 and 21:30 in the
Espace George Sand (9, Rue de Gex) in St Genis Pouilly.
Go to the backside of the building (the side facing the Gendarmerie),
enter via the door at the level of the basement,
walk through the corridor until the end,
use the lift on your left to go to the 1st floor,
turn right and walk through the corridor until the end,
enter the office on the left.
The permanence is the time to sign up for the outings in the following
weekend, and to sign up as member.
Climbing wall
The climbing wall in the Halle Perdtemps in Gex is freely accessible for
members during the winter season (roughly October to Easter) on
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings from 20:00 to 22:00.
The CAF runs an introductory course on Wednesdays between 18:00 and 20:00.
Material is provided, but you have to pay a fee.
There are also special climbing hours for younger members.
Some of these are conducted by a mountain guide.
Inscriptions for this activity are taken early in the season only.
Answering machine
The CAF du Pays de Gex has an answering machine on which usually the
activities for the coming weekend are listed together with the phone
number of the organiser.
As a rule, the meeting time is not given - for this you've to call
the person in charge of the outing.
Phone number: 0450422217
Outings
The most popular outdoors activity is ski touring in spring, but also
hiking and alpinism, mountain biking, rock climbing, ice climbing
and snow-shoe tours have their adepts.
Most outings take place in the weekends, but there are occasionally
also outings which take more than 2 days as well as outings on week-days.
Traditionally, the CAF Pays de Gex organises a summer camp with an
emphasis on alpinism and an ice climbing course in January/February.
For each outing, a form is posted on the notice board, sometimes several
weeks in advance, sometimes only at the permanence on the Thursday preceding
the outing, on which occasion the organiser is in principle present.
To take part in an outing, you enter your name on the form.
The form indicates the meeting point and time as well as the material
that is required.
The CAF owns a certain number of avalanche beeps, snow shoes, crampons,
ice axes, helmets etc. which you can rent in case you don't yet own all
the material needed.
For such rentals, you've to go to the room in the basement.
You will usually be asked to pay a fee.
Last updated on 7/3/05.
